On unification of noun forms in dative singular (from XVII century house-books of Pskov monastery of caves)

The mutual influence of the hard and soft types of the a-stem noun declension is one of the aspects in the tendency of noun forms' unification. The scholars refer the beginning of the mentioned process to a prewriting period. Multiple samples of the XIth century records, together with the samples of the XIII-XIVth centuries, point to the prevalence of inflexion of the hard type, on the one hand, and of the soft one, on the other hand. The study tested peculiarities of mutual influence of the hard and soft type of the a-stem nouns' declension in Dative. The research is based on Pskov-Caves monastery house-books dating back to the XVIIth century. The purpose of the study is to investigate local peculiarities' influence on nominative paradigms' establishment in the process of national language development. A research of linguistic materials taken from the monastery house-books dating back to the XVIIth century revealed application of 73 lexemes in 236 inflexions. They are defined by the letters e, ѣ, u, ы. Moreover, the research demonstrated that -u, -ы inflexions, i. e. inflexions of the soft type of declension, prevail in Pskov records of the period in question. Thus, 51 lexemes have these inflexions and only 8 lexemes have original inflexions (ancestral). It is noted that a large vocabulary group with new inflexions is made up of individual names and nicknames of the workers who were paid for their job. The facts are registered in the account book of 1674-1675. In this record, we can come across the highest frequency of lexemes with new inflexions if compared with population census books of 1639, 1652 and 1663. Consequently, Pskov records, fixing unification of inflexion in Dative singular in the XVIIth century, reflect both typical Russian processes and creation of standards characteristic of local dialects.