Relative adjectives in Old Russian: formation of the system

The paper deals with the processes taking place in the group of relative adjectives at the period of initial formation of the Russian literary language. The research is based on the database of historical dictionaries and card-files. In the article the author's position about the disputable questions connected with the relative adjectives studying (problems of adjectives division into lexical-grammatical groups, the meaning of relative adjectives and their lexicographical representation) is given. The main part of the article is devoted to the description of the processes of quantity increasing of relative adjectives and formation of their typified semantics in the Russian of the 16th and 17th centuries; the functioning of relative adjectives in collocations and phraseology and their interference with the adjectives of other lexical-grammatical groups in the context of new categorial semantics development are also analyzed. The research shows that the number of relative adjectives in texts (first of all, in these of business and everyday spoken types of language) and the actual fund of these words increase. A lot of new, unknown before, words and new thematic groups occur. The majority of relative adjectives are created by means of Russian derivation, also including active word-formation from the borrowed bases. Loanwords among adjectives are very rare. The use of relative adjectives during this period is complicated by a wide synonymy, often identity, of single-root lexemes. The semantics of relative adjectives during this period is enriched with various shades, extended and typified. Typified semantics forms gradually, due to the frequent use of the words of the same derivative type in similar contexts. Non-standard, unique meanings of relative adjectives can be seen at the background of this typified semantics. Relative adjectives actively function in collocations and phraseology, first of all in composite nominations which are used as nomenclature names of objects. Collocations with relative adjectives reflect a feature set, essential to the perception during a certain historical period. In the Russian of the 16th and 17th centuries relative adjectives show very close connection and often no differentiation of semantics with possessive adjectives. Transition of relative adjectives into qualitative (and, furthermore, the inverse process) in the Old Russian language is much less active than in modern Russian. Except for the formation of color names on the basis of relative adjectives, the language of the 16th and 17th centuries does not show regular polysemy in the development of new categorical semantics of relative adjectives, these ways are only outlined. Thus, the current language picture and many dynamic processes in the sphere of Russian relative adjectives go back to the period of the language of the Moscow Russia of the 16th and 17th centuries, at this period the system of relative adjectives in Russian is formed, the role of relative adjectives in the sentence and generally in the system of language grows.

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