OLD BELARUSIAN BUSINESS WRITING VOCABULARY FROM THE MIDDLE 16th TO 18th CENTURIES: WAYS OF REPLENISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

The article summarizes the results of the lexical studies of the Belarusian business monuments from the middle 16th to 18th centuries. The studies found the following results: 1) lexical units noted in business monuments of different genres can be divided into eight large thematic groups (legal, social and political, clerical, economic, household, professional and industrial, natural science vocabularies, and vocabulary that characterizes a person physically, mentally, and intellectually); religious, military, medical vocabularies, and lexical units from other spheres are represented to a lesser extent; polyfunctional vocabulary is highlighted separately; 2) taking into account the materials of the “Histaryčny sloŭnik bielaruskaj movy” (“Historical Dictionary of the Belarusian Language”), some innovations are determined, namely a) lexical units that were fixed in business writing during the specified period for the first time, b) previously known lexical units that implemented new meaning / new meanings in business writing during the specified period; 3) the dominance of certain thematic groups or their subgroups in each specific monument depends on its genre; 4) by style, one can distinguish lexemes, which were fixed in monuments of a) business content, b) business and secular-artistic content, c) business and religious content, d) business, religious and secular-artistic content during the period from the middle 16th to 18th centuries; 5) the extremely wide representation of Latinisms, the penetration and consolidation of which was influenced by extra- and intralinguistic factors, is a characteristic feature of the business writing vocabulary of the specified period. The results of the research will be important for the preparation and creation of scientific and theoretical works devoted to the evolution of the lexical system of the Belarusian language in general and its stylistic and genre varieties, in particular, to the characteristics of the vocabulary features of different Old Belarusian monuments; when compiling special lexicographic reference books, for example, a consolidated dictionary of business texts of a specific chronological section / local fixation / specific genre, etc.