Some Verbal Forms in the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh to His Children and the Language of Kiev in the 11th Century

Abstract

This article deals with the specific features of the Old Kievan verbal system (11th–12th centuries) reflected in the Testament of Vladimir Monomakh to His Children, for example, the Old Russian pluperfect in the resultative meaning and the East Slavic pattern of imperfectivization with the -yva-/-iva- suffix.

The Testament of Vladimir Monomakh contains the earliest example of the Old Russian colloquial pluperfect bylъ stvorilъ—this form, as the context shows, has the meaning of the resultative state beginning before the point of reference. The comparison of this usage with other early examples of the pluperfect in the Tale of Bygone Years and Monomakh’s Testament itself permits the supposition that in the 11th century in Kiev, literary and colloquial pluperfect forms were synonymous.

In the oldest part of the Testament, the specifically East Slavic suffix of imperfectivization -yva-/-iva- is just as frequent as in the Kievan Chronicle of the 12th century. A similar example is in the Russian-translated passage in the Izbornik of 1076, which scholars believe was known to Monomakh himself. These facts show that the -yva-/-iva- pattern of imperfectivization was already in common use in Kiev at the end of the 11th century.