Semantics and grammar of abstract nouns in modern speech

About the author:

Ekaterina M. Melnikova, Cand. Sci. (Philol.), Associate Professor, Department of the Russian Language, Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinsky, Yaroslavl, Russia; em09@mail.ru

Abstract:

The article considers the semantic and grammatical properties of some abstract nouns in modern speech, representing the sphere of IT, business, social, and political life, paying attention to the cases of metaphorical and metonymic meaning transfer. Metaphorical transfer is studies on the example of the nouns aktsiya (share), animatsiya (animation), allergiya (allergy), and ambitsiya (ambition). Having analyzed the representation of these units in dictionaries, the authors have revealed a tendency to lower the stylistic status of the word: if accompanied by the marks arch., of., spec., inform., med., its literal meaning is neutralized in the new meaning. The processes of neutralizing an abstract noun may be accompanied by the identification of an evaluative (usually pejorative) component in its meaning. The analysis of metonymic meaning transfer refers to such nouns as vlozhenie (attachment), reaktsiya (reaction), reshenie (decision), vyzov (challenge), biznes (business), aktivnost (activity), based on narrowing of an abstract concept. The contexts representing changes in the grammatical properties of the new lexical-semantic variant have been identified — they are the emergence of plural forms and the expansion of the compatibility properties of a linguistic unit. The spread of new word usages in journalistic speech and colloquial speech of Internet communication reflects the general tendencies of determinologization and expressiveness of modern speech; additionally, this spread reveals the potential of the language system in relation to the class of abstract nouns.

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