Some features of the semantic derivation of Russian adjectives in the second half of the XIX century (on the evidence of Chekhov’s letters)

The article proposes an analysis of derivational processes in the semantic structure of Russian adjectives in the second half of the XIX century. In modern linguistics, semantic derivation refers to semantic derivation relations taking place at both the level of synchronous polysemy, and in diachrony at different points of a word’s history. Semantic deviations represent divergence from the standard semantic development path within a single value. Their significance for historical and lexicological research is that they reveal the real semantic volume of words in the XIX century Russian and thus provide a glimpse of the socio-cultural and linguistic situation of the time. The article uses methods of comparative, component, and contextual analysis which allows using the classification of types of derivational semantic processes, developed in diachronic linguistics for analyses of the vocabulary of the XIX century Russian, to capture transformations of the denotative core of meaning and changes in the pragmatic component. A. P. Chekhov’s letters show that semantic changes in the period under review were most characteristic of relative adjectives. They are connected, first of all, with the denotative-significative component of meaning, while connotative (negative-evaluative) semes were also formed within the new semes. One can observe shifts of a metaphorical or figurative-associative nature in the meaning of most adjectives. Semantic derivation in some cases relies on word formation: the stimulus for changing the semantics of a derived word could be the formation of a figurative meaning in the generating word. A comparative analysis of Chekhov’s letters vs. other sources allows identifying the semantic derivational models that found their way into Russian in the XIX century as devices for creating new words (lexical-semantic variants); at first they had only limited or author-specific use to later penetrate into the standard (literary) Russian. Thus, sukonnyy ‘made of woolen cloth’ came to mean ‘heavy, clumsy, expressionless (about language)’; words meaning ‘superficially nice’ like pryanichnyy ‘made of gingerbread’ came to mean ‘false, sugary, showy’; teatral’nyy ‘theatrical’ got a figurative meaning ‘false’; words denoting ‘handicraft production or handicraft worker’ like kustarnyy ‘hand-crafted’ or sapozhnik ‘cobbler’ came to mean ‘shoddy, makeshift, amateurish’. Many Chekhov’s letters contain reflection on the essence of artistic creativity, literary styles, or performance art, which makes his epistolary discourse of special value for analyses of relevant vocabulary segments.