Language form compression in modern Russian speech

Abstract

Compressive word formation results from the active tendency to save speech effort and, accordingly, to save linguistic means, which makes its research relevant. At the lexical level, the principle of economy is realized in constriction, truncation, semantic condensation, i.e. processes based on reduction, minimization of structures. The aim of the study is to identify and fix the manifestations of this tendency in modern Russian speech, to generalize the ways of linguistic compression as mechanisms of its representation, to establish their universality and specificity in the Russian language in the pan-Slavic context. The research material is Internet resources, dictionaries of neologisms, the Russian national corpus, the speech of young people. The material was analyzed with both general scientific (relevant material collection, observation, analysis, systematization, description, interpretation), and linguistic methods (methods of word-formation, component, contextual, comparative analysis; structural-semantic method; method of modeling the derivational basis). Among extralinguistic and linguistic reasons for active compression word production, the author points out the influence of the English language as the most important factor, acting both as a donor of short lexical units and as a translator of derivation methods and mechanisms. Among the compression phenomena in modern speech, the article considers such phenomena as borrowings, collocations, composites, clipping, derivation with zero affixation, univerbation, semantic condensation. It is revealed that form compression not only strengthens its communicative function, but also, due to the pragmatic possibilities of the compression, increases its emotional-evaluative and relational functions. The analysis of the main manifestations of form compression in modern Russian speech allows us to conclude that they are universal, but at the same time have some specific features due to the specific national derivational system.

Keywords

• word formation
• contraction
• truncation
• univerbation
• the russian language
• universals
• linguistic specificity