Lexicographic fixation of semantic processes in Russian colloquial speech (based on the material of polysemous nouns)

Abstract

The article analyzes the dynamics of the semantic structure of polysemous evaluative-characterizing nouns in the modern Russian language. Russian dictionary definitions of these nouns in explanatory dictionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as BAS, MAS, Ushakov’s Dictionary, as well as texts of the nouns’ functioning in Russian colloquial speech taken from the Russian National Corpus, served as the material of the work. The material was selected based on the presence in a polysemous evaluative name in colloquial speech of figurative meanings whose content includes an emotional evaluation only, or an emotional evaluation and a blurred designation of a fragment of reality. The analysis of these definitions shows that they belong to several groups according to the correlation of the interpretation of the studied noun and its content in an illustrative example. There are dictionary entries in which the information about the content of the studied words is, in the author’s opinion, correct, and dictionary entries of an ambiguous, mixed nature. The most common type of correct dictionary interpretation is as follows: the meaning is characterized by the dictionary compilers as diffuse, its significative component coexists on a par with the emotional-evaluative one. The author believes that partially emptied figurative meanings demonstrate the continuity of the semantic structure of a polysemous word and identifies lexico-syntagmatic markers that allow distinguishing the named meaning. The second type of correct interpretation is less common: the meaning is described as an evaluative one, devoid of a denotative-significative component, an illustrative example also refers to a completely desemanticized evaluative meaning. At the same time, the use of a completely emptied figurative meaning is common in colloquial speech. The third type of correct interpretation is rare: the emptied figurative meaning is described by lexicographers as an interjection, sometimes even labelled “interjection”, an illustrative example corresponds to this interpretation. In this case, the lexeme has a pragmatic broad meaning, it expresses a particular emotion and does not mean an emotional evaluation, like in an independent evaluative meaning. The author also notes and classifies the interpretations of desemanticized figurative meanings, in which the correspondence between the description of the meaning and its illustration is violated to one degree or another. Based on the above, the author concludes that in the explanatory dictionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, the description of the semantics and pragmatics of the figurative meanings of the studied nouns is variable and ambiguous due to their vagueness, significant conditionality by a narrow and wide context, hypertrophied share of emotional content compared to the denotative-significative one.