Possessive and relative adjectives in the spiritual and contractual charters of the great and appanage princes in the 14th–15th centuries

Abstract

In Old Russian, the meaning of belonging was expressed both by possessive and relative adjectives, which, at the same time, retained their lexical-grammar bonds with each other, the latter also expressed possessiveness. Based on the spiritual and contractual charters of the great and appanage princes in the 14th–15th centuries, the present paper is concerned with possessive and relative (formed from possessive) adjectives: it determines the functional correlation of possessive adjectives with the suffixes -ov-//-in- and relative adjectives, derived from the former with a complex of suffixes –ov-ьsk-//-in-ьsk-, and identifies competing ways of their formation: if relative adjectives were represented, as a rule, in word combinations including lexemes denoting forms of land ownership, possessive ones were not limited to vocabulary.

Moreover, within the texts both binomial possessive constructions and more complex ones were presented, those were constructions expressing the possessor’s name by a noun with an apposition, where the possessive adjective as well as the adnominal genitive construction were normally used. Likewise, within the framework of this construction, we find the equivalence of possessive and relative adjectives.