On differentiation between variants of derivative prepositions (on the material of works by A. S. Pushkin)

The article considers the issue of variability among derivative preposition forms. It is stated that in the context of the suggested in the native linguistics criteria of qualification of a certain lexemes as a non-derivative or derivative preposition (such as derivative, syntactical and morphological features) the linguistic conditions of differentiation of variants of derivative prepositions haven’t been fully investigated. The purpose of this article is to analyze and define the basic criteria of selection among the variants of derivative prepositions in the text of A.S. Pushkin. Reference to the language of this writer as the material of linguistic studies, on one hand, may be explained by recognition of the epoch of A.S. Pushkin to be the starting period in the establishment of the modern Russian literary language; on the other hand, the research opens an opportunity to trace vital changes in the language system within two centuries. The multiaspectual analysis helped to discover that the selection of a certain variant of prepositions pozadi / pozad’, vperedi / vpredi, poseredi / posredi, vokrug / vkrug, vsled / vosled depends on the morphological, syntactical, semantic, stylistic, rhythmical criteria, namely the part of speech of the governed word, the syntactical structure and semantic construction into which a certain preposition is included, stylistic markedness of the context, and the poetic metre requirements.