Search

Currently feminitives (feminatives) appear to be one of the actively discussed lexico-semantic groups. This discussion has gone far beyond the community of researchers. Especially heated discussions are held in the internet-mediated communication involving the so called netizens, or netenauts – active Internet users. They not merely express their attitude towards the feminitives that already exist in the language but also propose their own auctorial feminitives. The authors denote these units by the term neofeminitives. The term feminitive has narrow and broad meanings. In its narrow meaning the term feminitive is understood to be a denomination of a woman in accordance with her social role, for instance: studentka (college girl), uchitelnitsa (schoolmistress), kassirsha (paymistress). The feminine suffexes -ess(a), -is(a), -k(a), -sh(a) and others serve as determinants expressing the notion of femininity. Nowadays, the most productive suffixes are -k(a) and -sh(a). The units newly formed with the help of them enter into the relations of derivational competition. The article shows this phenomenon on the vast illustrative material. The term feminitive in its broad meaning is used to denote nouns having semantics of femininity and expressed by the inflection -a, for instance: mama (mom), tyotya (aunt), etc. The extension of the notion of femininity and, correspondingly, the expansion of the scope of the lexico-semantic group of “feminitives” appear as consequence of activization of the processes of borrowing. The group of “feminitives” has accepted some words that have only lexical feature of femininity, cf.: biznesvumen, shouvumen, biznesledi, gerlskaut, kolgerl, pleymeyt and others. The activity of penetration of such foreignisms serves as an evidence for their being urgent and proves that they should be regarded as the so called actual neologisms (Marinova). Meanwhile, the Russian language, being an inflectional language open to new loan words, actively adopts borrowings, adjusting them to the established system. This is manifested through creating neofiminitives with the derivational determinants of femininity, cf.: biznesvumensha – biznesvumenikha, gerlskautka – gerlskautsha, pleymetsha – pleymeytikha. These neofeminitives enter into the relationship of derivational competition, which is one of the active derivational processes in the modern Russian language. As the results of this neofeminitives analyses, the authors draw a conclusion that they accomplish a twofold function. Firstly, neofeminiteves accomplish a differentiating function, as they denote the gender of the named object, but this act of naming is almost always stylistically marked because of some particular qualities of the feminine suffixes. For this reason, one may state with confidence, that Internet neofeminitives also accopmlish a perlocutionary function. The scientific novelty of the study is seen in the proof of the position on the role of word formation in the study of the linguistic picture of the world in relation to the group of neofeminitives.

The urgency of the article is due to new requirements for the structure and content of a dictionary entry in the theory of modern lexicography and the need to increase the semantic capacity of the interpretation of meaning by including restrictive information. At the same time, the issue of restrictive components in lexicographic practice has not been finally resolved; however, many modern ideas can already be traced in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V. I. Dahl. The methodology of the study is based on the analysis of various types of fragments of a dictionary entry, presenting lexicographically significant information that cannot be deduced directly from the lexical semantics, but is significant for the correct use of the word. The article highlights the types of restrictive components presented in the dictionary. Language restrictions can be due to the language system, norm or usus. Restrictions by the system fix special types of bound meanings and reflect the reasons for the appearance of such meanings as means of secondary nomination. Restrictions by the norm fix the existence of stylistically colored meanings and set the conditions for their use. Among the systemic restrictions of Dahl’s dictionary, there are morphological restrictions, which fix the obligatory forms of syntagmatically related words by means of generalizing pronouns; syntactic restrictions accompanying syntactically bound meanings with an indication of the corresponding conditions of use; lexical restrictions outlining a list of context partners, in combination with which the interpreted meaning is realized. Restrictions of the object- logical content of a word do not affect the change in meaning in terms of marking or dependence; they fully depend on the process of categorization, by the peculiarities of delimitating certain areas of reality by this language. The extra-linguistic factor underlies the restrictions of the situational context, which verbalize information of an encyclopedic nature in the dictionary: historical, social, cultural, ideological. Restrictions of pragmatic nature are represented in the dictionary by a wide variety of emotional-expressive and functional-stylistic marks, as well as marks and comments that characterize the social differentiation of the language. A special place is occupied by restrictions that translate communicatively meaningful information about the asymmetry of social roles.

