Componential Analysis of Lexical Meaning of an Occasional word (Based on the Russian Language)

Derevskova Elena ORCID: 0000-0001-5746-4656 PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Russian Language, General Linguistics and Mass Communication; Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University 455000, Russia, Chelyabinsk region, Magnitogorsk, Prospekt Lenina str., 26, office 206 august1667@mail.ru Pozdniakova Natalia ORCID: 0000-0001-5680-6298 PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Russian Language, General Linguistics and Mass Communication; Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University 455000, Russia, Chelyabinsk region, Magnitogorsk, Lenin Avenue, 26, room 206 nvp2018@bk.ru Other publications by this author

Franchuk Oksana ORCID: 0000-0002-7645-0177 PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Russian Language, General Linguistics and Mass Communication; Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University 455000, Russia, Chelyabinsk region, Magnitogorsk, Prospekt Lenina str., 26, office 206 oxana.franchuk@mail.ru

          The section "Lexical semantics" occupies a central place in the course "Lexicology" of the discipline "Modern Russian language" taught at the higher school. Bachelor of Linguistics and philology, as well as a future teacher of Russian language and literature, that is, a specialist who works professionally with language, with text, should have an idea of the content side of language units at any level. This requires immersion in those theoretical provisions of fundamental research of the content of a linguistic sign formed as a result of the display of extra-linguistic reality in the minds of people, which are presented in the works of scientists ^[1-8]. Many years of experience in teaching the disciplines of the linguistic cycle in higher education allows us to talk about the complexity of studying topics that are included in the section "Lexical semantics". This is due to a number of reasons. For the first time in the course of training, a bachelor faces modern problems of lexical semantics, immerses himself in a terminological paradigm, forming a new scientific picture of the world for himself. Therefore, the teacher needs to develop effective methods of presenting the material ^{[9, 10]}, so that the process of cognition becomes qualitative and students have the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities that are required for the implementation of professional competencies.

The subject of this article will be one of the possible teaching methods that allows combining theoretical training and the formation of a set of practical skills and abilities among bachelor students, which can be used both in lectures and in practical classes when studying the topic "Component analysis of the lexical meaning of a word". The importance of understanding the component analysis of lexical meaning was noted by Yu.D. Apresyan: "Component analysis plays an exceptional role, especially when describing vocabulary, and no adequate theory of meaning can do without procedures that provide component analysis of meanings to one degree or another" ^{[11, p. 113]}. In the theoretical part of the lecture material, the teacher gives an idea about the structure of lexical meaning, about the mandatory set of semantic components, their functions, showing that the content side of a word can be represented as a combination of elementary semantic components. These series of features determine the semantic component of a word, which can be described on the basis of its paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections.

In order to help a bachelor student master important concepts of modern semantic research, to form the ability to correctly, consciously use the terms that make up the theoretical basis of the topic under study, in our opinion, creative research work will be productive.

At the first stage of studying the topic, we offer the student to create the lexical meaning of the word himself, relying on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic connections of words presented in the text. It is advisable to use text fragments of the novel "Kys" as linguistic material when performing such work. The choice of linguistic material is not accidental: the novel invented an unreal world that requires nominations for non-existent subjects for the modern reader. T. Tolstaya goes two ways to create a fantastic world: endows the words of the modern Russian language with a different semantics or creates an occasional vocabulary.

It seems interesting to turn to an occasional lexeme, which has no concept in the mind of a modern native speaker and which, accordingly, is not represented in the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. Analyzing the text fragments selected from T. Tolstoy's novel "Kys", the student independently compiles the lexical meaning of the word ognets, using the main way of presenting the lexical meaning of words in the dictionary – the traditional descriptive way:

1) "Benedict thought about the Ognets, remembered his mother and sighed: it was because of those ognets that the dear one passed away. They turned out to be false."2) "My old woman wanted to eat ognets... and that year the ognets ripened sweet, sticky."

3) "Ognets grow on the oldest beds, in the wilderness.

Such a delicacy: sweet, round, toffee. A ripe ognets the size of a human eye will be. At night they glow with silver fire ... you need to tear them off quickly so that the fireman does not get alarmed and does not scream. Otherwise, he will warn others, and they will go out at once. You can, of course, tear by touch. But they don't tear. But how can you type false ones? False, when they glow, as if they are blowing red fire through themselves."

