In this paper, we analyze syntactic properties of the Russian enclitic particle ze relying on corpus and experimental data. In Old Russian, the position of this enclitic obeyed Wackeraagers law in its strict version, but subsequently some variation became possible. We aim to identify possible and preferable positions ofze, various factors influencing them, and diachronic tendencies using the National Russian corpus and an experiment. Our goal is not only to examine a particular linguistic phenomenon, but also to show that corpus and experimental methods can be fruitfully combined.