Between «be»-Language and «have»-Language: Discussions About Two Possessive Constructions in the Ukrainian Language

The object of analysis in the article is the coexistence in the modern Ukrainian standard language of two possessive predicative constructions: «я маю … 'I have …'» and «у мене [є]… 'I have [there is] …'» -and the competition between them in the historical development of East Slavic languages.The availability of possessive «be»-construction in the history of the East Slavic linguistic areas is a truly historical fact, however, for the Russian language its further functioning was not only unrestrained, but perhaps had really received an additional stimulus from the surrounding Finno-Ugric languages, while for the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages the frequency of «be»-constructions functioning initially began to decline due to the increase of «have»-constructions (not least under the influence of the West Slavic languages), but over the past few centuries, on the contrary, has begun to increase under the influence of the Russian language.