Present active participles from perfective verb stems in the history of the Russian language

The subject of the study is the dynamics of participial forms of the present tense active voice from perfective verb stems in the history of the Russian language. The relevance of the article is due to the increased attention of researchers to the problem of participles in the form of the present tense active voice from perfective stems in modern Russian speech. Some linguists consider their use to be mistakes, others believe that although they do not correspond to the literary norm, they are not speech errors, but indicate a reflection of the dynamism of the language system. This problem can be solved only taking into account the study of these formations throughout the history of the Russian language. The purpose of the article is to identify the dynamics of the functioning of active participles of the present tense from perfective verb stems in all periods of the history of the Russian language and to trace the features of their expression of temporal meaning, taking into account the formation of the category of aspect in the Old Russian language; to determine the reasons for the expansion of their nominal forms in the 16th-17th centuries and a decrease in the activity of use subsequently; to find out why pronominal participles, which were used singly in Old Russian, did not develop further. The main research methods used were the method of intrasystem and intersystem comparison, the transformation method, and the comparative method. Based on the work done, it was established that in all periods of the history of the Russian language, nominal and pronominal participles of the present tense of the active voice were formed from imperfective verb stems. Nominal participles of the present tense from perfective verb stems were used singly in Old Russian until the 15 th century, and in the 16th-17th centuries they experienced a rapid expansion due to their involvement in the scope of the aspect category and the displacement of the time category. By the 19th century, their use was greatly reduced, and at present many of them do not correspond to the modern norm. It was revealed that pronominal forms of active participles from perfective verb stems were used singly in all periods of the history of the language. They are also used sporadically in modern Russian speech, representing a deviation from the existing language norm. It has been proven that the rare use of full forms of active present participles from perfective verb stems in modern Russian speech does not at all indicate a tendency to fill the “temporal gap of participles” and their demand as a means of “folding” the text. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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