Russian Language Studies (Dec 2017)

INTENSIFIERS OF THE SEMANTICS OF THE PREDICATES: OCCASIONAL FORMATIONS OF FORMS OF THE COMPARATIVE DEGREE DERIVED FROM VERBS IN THE MODERN RUSSIAN USAGE (ЛЮБЛЮ ЛЮБЛЕЕ)

  • Ekaterina Olegovna Borzenko,
  • Ekaterina Rolandovna Dobrushina

DOI
https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2264-2017-15-1-26-39
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 26 – 39

Abstract

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This article is devoted to non-standard comparative forms which appear regularly in informal Russian texts recently. The aim is to collect and describe semantics and syntax of comparatives derived from verbs. The descriptions of these forms are actual since they are typical for spontaneous written speech of modern online texts. The research material includes Internet texts of 2000-2017, primarily blogs, Internet letters, comments, and forums. In order to create the database the author used a method of generating potentially possible forms on the basis of Russian vocabulary frequency lists, and then methods of corpus study were applied. Syntactic and semantic features of the studied forms are allocated and their classification and statistic description are given. It turned out that comparative forms derived from verbs may have different syntactic functions: first and foremost, they are used as an adverbial modifier by the forming verb, more seldom as a part of a nominal predicate, predicate in impersonal sentence, or inconsistent attribute. There were selected characteristic constructions for the studied neologisms. It is shown that the semantics of these forms can be correlated with the semantics of the intensity of emotions described by the verb, proximity to ideal implementation of the action, manifestation of characteristic signs of action, the degree of estimation associated with the action and the high probability of implementation of actions. The number of such forms in Internet texts, and then, perhaps, in speech might increase, because they are expressive, memorable, and consistent with the principle of economy in speech. The occasional comparatives derived from verbs have beeb the subject of research for the first time, which determines the scientific novelty and actuality of the article.

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