When analyzing the context, the student identifies a paradigmatically related word: delicacy, which will help formulate the generic seme of the ognets lexeme – 'food, dish' (cf.: "Delicacy – 2. Delicious food, tasty dish" ^[12]). The generic seme acts as a kind of reference point in the hierarchical structure of the word. Syntagmatic connections also turn out to be important when clarifying the generic seme ("to eat ognets"), and, most importantly, the selection of a set of differential, specific, semes that carry information:1) about plant origin: grow, ripen, ripe, tear;

2) about species diversity: edible – false;

3) about appearance: glow, go out; size – the size of a human eye;

4) about consistency: stringy;

5) about taste features: sweet.

The syntagmatic combinations "ognets – to be alarmed", "ognets – to shout" are a marker of the unreal world that the author creates in the text.

However, the description of the semantics of a word requires working with a system of paradigmatically related words: "In order to identify semantic elements in a given word, it is necessary to compare the meanings of this word with the meanings of other words, somehow correlated with the meaning of the first. Thus, the "elements of meaning" can be determined only through differential semantic features, that is, through the establishment of a semantic "remainder", which is obtained as a result of "co-measurement" of different values" ^{[13, p. 97]}. The same idea is voiced in the monograph "The universe in alphabetical order: Essays on dictionaries of the Russian language": "dictionary interpretation is based on the allocation of minimal semantic components that allow identifying an object, including a word in a group of related units and clearly defining the differences between them" ^{[14, p. 53]}.

D.N. Shmelev shows how to decompose the meaning into simpler constituent elements, giving an example of definitions of the meanings of several words denoting similar objects in the Dictionary of the Russian Language by S.I. Ozhegov: bucket – "a wide, low wooden bucket"; bucket – "a cylindrical vessel with a handle in the form of a bow for carrying liquids, bulk"; vessel – "container for liquid, gas, etc." ^{[13, p. 103]}. Accordingly, the meaning of the word bucket includes the following semes: ‘bucket’ + ‘special shape' + ‘material'. A similar technique is used by L.P. Krysin when analyzing the components of the lexical meaning of the word man: "the meaning of the word "man" contains the following semantic components: "man", "adult", "male". If we compare this word with the word “woman” and “boy”, then we will make sure that some semes of all three words are common, and some are individual, inherent in the meaning of a single word: woman - “man”, “adult”, “female”; boy – “man", "immature", "male"" ^{[15, p. 34]}.To master the methodology of component analysis of the lexical meaning of a word, we suggest that students continue their creative work and compose the lexical meanings of words of one thematic group.

As an example, let's give a group of words united by the archiseme ‘Baking / baked goods'. Particular attention is paid to the selection of differential semes, which will become markers of the difference between one name of a dish from another. So, the analysis of text fragments allows us to determine the following set of semantic components: cheesecake – 'stuffed': "goat curd, half a dozen ognets". The information that ognets are used as a filling makes it possible to highlight this ‘sweet’, because ognets are a sweet delicacy. Accordingly, in the lexical meaning of the word cheesecake, we distinguish a set of differential semes: 1) ‘sweet', 2) ‘stuffed with goat curd and ognets’. Pie – 1) 'unsweetened', 2) 'with meat filling': "Sparrows, nightingales in pies are good." Charlotte – 1) ‘unsweetened', 2) ‘made from turnips, eggs, milk, nuts’: "Yes, I can do it myself from a turnip. Initially, evaporate it, then namyat. After putting eggs in it, nuts, goat's milk."

The final stage of creative work should be associated with the development of such concepts of lexical semantics as a potential semantic component, pragmatic information. M.V. Nikitin, exploring the lexical meaning of a word from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, noted that the integral cognitive content of word meaning, or lexical meaning, distinguishes two parts: intensional and implicational. The first forms the substantive core of the lexical meaning, and the second forms its periphery. Intensive is "a structured set of semantic features, the presence of which is considered mandatory for denotations of this class" ^{[16, p. 105]}. The scientist calls an implicational such a set of semantic features, which refers "to the field of non-linguistic knowledge, not fixed, but only assumed by this meaning" ^{[16, p. 105]}. M.V. Nikitin, defining the peculiarity of implicational information, notes: "All stereotypical associations, true and false, traditionally associated with some kind of implicational, are connected to the implicational.the class: the fox is cunning, the hare is cowardly, the bear is clumsy, etc." ^{[16, p. 106]}.