The author reflects on the fate of the most popular dictionary in Russia, written by the lexicographer, ethnographer and folklorist V. I. Dahl, analyzing the principles of building this “encyclopedia of Russian folk life of the first half of the 19th century” (V. V. Vinogradov). Contemporaries critically evaluated the dictionary, finding the word family method of organizing the material inconvenient, looking for factual errors and being outraged by the use of original Russian words instead of borrowings, sometimes constructed by Dahl himself. Admitting some drawbacks, it is necessary to emphasize that the organization of the material is not accidental and is caused by a polemic with the normative and dialect (regional) dictionaries that were published at that time, in which the word was presented in isolation from its realization in language and speech. The key word in the characterization of the language for Dahl was the word alive, and it is precisely on the representation of the living connections of words in the language that the principles of dictionary compilation “work”: word family method of presentation, a visual demonstration of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections of the word within the framework of one dictionary entry, combination of the vocabulary of all forms of the existence of the national language in the dictionary. Modern lexicographers, as a rule, avoid implementing these principles, focusing on the creation of reference dictionaries, in which words are presented in alphabetical order, supplemented with a scientific definition and identification of grammatical and stylistic markers. It is only examples illustrating the meanings of the words that have supplemented the content of the modern dictionary entry in comparison with the dictionaries of the 19th century. There are practically no followers of Dahl in lexicography. Mentioned as steps on the way to follow Dahl is Solzhenitsyn’s “Russian Dictionary of the Language Extension” and the Sictionary of dialects of Russian first settlers of Siberia near Lake Baikal by G. V. Afanasyeva-Medvedeva, in which illustrative examples successfully solve the problem of demonstrating the life of the word in speech and the language system. Meanwhile, a return to the principles of a talented lexicographer can be very productive.

The article is devoted to the study of lexicographic techniques of vocabulary semantization, which are used in the dictionary of V. Dahl. The article analyzes the principles of the interpretation of the meanings employed in the dictionary through the ratio of the general and the particular, through reference to a variety of synonyms and richest illustrative material presented in the form of various kinds of stable expressions: proverbs, sayings, riddles, etc. Special attention is paid to the dictionary definition of the sacred vocabulary embodying stereotyped ideas of the Russian people about the realm of the supernatural, which sincretically unites the sacred and the demonic, sacred and profane, real and fictional. Vocabulary data makes it possible to identify groups of vocabulary that make up the structure of opposite semantic fields – sacred vs. demonic: names of subjects, participants in sacred communication, names of actions (rituals, magic, ritual practices of traditional medicine, etc.), names of sacral loci and time intervals characterized by heightened activity of the supernatural forces, etc. The study defines the universal lexicographical techniques of semantization of the sacred word in Dahl’s dictionary: interpretation through reference to a sacredly marked motivator (including false etymological correlations), identification of basic sacred meanings through denotative or conceptual components, and interpretation through analysis of systemic connections of units of one paradigm (syntagmatic, paradigmatic, and epidigmatic). The particular methods of semantization of sacred vocabulary include such as anthropomorphic analogy, reflecting the animistic ideas of man that existed at a certain stage in the development of society; creation of a generalized image, an image-concept that has a minimum of species and a maximum of generic characteristics; detailing of the symbol – as a rule, based on the fragmentation of mythological plots. The ability to construct entire semantic fields according to a “given matrix”, when the user needs to intuitively identify the connections between separate components, select the directions of these connections and create a model of the field is methodologically significant for work with the sacred vocabulary of traditional folk culture recorded in the dictionary. The article presents analogs of such models and demonstrates some procedures for identifying the components of the sacred lexeme semantics.

The article presents to the scientific community a new dictionary of legal terms created on the basis of the materials of the Russian mass-media of the 21st century. The aim of the study is to substantiate the concept of a discourse dictionary that registers real but not normative meanings of legal terms in the media discourse of our time. The article describes the structure of an entry, illustrated on the example of the entry LEGITIMATION, and analyzes the data obtained as a result of lexicographic investigation. The entry consist of the sections allowing the lexicographer to explicate conceptual, figurative and evaluative layers of the legal media concept represented by the term LEGITIMATION. Such entry structure makes it possible to analyze the definitions of the term in mass-media, to present information of encyclopaedic character posses- sing linguocultural specificity. Analysis of the metaphorical combinability of the term-representative of the legal media concept in mass media allows establishing a set of images with which the media concept under consi- deration is correlated in linguistic consciousness in mass media and to reveal its assessment. To collect practical language research material, the authors use the corpus method differing traditional methods in textocentricity, scope of research, reliability of results. The description and interpretation of the material involves definitional and distributive analysis, discursive analysis and the method of metaphorical modelling. The material presented in the entry LEGITIMATION clearly demonstrates the discursive specificity of this legal term in a media discourse. In particular, the core semantic component “legalization” of legal discourse, in media discourse is specified and transformed into ‘statement’ and ‘confirmation’ of legality and acquires peripheral features like ‘recognition’ and ‘agreement’. Neutral inherently, the legal term becomes metaphorical and evaluative in a media discourse, which also testifies to the transformation of the legal term in a legal media concept. The media specificity in the semantics of the term and in the structure of the concept demonstrates the importance of the discursive factor in the study of legal terminology and conceptology. The dictionary materials may be useful for specialists in the field of law, journalists and linguists.

