On Some Means Expressing Imperative Semantics in Middle Russian Business and Household Documents of the 16th – 17th Centuries

Iordani Natalia ORCID: 0009-0001-2709-7223 Postgraduate student; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University Junior Researcher; Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1c51 iordani.natasha@yandex.ru

1. Introduction

Many business and household sources created in the Old Russian period were of an administrative nature, therefore, verb forms and syntactic constructions capable of expressing imperative meaning were widely represented in them. In this article, we will look at the language tools used to issue an order. One of the verb forms acting in this function both in the Old Russian and in the modern period is the imperative mood ^{[2, p. 342]}. Here is one example (a list of sources and their abbreviations is provided at the end of the article):

(1) And how little will you do<Yes, and you will visit us in Moscow and write down how<b>what kind of brother do you have. A.I.M. No.22 (1653).

Along with the forms of the imperative, the subjunctive mood can also be used to express an order ^{[2, p. 342]}:

(2) And you ordered that person to write the name of the book at your place, and you wrote off about it, and that person sent the painting to us to Moscow that day. A. Iver.m. No. 35 (1654).

The meaning of the order could also be expressed using infinitive constructions. For example, an infinitive with a particle would be in combination with a subject in D. P. is widely represented in texts of the XVI–XVII centuries ^{[2, p. 352]}:

(3) And if they catch a fish, that fish would come to us in Moscow and send you a fresh one, and not a stale one. A.I.M. No.22 (1653).

A construction in which an infinitive with a dative subject acts without a particle of being can also formalize the orders set out in Old Russian documents ^{[1, p. 393]}:

(4) To the bailiff of Arefk, who entered the Oschensk parish <...> take the painting, and according to that painting, you will find a lot of peasants, give the Iversky monastery to the archimarite. A.I.M. No.111 (1658).

However, if we consider in more detail the ratio of the verb forms and syntactic constructions described above, we can see certain differences in their use in texts of different genres. This article will analyze such monuments of business writing as index letters and memory, as well as literacy related to household writing — personal correspondence. What unites these sources is that they imply the presence of an addressee who occupies a higher position than the addressee. The imperative meaning presented in them comes from the writer, who is interested in performing the action referred to in the statement ^{[13, p. 137]}. Other genres of business writing, such as interrogation and questioning speeches, refusals, receipts and other books, inventories, spiritual certificates, etc. sources arranged differently from a communicative point of view, i.e. those that do not imply the presence of an addressee and an addressee who are in a boss—subordinate relationship will not be considered in this article.

Texts related to business writing and everyday sources differ significantly from each other, therefore they will be considered separately. Business documents were compiled by clerks with certain training in various orders or visiting huts, where a specialized form was developed for each genre of business document, reproduced from document to document ^{[12, pp. 361-362]}. In the process of working in government institutions, a special usage arose, which had its own norm, which the clerks learned by learning the technique of cursive writing. An example illustrating a certain conservatism of the command language can be considered the use of forms of the infinitive in the texts of the XVII century.: if the authors of everyday texts in the vast majority of cases choose an innovative form reflecting the result of the process of falling away of final unstressed vowels, then many professional scribes used archaic inflection, although not always consistently ^{[4, p. 159]}.

Everyday texts, in turn, are private correspondence between relatives or well-known people: messages about the fate of loved ones, discussion of various everyday circumstances, which were described in simple colloquial language. Quite often, people who wrote private letters did not have special writing skills, which is often indicated by the unsteadiness and simplicity of their handwriting ^{[7, p. 283]}. For this reason, the language of household sources deprived of legal status was free from "spelling norms and relatively strict norms of official word usage" ^{[5, p. 28]}.

2. Business documents

2.1. Certificates of incorporation

The word "literacy", borrowed from the Greek language ^{[9, p. 75]}, is found in sources from the ancient period, where it was used to refer to any written text ^{[11, p. 119]}. Since the middle of the XV century. The so-called decree letters, which set out orders to local officials, have become widespread in the clerical office and the clerical chancellery ^{[12, p. 467]}. They were compiled on behalf of the tsar (grand or appanage prince, patriarch and other church hierarchs) and sent to the voivodes in the command huts, hegumens of monasteries or other members of the brotherhood. For example:

(5) Departure of the sovereign Tsarevich and the great Prince Alex, I Alex Evich, to Torzhok, governor of our Ivan Ivanovich Trusov. A.I.M. No.419 (1655).

As a material for the study, we have attracted the decrees relating to the history of the Valdai Iversky monastery and the attached monasteries (a total of 94 documents were considered). The orders set out in them are always addressed to the 2nd person and are issued using a variety of linguistic means.

In the main volume of the studied documents, orders are issued using forms of the subjunctive mood. Let's give an example:

(6) , And as to thee KB Xia our letter will come, and you b rode unto Veliky Novgorod and the solitary man Grishka has represiy, and unto the house sizga Domotel notes, unto kakomy planted on the matter unto the jails, da budet tot Gregory planted unto the jails in vain, and you b it iz tyurmy lively and ordered him to live unto our paternal on the Raheen Bridge still. A. Weaver.m. No. 16 (1653).

