PL
The investigation of semantic-syntactic units of language is a current problem of modern linguistics. Many linguists in Ukraine and abroad investigate the question of the theoretical foundations and lingual specifi cs of locative semantics. The development of constructions which define the static location of an object near another one, and their semantic and structural variability are analyzed. Most attention is focused on constructions with the Ukrainian equivalents of the preposition near (коло, около, подле, подли, ведле, близко, близ(ъ), поблизу, возле, у) and nouns in the genitive case. The functioning of these noun-prepositional constructions in the written records of the local dialect of eastern Polyssia in the 17th-18th centuries and the modern dialect is considered. The local dialect of eastern Polyssia still conserves archaic constructions.