The origin of certain stable structures in children's folklore

The article is devoted to the memory of an outstanding folklorist Boris Nikolaevich Putilov who would have turned 100 years in September 2019. The article actualizes the ideas of Putilov’s monograph Folklore and Folk Culture, already in its second edition, which returns to the main theoretical problems of folkloristics. The variants of cumulative question-answer humorous rhymes (pribaoutki) recorded in the XIX and XX centuries in various territories from different ethnic groups are the study material. We investigate the texts of humorous rhymes which have become verbal games - the ways of their transformation and resemanticization, emancipation from mythological principles, and acquisition of a stable structure.