Regarding Query: http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-2199.html#1 
 
I have recently posted a query asking for experts or sources on the 
historical development of Case assignment to predicates in Russian 
(LinguistList 17.2199). I am very grateful to the following people for 
responding to my query with references and advice: Tilman Berger, Joseph F 
Foster, Pavel Grashchenkov, Keith Goeringer, Alexander Krasovitsky, Nerea 
Madariaga, Kylie Richardson, and Robert A. Rothstein. 
 
I am particularly thankful to Pavel Grashchenkov for tracking down and 
sending me some hard-to-find articles and to Nerea Madariaga for an 
extensive discussion of the relation between the instrumental case marking 
on Modern Russian predicates and the Case-agreement paradigm used in older 
Russian. 
 
References 
 
[Author unspecified] ''Izmeneniia v sootnosheniiakh imenitel'nogo i 
tvoritel'nogo predikativnogo'', in [Author unspecified] Izmeneniia v 
sisteme prostogo i oslozhnennogo predlozheniia v russkom literaturnom 
iazyke XIX veka ( part 3 of _Ocherki po istoricheskoi grammatike russkogo 
literaturnogo iazyka XIX veka). Moscow, 1964, pp. 60-128 
 
Benson, Morton 1954. The Development of Predicate Adjective usage in 
Russian Literary Prose from Pushkin on, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 
Michigan. 
 
Bernshtejn, S.B. (edit.) 1958. Tvoritel'nyj padezh v slavjanskih jazykah. 
Moskva. 
 
Cherepanova O.A., Kolesov V.V., Kanorulina L.V., Kalinovskaja V.I. Istorija 
russkogo jazyka. Uchebnoe posobie dlja prakticheskih zanjatij. 
Sankt-Peterburg, 2003. (pp. 64-65) 
 
Graudina L.K., V.A. Ickovič & L.P. Katlinskaja 1976. Grammatičeskaja 
pravil´nost´ russkoj reči: opyt častotnogo slovarja-spravočnika, Moskva: Nauka 
 
Gustavsson, Sven 1976. Predicative Adjectives with the Copula byt´ in 
Modern Russian. Stockholm: Almqwist & Wiksell international. 
 
Ivanov V.V. Istoricheskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka. Moskva, 
«Prosveščenie» 1990. (pp. 372-379) 
 
Křížkova, Elena 1968. Predikativnaja funkcija prilagatel´nyx i 
suščestvitel´nyx i struktura predloženija, Československá Rusistika 13: 
210-219. 
 
Lomtev T.P. 1941. Issledovanija v oblasti sintaksisa belorusskogo jazyka. 
Minsk. 
 
Lomtev, T. P. (1954)_Iz istorii sintaksisa russkogo jazyka. Moscow. 
Available at http://danefae.schtuff.com/lomtev_djvu 
 
Lomtev, T. P. (1956)_Ocherki po istoricheskomu sintaksisu russkogo iazyka. 
Moscow. Chapter 3 (''Differentsiatsiia dvukh form imeni sushchestvitel'nogo 
v funktsii skazuemogo'') and 4 (''Differentsiatsiia trekh form imeni 
prilagatel'nogo v funktsii skazuemogo''). You might also be interested in 
chapter 6 (''Otmiranie upotrebleniia vtorykh kosvennykh padezhei i 
rasprostranenie na ikh meste tvoritel'nogo predikativnogo'') 
 
Madariaga, Nerea (in progress). New Case Relations in Old and Present-day 
Russian (and the role of peripheral-core syntactic interactions in grammar 
change). Ph.D. thesis, University of the Basque Country. Vitoria-Gasteiz. 
 
Madariaga, Nerea (to appear). An economy approach to the triggering of the 
Russian Instrumental predicative case. In J. Salmons and S. Dubenion-Smith, 
eds., Historical Linguistics 2005. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
 
Moser, Michael, Der prädikative Instrumental: aus der historischen Syntax 
des Nordostslavischen; von den Anfängen bis zur petrinischen Epoche. 
Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1994. 
 
Mrazek, Roman 1964. Sintaksis russkogo tvoritel´nogo. 
Strukturno-sravnitel´noe issledovanie. Praha. 
 
Nichols, Johanna (1973) The Balto-Slavic Predicate Instrumental: A Problem 
in Diachronic Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, UC Berkeley. 
 
Nichols, Johanna. Predicate Nominals: A Partial Surface Syntax of Russian* 
(UC Publications, Linguistics, Volume 97, 1981 
 
Patokova, O. V. 1929. K istorii razvitija tvoritel´nogo predikativnogo v 
russkom literaturnom jazyke. Slavia: Casopis pro Slovanskov Filologii. 
1929-30, volume 8, 1-37 
 
Potebnia, Iz zapisok po russkoi grammatike_, I-II (Moscow, 1958) there is 
also discussion of ''vtorye kosvennye padezhi'' (pp. 208-334) and of 
''tvoritel'nyi na meste vtorykh (soglasuemykh) padezhei'' (478-517). 
 
Red, Ragnar 1966. Zwei Studien über den prädikativen Instrumental im 
Russischen, Oslo: Avhandlinger utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i 
Oslo, II. Hist.- Filos. Klasse. Ny Serie. No. 12. 
 
There is also work on predicate nouns in Russian by Alexander Krasovitsky, 
Matthew Baerman, Dunstan Brown, Greville G. Corbett and Alison Long from 
Surrey Morphology Group. 
 
Additional references on the topic can be found in Nerea Madariaga’s 
dissertation (see reference above). 
 
Hopefully, I will also have something to say on the topic soon.