On some peculiarities in the usage of lexical items belonging to the thematic group ‘photography’ (as represented in Russian magazines from 1839 to 1848)

In this article, using Russian periodicals of the time as the primary source of information, we try to track down the initial formation of the lexical thematic group ‘photography’ in Russian in 1839–1848, that is, in the first decade following the invention of the daguerreotype. Most Russian magazines and newspapers of the first half of the 19th century contained special sections and columns dedicated to the latest scientific discoveries and technical innovations, which allowed us to obtain plenty of source articles for research. Passing over the question of metaphorical uses already commonplace at the time, we focus on the set of lexemes denoting the process of taking photographical images and its participants. Due to the novelty of the invention, existence of competing technical processes, and absence of uniform and widespread Russian translational equivalents for the newly created French and English terms, the aforementioned set of lexical items is rich in various synonymic as well as hyper- and hyponymic internal relations between its elements. For instance, even such basic notions as camera, photographer, and positive or negative copies of image were expressed in somewhat random and inconsistent manner, not to mention more sophisticated and fine-grained details. Importantly, speaking of processes and participants therein, we do not imply that they must necessarily correspond to particular predicates or their respective arguments/adjuncts. In doing so, we only aim to describe the situation and its language-specific reflections as concisely as possible. Comparing the propositional forms characteristic of both photography and painting, we come to the conclusion that these forms are essentially the same (which is to some extent expectable). Therefore, where it is necessary to single out the lexical thematic group ‘photography’ from the earlier and larger group ‘visual art’, one should concentrate on a relatively limited set of lexical innovations, viz. primarily new stems (with quite a few derivatives) rather than on the structural differences between these closely related groups.