In the Russian and English discourse, there is a set of nationally specific vocatives that form a system and can be represented in a Russian-English and English-Russian ideographic dictionary of vocatives. Neither in the Russian nor in the English lexicographic tradition does there exist an ideographic dictionary of vocatives, while its creation seems relevant for cultural and linguistic reasons. The purpose of the study is to characterize the macro and microstructure of a Russian-English and English-Russian ideographic dictionary of vocatives, to identify common features and specific peculiarities of Russian and English vocatives included in the denotative-ideographic group of education. The scope of this article covers the semantics of vocatives denoting a person according to his / her role in the education process. The Russian-English and English-Russian ideographic dictionary of vocatives should contain information about the syntactic nature and grammatical semantics of the vocatives. The dictionary should include information about the fact if the vocatives can be used without any modifiers, whether they can be singular or plural and can be combined with thou / you forms (in the English-Russian part of the dictionary), if the vocative singular form can be used addressing a group of people (e.g. the vocative bachelor instead of bachelors). The dictionary should also include information whether the vocatives can be used with additional vocative means (a vocative means is something that can make a noun, which is usually not used as a vocative without attribute adjectives, a form of address). Additional vocative means can include adjectives dear, beloved; the pronoun my; the use of suffixes, including diminutives, the interjection hey, etc. The article presents the results of semantic and contextual research on vocatives included in the denotative-ideographic group of education. The article discusses the national-cultural features of vocatives in accordance with the specifics of speech etiquette and the interpretation of the communicative category of politeness in the Russian and English linguistic cultures. The results of the study can be applied while compiling Russian and English ideographic dictionaries.

This article focuses on the following nouns: proseka (a cut-through), paseka (an apiary) and zaseka (an abatis). These are verbal derivatives of one family of words with the common semantic component sech’ (cut, cut down). The origin of these words and the history of their use in the ancient Russian manuscripts of the 16th–17th centuries have become the main object of this research. The derivative nature of these nouns has brought about the need to study the semantic peculiarities of the original verb sech’ (cut, cut down) and a number of prefixal verbs formed from it: prosech’ (to cut through), otsech’ (to cut off), peresech’ (to cut short, to stop), zasech’ (to make an abatis), etc., as well as the nouns associated with them. The units of this family of words are used in the military and household contexts. Initially, the verb sech’ (to cut) was associated with nomination of the warrior’s action on the battlefield. As a result of transfer of nominations from the military sphere to peaceful life, the verbs prosech’ (to cut through), zasech’ (to make an abatis), and the like began to be correlated with other actions, the purpose of which is not destruction as much as creation.

The paper analyzes the most productive and systemic model, which serves as the basis for lexicon and phraseology denoting manifestations of «the sixth sense» (premonitions and intuitional feelings), – the somatic model. With reference to the Russian literary language of the 19th – 21st centuries and some particular facts of jargons, popular language and subdialects, the author studies 4 groups of somatisms, which are the most representative in terms of expression of meanings, which are in the sphere of interest of the author: names of organs of the back of the body (спина, затылок, лопатки, задница, загривок etc.); nominations of the stomach and the inward parts of the body (нутро, живот, брюхо, печенки etc.); names of proper organs of perception (нос, ухо); the words тело, кожа (шкура). The analyzed model is realized in a variety of ways, the most significant of which are verbal-nominal combinations like чуять печенкой, почувствовать задницей, ощущать телом. The paper describes contextual meanings specific to the words studied: ‘premonition of trouble, death’, ‘fine organic feeling (of duty, obligation; profit etc.)’, ‘illogical perception of something which is usually perceived logically’, ‘perceptive synaesthetic feelings’, ‘the feeling of control (sense of chase, the feeling of somebody else's power’) and others. The author analyzes the reasons for appearance of the meanings, which are specific to each group of the vocabulary studied or which connect somatisms belonging to different groups.

The article considers the semantic and word-formative family developed by the word караван in different varieties of the Russian language (mostly in dialects). The author reveals the main directions of the semantic development of this word, and characterizes the ethnocultural context which contributes to these changes. In addition, the paper undertakes a semantic reconstruction of some words which constitute a family but whose motivation is unclear (for example, караваниться 'to linger', 'to be capricious'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Electronic Turkish Studies is the property of Electronic Turkish Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)