No 5 (2023)

The article substantiates the introduction of pragmatic category of person to describe the functioning of personal names. The first person is used for self-representation, the second person for addressing, whereas the third one is connected to all other uses, which are conventionally designated as referential. The category of person is a certain pragmatic position in an utterance associated with a speaker, an addressee, or with something / someone that is neither one nor the other. The article proposes that it is the second person (addressing) that can be considered a strong position in which the maximum set of options is possible. There are certain restrictions for the first and third person, for example, it is not recommended to use affectionate and other emotional variants of names: Andryushechka, Sashulenka, Verunchik, etc. The emphasis on the second person is explained by the fact that addressing is a communicative point at which relations are established between the interlocutors: the speaker offers them, and the addressee can correct them. Options that tend to be used exclusively in the second person should be classified as colloquial speech. Thus, the use of the category of person for personal names makes it possible to conveniently formulate the rules for choosing a variant of a name, along with a meaningful interpretation.

The article is devoted to the diachronic approach of the comparative construction “like dirt” in the modern Russian language. The construction is included, on the one hand, into the group of idioms indicating the large number of objects, and, on the other hand (because of its central component), into the lexical field “dirt” with its negative connotations. The analysis of the frequency and compatibility of the construction in the National Corpus of the Russian Language (RNC) demonstrates its history and development. The first fixation of the structure is at the end of the 19th century. In the 20th century, there were very few literary examples of use until the 90s. The compatibility of the construction was limited to the nomination of people and food. Some 20th century dictionaries mark the structure “like dirt” as regional. However, since 1990, apparently due to freedom from censorship, there has been a significant increase in the use of the structure, as well as an expansion of its compatibility. The peak of the usage falls on the first decade of the 21st century, and after that, we can observe its frequency gradually drop.

The article is based on the oral speech of Russian peasants, recorded on the territory along the middle course of the river Ob (Tomsk and Kemerovo regions) for 75 years. The main source of the study is a thematically annotated dialect corpus, which includes 2 million tokens. In the course of study I have analysed 128 text fragments related to the topic “Documents”. Based on the analysis of dictionary definitions, I identified the components of the “Document” concept: ‘something related to public or service activities’; ‘something new’; ‘enforces rights’; ‘can serve as proof of something’. In the figurative layer of the concept, manifested in the inner form of words, its core features are fixed: materiality, connection with the spheres of education, state, and interpersonal relations. At the same time, already at this level, there is a connection with feelings and evaluation. It has been established that the central cognitive feature of the “Document” concept is its novelty, which is associated with such associative features as ‘a document is something incomprehensible’, ‘a document can serve as a means of deception’. The last of them probably reflects the specifics of folk speech culture. The value layer of the concept, manifested in the discourse of rural residents, combines positive (a document as a recognition of a person's merits, a source of pride, a museum exhibit) and negative (a document as something useless) evaluative components. It has been established that the semantic components ‘document fixes the true state of affairs’, ‘document fixes rights’ in dialect discourse are updated infrequently, although they occupy a central position in the dictionary representation of the concept.

One of the distinguishing features of the legacy of N. V. Gogol is the breadth and versatility of his linguistic arsenal. It is well known that Gogol as a writer enriched the Russian language by introducing Ukrainian words and phrases into it. One of the keys to understanding the concept of “Dead Souls” (1842) is the name of the protagonist of the poem, Chichikov. In the article, the Ukrainian word “chichik” is indicated as the most likely source of the hero’s name, which is found in Gogol’s handwritten collection “The Book of All sorts of Things, or the Handy Encyclopedia” (1826–1830). The word “chichik” means ‘a predatory, thievish’ cat. There exists folklore and historical-literary context corresponding to this meaning, including an extensive set of word usages associated with references to ‘wild cats’ (lions, tigers) in a number of Gogol's works. Unexpected at first glance, the ‘Ukrainian’ origin of the name of the protagonist of “Dead Souls” finds confirmation in the analysis of Gogol's satire features, equally directed both at representatives of central and northern Russia, and at the inhabitants and natives of South Russia. An appeal to the folklore materials of Gogol's “Book of all sorts of things...”, to the historiosophical studies of the writer allows us to expand the usual ideas about his poetics and to identify new reminiscences of the artistic images of Gogol's works.

Nozdryov in the “Dead Souls” by Nikolai V. Gogol boasted of his unusual horses with light-blue or pink equine coat color. Were these animals mythical? Did they inhabit Russia? This paper deals with the issue of so-called blue horses. The commenting on this passage in the Gogol’s “Dead Souls” requires an appeal to linguistic aspects of the literary text. Color terms among Slavs (and specifically in the Old Russian and Russian languages) have been actively studied by many scientists, but the reconstructed picture is still not quite detailed. Besides, the vocabulary of hippology in the Slavic languages is very ancient, with its own characteristics and difficult to study. The texts created by practicing horse breeders and owners make it possible to clarify the conclusions of the linguists. The so-called “goluboy” (light-blue) equine coat color has been known in Russia for a long time. “Light-blue horses” were first mentioned in the Novgorod birch bark of the 13th century. Now such equine coat color is called “myshastaya” (mousey, like a mouse). The term “goluboy” (“light-blue”) could previously be understood as gray. The coat color of “light-blue” (mousey) horses is ash-gray, with a black mane, tail, and legs. These horses were highly valued. However, Gogol's hero Nozdryov could mean unprecedented, extraordinary light-blue (sky-blue) animals, in accordance with the contemporary understanding of this color, given that he was boasting.