The author uses a diachronic-cognitive approach to the analysis of the term predlozheniye (sentence) that is not motivated in the Russian syntax. Based on the material of the early East Slavic grammars of XVI-XVII centuries, the first Russian grammar in the native language of the XVIII century and dictionaries of the Old Russian and Russian languages, the author analyzes cognitive content of the terms expressing the notion ‘sentence’ in the past. The early medieval terms ouryad, ouryazhenie, stroka had a clear content motivation with the general seme 'row, location, length’ of the constituent elements. Subsequently, under the influence of the Byzantine and Western European traditions (F. Melanchton), there spread terms-calques from Greek and Latin, which did not have a clear content motivation: slovo, rech`, recheniye . The turning point is the XVIII century, when the unmotivated term predlozheniye appeared in science, ousting all other names of the notion ‘sentence'. The reasons for this phenomenon are being investigated.
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