In order for the theoretical provisions of lexical semantics to be mastered, students can be offered work on creating a dictionary entry of an explanatory dictionary, where in addition to the interpretation zone (which students made up at previous stages of the work), it is necessary to think over an illustrative zone. The fulfillment of this task will require the student not only to update his knowledge of lexical semantics, but also to address the problems of Russian lexicography, since these two sciences are inextricably linked. The presence of an implicational word is largely determined by the fact that the Russian lexicographic tradition divides dictionaries into linguistic (fix linguistic information) and encyclopedic (fix extralinguistic, non-linguistic information). Nevertheless, explanatory dictionaries cannot avoid the inclusion of encyclopedic information in dictionary entries. Moreover, scientists ^[17-20] note that the absence of such information in the explanatory dictionary largely impoverishes information about the word. Russian Russian Russian Russian Dictionary" L.P. Kalakutskaya notes in the article "Reflections on Russian lexicography (in connection with the publication of the "Russian-Japanese Dictionary")" that "with the traditional division of dictionaries into lexical (explanatory) and encyclopedic, cultural and linguistic losses for native speakers of the Russian language and for the entire Russian culture are very significant" ^{[18, p. 94]}. V.G. Gak notes in connection with this issue: "The relationship between linguistic and extralinguistic (encyclopedic) information can be multidirectional. On the one hand, extra–linguistic information is used to better explain the meaning of words, on the other hand, the information contained in the linguistic dictionary expands our encyclopedic knowledge about the subject and the outside world" ^{[19, p. 8]}. In general, non-linguistic information in the dictionary, as the scientist notes, may reflect the following aspects of the object:

1) his story,

2) its varieties,

3) its structure and properties,

4) its purpose and functioning ^{[19, p. 9]}.

According to V.G. Gak, the properties of the subject in linguistic dictionaries are not presented in a continuous description, as is the case in an encyclopedic dictionary, but are revealed from a series of examples and quotations. "So, it's not about saturating the explanatory dictionary with additional encyclopedic information about the subject, but about combining linguistic information with non-linguistic information" ^{[19, p. 9]}.

Y.N. Karaulov, in the Preface to Dostoevsky's Dictionary of the Language, noted the fundamental importance of the illustrative zone for the writer's dictionary. In this type of explanatory dictionary, quotations "do not just illustrate meanings, but go out to problems, reflect ideas, serve – in the network of thoughts, problems, experiences of the author – as peculiar knots, reflecting on which, "untying" which, the reader of the Dictionary can reconstruct the writer's views on a particular issue" ^{[21, p. 15]}. It is in the illustrative area of the dictionary entry that it becomes possible to present potential semes of meaning that reflect not the main features of the phenomenon, but everything that can characterize the subject with greater completeness than only differential semes, to show associations typical of the national linguistic picture of the world.So, the inclusion in the illustrative zone of the dictionary entry of the firemen's lexeme of the following quotes: "If you squint, the rays come from the sun in circles, give a fluffy snow with a felt boot – it will sparkle, as if ripe firemen trembled"; "This is a New Year's Holiday to celebrate like this: chop off a tree in the forest so small that it fits into the hut ... the tree is in the floor ... and on the branches to hang all sorts of stuff that anyone has.

You can twist colored threads, so you can nuts, ognets ..."; "You'll take one ognets. Put it on your cheek. Sweet!.. And maybe you won't die, with one. So, maybe he'll throw up. Well, the hair will fall out. The neck will swell. And so, maybe you'll still live. Why did my mother die? – I was pleased to eat a whole bowl at a time" – makes it possible to go beyond the information formulated in lexical meaning. In these quotes, information is found about the polar relation of the characters of the text "Kys" to the designated object: on the one hand, bringing joy, pleasure (the beauty of sparkling snow is compared with the glow of fireworms, New Year, the Christmas tree – fireworm as a toy for the Christmas tree), on the other hand, bringing death, suffering (fireworm – vomit, the hair will fall out, the neck will swell, die).        

Self-creation of a dictionary entry will be a generalizing stage in mastering one of the most difficult topics of the section "Lexicology" and will allow you to work out the skills acquired at previous stages of creative activity.

         Thus, the chosen form of creative work in the study of the topic "Component analysis of lexical meaning" determined the direction of tasks, the implementation of which will help the student to combine the concepts of fundamental science with independent practical analysis, which will make the results of research fruitful and the conclusions conscious.       

The proposed methodology for studying complex issues of lexical semantics allows, during the preparation of a bachelor of linguistics, philologist and teacher of Russian language and literature, to form skills and abilities that implement professional competence related to the ability to participate in research work, with the desire for new things, the desire to work creatively, experiment.