When Church Slavonic meets Latin: Tradition vs. Innovation

This paper deals with the Church Slavonic translation of a medieval Latin compilation, Bruno’s commented Psalter (11th century), which was done in Novgorod, around the middle of the 16th century, by the well-known translator Dmitrij Gerasimov. Some infinitive and participial constructions of the Slavonic text are here discussed and briefly compared with previous and later Church Slavonic transla- tions from Latin. The aim is to put forward some syntactic features of the Slavonic text, which sometimes oscillates between the preservation of constructions inher- ited from the Church Slavonic tradition and the need of rendering in an appro- priate way some peculiarities of Latin morpho-syntax. In the translation of the commentary on the Psalms one observes an increasing use of Accusativus-cum- infinitivo and participial constructions, due to the influence of the Latin model. This redistribution, or extension, of old patterns shows the particular nature of Church Slavonic syntax: at the outset departing from the local dialects, it became more flexible and permeable to syntactic calques (at the same time translation technique significantly moved toward literalism). Thus, although it was charac- terized by petrified forms and grammatical rules (or rather, textual fixed patters), Church Slavonic syntax still continued to experience changes and improvements due to the contact with external factors and or local dialects. The collected material is intended as a first contribution to a broader typological investigation of syntactic constructions in Church Slavonic translations from Latin.