Russian adjectives with confixes from an anthropocentric viewpoint

Abstract

The article presented the attempt to cognize the semantics of Russian confixal adjectives expressed in terms of their mental representations, basic ones for a Russian language carrier. The relevance of the study is determined by the absence of these language units study in onomasiological and cognitive perspectives. First of all we are interested in the implementation of cognitive schemes using the word-forming language means serving the dichotomy "norm - deviation", i.e. indicating the norm of possession relevant for the Russian consciousness. Therefore, the adjectives produced by confixal models with the categorical semantics of absence, non-possession, the lack of a generating word were in the focus of our attention. The methodological basis of the study was made by a comprehensive approach to the analysis of derived units, implying the description of their lexical meaning taking into account their belonging to a part of speech and related grammatical parameters, the analysis of derivational structure and semantics, the motivational relations, the syntactic compatibility and the specificity of functioning in speech. The conceptual synthesis of the obtained results was carried out from the anthropocentric positions based on the key principles of modern linguistics. The article briefly describes the history of confixal adjective study in Russian philology, their general characteristics is given according to the specifics of provided mental representations. Besides, the theoretical positions regarding the implementation of language dichotomy "norm - deviation" as well as the basics of an adjective cognitive view as a part of speech. According to the analysis of lexical and derivational semantics of confixal attributes the authors proposed the conceptual model of Russian possession norm, the core of which is constituted by the standards of spiritual and moral content, and the periphery is presented by possession norms, characterizing the significant realities of the world for a man. The historical conditionality of a relevant norm of possession is marked and its dynamics is demonstrated by examples. The obtained results can be used during the preparation of associative experiments, the creation of conceptual schemes and hierarchies using the material attribute vocabulary, as well as at its further study from the anthropocentric point of view.