Inchoative verb učati in Middle Russian writing: lexis or grammar?

The article examines grammatical combinability and derivational potential of the verbs with the root čĭn- in the history of the Russian language. The study considers the verbs načati, počati, začati, včati, vsčati (vosčati), rasčati and učati. The data for the study was collected from the Old and Middle Russian Corpora of the Russian National Corpus, historical dictionaries and card index of the Dictionary of the Russian Language (11th–17th centuries), as well as Russian dialect dictionaries. The research shows that in the Middle Russian period, the verb učati differed from the rest of the verbs with the root čĭn- in a number of features. Firstly, the combinability of učati is limited to the infinitive clause. Secondly, in the Middle Russian period, imperfective verbs and verbal nouns with the meaning ‘beginning’ could not be derived from it. Finally, the reflexive verb učati, unlike other reflexives with the root čĭn, occurred rarely, it did not change the taxonomic class of the subject and was combinable only with an infinitive clause. These features do not allow us to consider the verb učati in the same way as the other verbs with the root čĭn-. While the latter should be regarded as lexical means of inchoativity, the former – as a grammatical one. The combinability and derivational potential of učat’ in Russian dialects have not changed much over time, but it is obvious that this verb is gradually losing its functional specificity and is integrating into the system of other verbs with the root čĭn-.