Means of representing quantitative semantics in the Kabardian language (based on the analysis of the language of Kh. Kh. Kashirgov)

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to identify the features of representing quantitative semantics in the language of literary works by the Kabardian writer Kh. Kh. Kashirgov. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, for the first time, the idiostyle of Khapacha Kashirgov, one of the leading prose writers in Adyghe literature, is examined from the perspective of how the features of conveying quantitativeness are realized within it. Lexemes, as well as free and bound word combinations through which the author explicates the semantics of scantiness and insignificance, are analyzed; models with evaluative semantics characterizing an individual’s financial status are identified. Special attention is paid to the means of expressing undesirable (negatively evaluated) repeatability. In addition, models providing quantitative characteristics of phenomena perceived by various sense organs are clearly distinguished in the language of the analyzed works. It was established that the semantics of a meager quantity is conveyed by a range of borrowed and native lexemes. The obtained results showed that the semantics of the insignificance of an action’s manifestation is realized through a complex of affixes. The qualitative adjective “фIы” (“good”) in the Adyghe linguistic picture of the world realizes quantitative semantics and can be combined with markers of a small quantity. The combination of antonymic quantitative indicators (much/little) in a single expression leads to the emergence of a derivative nuance of quantitativeness evaluated by the speaker as a sufficient, average norm of something.