Syntactic polyfunctionality of stable prepositional combinations in the Russian language of the XVI–XVII centuries

The article deals with the syntactic properties of stable prepositional combinations – semantically and grammatically stable reproducible constructions formed according to the model “preposition + case word form”. The study was conducted with the material of offi cial and everyday language of Moscow Russia, representing the initial stage of formation of the national Russian language. The sources included historical dictionaries of various types, as well as the Old Russian Subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus. Based on the research base of 483 units (with more than 1500 usage contexts), 14% of syntactically polyfunctional stable prepositional combinations were identifi ed and classifi ed into groups depending on their ability to perform different syntactic functions. Additionally, syncretic stable prepositional combinations and emerging functional homonyms in the Russian language of the XVI–XVII centuries were singled out. The results of the study can be used to clarify the linguistic status of stable prepositional combinations in modern Russian studies and to describe these units in lexicographic practice.