Similarly, the infinitive with the particle would be used in combination with the subject in D. P.:

(7) And they ordered you to take cabbage and cucumbers from Ondrey Veshnyakov and bring them to yourself on hired carts; and<kale and cucumbers will be outraged at him and they will bring you, and you will unsubscribe from us, and you will be ordered to submit an order to our clerk Ivan Kokoshilov. A.Iver.m. No. 26 (1653).

Interestingly, the forms of the imperative mood are practically not used in the decrees. Here is one of the few examples:

(8) But you, O Christ of the humility of our child, priests and deacons and monks and all Orthodox Christians living in that monastery, receive joyfully your father and teacher in the Lord Archimandrite Theodosius; obey him with all your soul, as Christ himself is the Shepherd, the image of God is according to Lestvechnikov, honor him and listen in everything. A.I.M. No.435 (1669).

The infinitive without a particle would not have been found in the explanatory letters we studied.

Quantitative data on the use of the language tools we are interested in are presented in the following table.

Table 1. Ways of expressing imperative semantics in letters patent

The motivation addressed to the 3rd person was not found in the certificates we examined.

Thus, the most characteristic of the Valdai index letters is the urge addressed to the 2nd person, which is formed using the subjunctive mood and the infinitive with a particle of would.

2.2. Memory

Memory as a genre of business writing includes many documents that are quite heterogeneous in their structure. A form becomes common to all memories: they began with a stable cliche, which indicated the exact date and provided a link to the decree sent to the institution ^{[12, p. 366]}. For example:

(9) Letter 7166, March 13, the 13th day, according to the sovereign Tsarev and Grand Duke Alexy Mikhailovich of all Great and Small and Great Russia of the autocrat, decree, in memory of the bailiff Arefk Ivanov. A. Iver. m. No.111 (1658).

When the next decree containing a number of orders came to the congress hut, a memory was compiled, where instructions were given to specific officials who were supposed to carry them out. So, for example, after receiving the royal decree, the stolnik or voivode created an official order to the prisons and settlements subordinate to them ^{[10, p. 71]}. Thus, when compiling the memory, the official who received the decree acted as a kind of mediator, who did not give orders, but only appointed specific performers for them ^{[12, p. 470]}.

60 memorials were used as research material: 34 of them were compiled in the Smolensk command hut, and 26 were related to the office work of the Valdai Iversky monastery. The memories we have selected can be divided into two groups, depending on how their addressee is designed — as the 2nd or as the 3rd person.

So, in memories whose addressee is formed using the 3rd person (pronoun or proper name), constructions with an infinitive without a particle of would act as a predicate. For example:

(10) And after visiting that monastery, Archimandrite Dionysius and his brothers should say to the great sovereign, the holy Nikon, patriarch... bless him and interrogate Artemius his archimandrite and his brothers. A.I.M. No.105 (1658).

The subjunctive mood forms could also act in this function, which can be adjacent to the infinitive, as in the following example:

(11) And there will be a fire and a lot of people around whose carelessness<I was executed by death from the sovereign. And all sorts of people would put a cadi ball on the house<They are with water and with brooms on all sorts of mansions. Resin.Pamphlet No. 66 (1609).

Quantitative data on the use of the infinitive and the subjunctive mood to express the urge to the 3rd person are presented in Table 2:

Table 2. Ways of expressing imperative semantics in memories (prompting to the 3rd person)

In memory, in which the subject is formed by the pronoun of the 2nd person, the infinitive with the particle of being in combination with the subject in the 2nd person, expressed by the form of the dative case, acts as the main verb form. This kind of usage does not differ in any way from the orders that are given in the decrees, which were discussed in the previous section. For example:

(12) And how will our memory come to you, and why would that priest Peter not refuse the church of God, and serve the divine service in the church of God?<But, eat Ivan's priest; and refuse Timothy's priest, and all arable land and hay mowing and income for a long time<b>but. A.I.M. No.376 (1690).

The subjunctive mood is also represented in this function, but it was found only twice in the studied texts. Let's give one example:

(13) How did he come to you, and you would give him two pairs of oats, or a chip<It's nice, looking at it there, but it's cold, and there's a lot of baked bread and kvass to look at. A.I.M. No.142 (1661);

(14) And as for you, the priest, the acolytes, our memory will come, and you would pray for the health of the great sovereign and the holy patriarch, also for him, the Right Reverend Metropolitan, in the Trinity of the all-glorious God. A. Iver.M. No. 394 (1697).

The imperative mood of memories that contain instructions addressed to the 2nd person is rarely used — only four times. For example:

(15) And you, take [money] from him [Boyarsky's son], pay the peasant. A.I.M. No.129 (1658).

