Linguistic features of the XVIIIth century regional records (on the data of Pyskor promemoria records collection)

The article considers the linguistic content richness of the Pyskor factory office promemoria records dated to the XVIIIth century, namely, the pattern of documents, their syntactic and lexical features and modality. Three promemoria records under consideration are divided into 4 clauses being by-turn organized into smaller meaningful parts. By tradition, the first clause contains information pertaining to participants of correspondence, the second clause refers to the task of collecting money, the third one - to reports on the task of its implementation, and the fourth clause summarizes the results. An extensive insert in the third clause of the third promemoria record concerning doubts makes its composition rather free, the language of the insert being characterized by spontaneous speech elements. Varying parts can be found in relevant clauses of different promemoria records. Each record piece is supplemented with statistical information on the amount of money taken from peasants. In one of the records this information is incorporated in the text, while in the other records there are separate chart signature lists. The aspects of creating the documents restored from written records by the technique of discrepancies have been studied. In particular, the records signed by one and the same authors turned out to be orthographically heterogeneous. This sort of alternation might have appeared on the stage of copying records by a copyist to use one's personal orthographic standard. It has been shown in the paper that the overall structure of the document is alternation of unreal and real modality. Folk-spoken conversational structures coexist in the records with sequences of subordinate clauses typical for formal bookish style. Of special interest is reinterpretation of unfamiliar for a copyist words in the process of copying records. The process of rewriting records might probably be regarded as rather a mechanical action without inquiring for a copyist.