Poetic syntax of Theofan Prokopovich: constructions with the connector ashche (English if)

Abstract

The article considers constructions with the conjunction ashche in the poems by Theofan Prokopovich, as well as – from the comparative aspect – in the oratorical prose of the Petrine-period rhetorician, in the poetry of his predecessors, contemporaries, and authors of the subsequent period. Sentences with the conjunction ashche are characterised in terms of their frequency, semantics, and functional stylistic role, which enables us to assess the impact of Church Slavonic patterns on the formation of a new syntactic standard. The relevance of the study is determined by its contribution towards understanding the syntactic structure evolution of the Russian literary language during the period of significant cultural and political changes of the Petrine and post-Petrine periods. The research methodology includes general scientific methods (induction and deduction, comparison and quantitative method), as well as linguistic methods proper (lexicographic method, functional semantic analysis, contextual, interpretive and structural methods). It is noted that in Prokopovich’s poetry, the connector ashche was used in high style works (panegyrics, funeral eulogies, "tragedocomedy" (tragicomedy), solemn ode, chant, and arrangements of psalms). In the poems of the 1730s related to the medium and low genres, Theofan does not use the conjunction ashche. This fact reflects the writer’s gravitation towards the democratisation of the secular literature language, in full accordance with his reformist ideas, as well as the tendencies of Peter the Great’s time and subsequent decades. In Theofan’s poetic contexts, the conjunction ashche acquires a conditional meaning. The only exception is the beginning of "Epinikion". In it, the compound connector ashche kogda has a comparative meaning. The results of the study confirm the specific role of the eighteenth-century poetic speech in general and the poetic work of Theofan Prokopovich in particular in the process of developing new general literary norms, including syntactic and stylistic ones.