The ratio of the forms acting as an incentive in relation to the 2nd person in Old Russian memories is shown in Table 3:

Table 3. Ways of expressing imperative semantics in memories (prompting to the 2nd person)

Thus, in memories, the urge to the 3rd person can be expressed using forms of the subjunctive mood and constructions with an infinitive without a particle of being. At the same time, in memories whose addressee is decorated with pronouns of the 2nd person, the infinitive with a particle of being becomes the main means of expressing the semantics of motivation, while the subjunctive and imperative mood occur in isolated cases.

3. Household sources

Literates, unlike sources related to business writing, did not serve as an official document, so they were written very freely. The exception was the initial and final formulas that were regularly reproduced from letter to letter ^{[6, p. 228]}.

The motivation in such sources is always addressed to the 2nd person. The main verb form expressing the imperative meaning is the imperative mood in them. For example, in the archive of A. I. Bezobrazov's steward (439 letters were selected in total), who corresponded with family members and clerks in charge of his property, the forms of the imperative mood are widely represented. Let's turn to the text of the letter that A. I. Bezobrazov wrote to his wife:

(16) Agaf<b>I was<Evna, hello! On the way to Moscow from Nizhnev from Blagoveshchensk<about>n<a>get in touch with<we>the same patriarch from<e>the spiritual elder Ephraim and the treasury<And>whose is the elder Joseph, and how do you come, and you went to them in bottles of water like a little<kim sklyanochki, as they used to send, and tell them to bake pancakes and pirashkov, and send them to them more often. Arch.Bezobrazova I. No. 414 (1689).

The competition for the forms of the imperative is a construction with an infinitive and a particle of being, which forms a variety of requests, although it is significantly inferior in frequency to the forms of the imperative mood. For example:

(17) Yes, I would like to take you into the Rubble garden and plant<b> I wish you would<b>shea apple and cherry trees. Arch.Bezobrazova II. No. 383 (1681).

Interestingly, the forms of the subjunctive mood in the literates studied by us in the imperative meaning were found only in 5 contexts. Here is one of them:

(18) The Gregorians, whose <y>n and whose words, and you would have written exactly. Arch.Bezobrazova II. No. 570 (1687).

Thus, in the studied corpus of letters, the distribution of forms expressing the semantics of motivation is presented as follows:

Table 5. Ways of expressing imperative semantics in everyday sources

So, in everyday sources, the imperative becomes the main form expressing motivation. The infinitive with a particle would be actively used in such contexts, although it is inferior to the imperative in frequency. The subjunctive mood, in turn, is represented in literates in isolated cases.

4. Conclusion

Work with sources related to business and household writing has shown that it is possible to trace some patterns in the distribution of verb forms with imperative meaning within a particular genre.

1. The orders set out in the studied Valdai decrees are addressed to the 2nd person and are made out by means of the subjunctive mood (99 examples) and the infinitive with a particle of being (65 examples), while the forms of the imperative are extremely rare in them (11 examples). The urge directed at the 3rd person is unusual for such sources.

2. In the Old Russian Smolensk and Valdai memories, orders addressed to the 2nd person are in most cases expressed using an infinitive with a particle of would (61 examples).The forms of the subjunctive and imperative moods are presented in such sources in isolated cases (2 and 4 examples, respectively). In contexts where the 3rd person becomes the recipient of the urge, the forms of the subjunctive mood (34 examples) and constructions with an infinitive without a particle of being (35 examples) are fixed in the memories we studied.

3. The materials of private correspondence indicate that the orders set out in them are addressed only to the 2nd person, and the main means of their registration is the imperative mood (695 examples). The infinitive with a particle of would, which is also capable of expressing the semantics we are interested in, is significantly inferior to the imperative in frequency in everyday sources (85 examples).

5. Sources

A. Iver. m. — Acts of the Iversky Svyatoozersky Monastery (1582-1706), collected by Fr. Archimandrite Leonid // Russian Historical Library. Vol. V. St. Petersburg, 1878.

Architect Bezobrazov I — Archive of stolnik Andrey Ilyich Bezobrazov / Ed. A. A. Novoselsky, S. I. Kotkov / Compiled by L. F. Kuzmina, I. S. Filippova. Ch. I. M.: Monuments of Historical Thought, 2012.

Architect Bezobrazov II — Archive of stolnik Andrey Ilyich Bezobrazov / Ed. A. A. Novoselsky, S. I. Kotkov / Compiled by L. F. Kuzmina, I. S. Filippova. Part II. M.: Monuments of Historical Thought, 2013.

Resin. Pam. — Monuments of the defense of Smolensk. (1609-1611) / Edited by Yu. V. Gauthier // The Time of Troubles of the Moscow state. 1604-1613. Issue 6. M., 1912.

NKRYA — The National Corpus of the Russian language [Electronic resource]. URL: https://ruscorpora.ru / (date of request: 10.12.2023)