Pronomınal adverb негде ın Russian texts of the 17th–18th centuries

The article addresses the usage of the pronominal adverb негде in Russian texts of the 17–18 centuries. The material for the study includes texts from the Russian National Corpus (RNC) and data from historical dictionaries. In the period under consideration, негде could express both negative meaning and the meaning of indefiniteness. As an indefinite pronominal adverb, негде could express a set of particular meanings (‘где-то’, ‘где-нибудь’, когда-то’, ‘куда-то’). According to the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11–17 сenturies, the pronoun that appeared orthographically as негде could perform two main functions: as a negative adverb in the structure Pronneg Inf (негде спать) and as a form of negation analogous to the modern negative adverb нигде. It is concluded that in 17–18 centuries texts, the orthographic form негде in its negative meaning (‘нигде’), contrary to the opinion of the compilers of the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11–17 сenturies, did not function as an independent lexical unit, but rather represented an orthographic variant of the negative adverb нигде (with stress on the final vowel).