Position of uncoordinated attribute in Smolensk business writing of the early seventeenth century

This paper discusses the collocation of the uncoordinated attribute (UA) and the prop word (PW) in the Smolensk documents of the early 17th century, in which 370 cases of preposition of the UA and 105 cases of its postposition were found (percentage ratio: 78.9 % — 21.1 %). Depending on the lexical content of UA, several groups were specified in which different ratios of preposition and postposition are presented: if the UA is the word derevnya ‘village’, in the overwhelming majority of cases it is in the postposition (e.g., krestyane derevni Zalinevaya – ‘peasants of the Zalinevaya village’); if UA is a kinship term, it is in postposition and preposition in approximately the same number of cases (e.g., brata ego uchenik Yurka / zhivoty ottsa ikh – ‘his brother’s pupil Yurka / the fortune of their father). But in most contexts, the preposition of UA significantly prevails: if it is a common noun denoting a person (except for kinship terms), or an anthroponym, or a designation of territorial or official affiliation (e.g., posadtskikh lyudei naimity – ‘tradesmen’s hirelings’; Denis'ya Sukova ikona – ‘Denis Sukov’s icon’; Velizhskogo uyezda Nikiforko Ondreyav – ‘Nikiforko Ondreyav of the Velizh district’). Exceptions occur in cases when the PW is defined by a demonstrative or attributive pronoun: then preposition of the UA prevails (eg.: vsya brat'ya Troettskogo monastyrya – ‘all the brethren of the Troetsky monastery’), since splitting of a group consisting of a pronoun-adjective and a noun was apparently undesirable. It can be concluded that the preposition of UA was a normal phenomenon in the language of business writing of the 17th century. This syntactic feature is inherited by Russian colloquial speech (e.g., Igorya mama skoro priezzhayet – ‘Igor’s mother is coming soon’). With the word order UA — PW, an interesting phenomenon is observed, related to the placement of the preposition: the preposition is often used once, not before UA, but before PW (e.g., brata svoyego pro pobeg ne vědayet – ‘of his brother’s flight he is unaware’). This phenomenon is no longer present in Russian colloquial speech.