Quantitative Characteristics in the Linguistic Worldview of a Dialect Speaker

Abstract

The article examines quantitative names, or denominations, that represent dialect speakers’ linguistic worldview. The study was conducted based on the material from the Dictionary of Russian Dialects on the Territory of the Republic of Mordovia. It has been established that in Russian dialects spoken on the territory of Mordovia various quantitative names are actively used to designate the units of weight measurement, the volume of liquid and granular materials, the length of objects, the area of land, as well as to measure yarn, fiber and canvas. It has been determined that among the recorded numerous names of accessories used by humans in the process of measuring solid, liquid, and granular substances, the units of weight measurement and volume of solid bodies are the most diverse. At the same time, some cases of secondary nomination have also been recorded. As a result, the names of containers and devices for product storage and transportation begin to be used for designating the mass and volume of the substance itself. Most of the words described are unambiguous, polysemantic lexemes are rare. Quantitative vocabulary and phraseology are shown to contain both lexical dialectisms proper, with the root morphemes having no correspondence in the national language, and lexical-semantic dialectisms, which, being the units of the national language, have different meaning in the dialect system. Quantitative linguistic units have been revealed to be both non-derivatives and derivatives, which are formed by morphological (suffixation, composition) and lexical semantic methods.

Keywords

• dialect
• vocabulary
• phraseology
• semantics
• structure
• quantitative characteristics
• metrological characteristics
• linguistic worldview