Lexical and semantic transformations in children's speech

The object of this study is the "Dictionary of modern children's language" edited by V.K. Kharchenko (4330 vocabulary units). The subject of this study is the units of children's speech (word forms) that coincide in phonetic design with normative ones, but have some deformations of lexical meaning. The research material consists of 167 dictionary entries. The result of the selection of linguistic units are innovations based on the following processes: expansion of meaning, narrowing of meaning, metaphorical transfer, metonymic transfer, antonymic substitutions, mixing of words of one thematic group. It is these innovations that correspond to the parameters set (and fundamental for the practical part of the work), namely: children's occasionalisms that have a deformation in the semantic aspect with full phonetic coincidence with a conventionally fixed word. The following methods were used in the work: analysis, comparison, interpretation of the results obtained. The main methods of analyzing the selected units were: comparison (the word in the occasional meaning of children's speech and the corresponding common word were compared) and seminal analysis (since comparison and description of identifying, differentiating and unifying semes form the basis of certain word connections). The novelty of the research lies in the creation of a classification of units of children's speech with lexical and semantic transformations based on the system connections of words. As a result of the study, the following results were obtained: 36% belong to the group "metaphorical transfer"; 38% belong to the group "thematic groups, synonymic series"; 32% belong to the group "generic relationships"; the rest (antonymic pairs, metonymy and paraphasia) – 6% of the total. The facts of violation of various systemic connections of words allow us to talk about unrealizable in "adult" speech, but potentially possible connections of lexical units. The hidden semantic valences are also evidenced by the bizarre associations that connect seemingly unrelated words in the child's mind. The system-functional approach, a look from the inside, allows us to talk about a different, but completely equal systematization of lexical units in relation to the "traditional" one.

ontolinguistics, children's language innovations, lexical-semantic transformations, lexicology, semantics, metaphorical transposition, thematic groups, synonymous series, generic connections, antonymous pairs