On the Participial Functioning of the l-form in the History of the Russian Language in the Light of Russian Dialectal Data and the Material of the Other Slavic Languages

Abstract

The article analyzes the hypothesis about the participial functioning of the l form in the history of the Russian language in the light of Russian dialectal data and the material of other Slavic languages. Many facts that confirm this hypothesis are found in both Russian dialects and Slavic languages. The first part of the paper discusses the functioning of participles in the dialect of the Opotchesky district of the Pskov region and provides the comparative analysis of the functions of the participle in the examined dialect and the l-form in the Old Russian chronicles. As the material shows, the analyzed forms have much in common, which testifies to the participial role that the l-form used to take. The second part of the paper answers some remarks made in a recent paper by M. Sheveleva by providing other facts from the history of the Russian language, Russian and other Slavic dialects, which are relevant to the correct understanding of the evolution of the l-form.