Abstract: The object of the study is the individual author's complex lexemes of V. Nabokov. The source of the language material is the author's journalistic works, which, due to the specifics of the genre, contain a large number of occasional formations of various kinds, including word-formation derivatives. Composite words are considered as a manifestation of the phenomenon of language play in the author's text, on the one hand, and as the implementation of V. Nabokov's "game style" in journalistic texts, on the other. A wide range of philological research methods were used for the objective analysis of occasionalisms: semantic-stylistic, component and contextual analysis, and an intertextual approach was also implemented as meeting the content parameters of V. Nabokov's texts as a whole.
  The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time occasional composite words were analyzed in the framework of a multidimensional approach based on the material of V. Nabokov's journalism. As a result of the analysis, conclusions of general and particular order were drawn, namely:
- the author's journalism of V. Nabokov is characterized by a deep game stylistics of texts, which is expressed, among other things, with the help of word-making;
- the use of occasionalisms in journalistic texts makes it possible to actualize the author's meanings, give capacious, figurative characteristics, at the same time reflect the position of the author;
- occasional composites as a result of word composition are distinguished by linguistic compression and at the same time a great semantic saturation, including connotative meanings;
- in V. Nabokov's journalism, the comic often becomes ironic, even sarcastic, going beyond the comic is determined by the specifics of the style: relevance, sharpness of the subject, emphasized by the freedom of the author's self-expression;
- from a semantic point of view, V. Nabokov's occasional composites have a high degree of generality, often created by the author for the nomination of typical phenomena of reality, including typical images, characters.

Abstract: In the light of deliberate attention of modern linguistic science and a range of social disciplines to the problem of personality and language, the unresolved question of the nature of language game in the texts of different stylistic orientation remains relevant and polemical. Comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon at hand requires the study of linguistic material that would reflect the specific nature of language game, which represents the organic synthesis of genre-stylistic affiliation and creative uniqueness of linguistic personality. Therefore, the examination of language game in the authorial publicistic writing, namely publications of V. V. Nabokov draws particular interest. The subject of this research is the various manifestations of language play on the lexical-semantic level, which implies occasional alignment of semantic plans, change of the usual meaning of the linguistic unit. It is established that the publicistic heritage of V. V. Nabokov is notable for the artistry that is atypical for such genres; it can be traced in the choice of lexical means, their subsequent interaction and transformation. The usual linguistic units acquire the new plane of content, which largely determines the functional-pragmatic vector of publications and the authorial position that reflects the the tendentious suggestive intentions characteristic to the authorial publicistic writing: accusatory, critical, etc. Change of the usual plan of perception is achieved by various means; most typical is the reference to semantic invariant, which in the authorial context contravenes the known presuppositions. The observations indicate that the language game based on the partial or full change of usual meaning of the word is of syncretic nature: as a rule, the new metaphorical level is not limited by modification of a single lexeme, but extends to the entire structure and compositional volume of the sentence.