Syntactic blending in Nabokov's novel The Luzhin Defense

The article investigates the composition of the syntactic blends used in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Zashchita Luzhina [The Luzhin Defense], the conditions conducive to their formation, and also the stylistic effect created with their help. During the research, seventeen syntactic blends were checked for compliance with the structural scheme of overlap (AB + ab = A (B = a) b) or clipping (AB + ab = Ab or aB), a semantic analysis of the components of the blends to identify the conditions for their formation, and a stylistic analysis of the blends and the context surrounding them with the aim of establishing their role in creating the speech artistic form of the novel were made. Eleven of the syntactic blends used in the novel are formed by the method of overlap, and six by clipping of the original units. The conditions for syntactic overlap are the coincidence of the shape of the parts of the constructions with direct and indirect speech (e.g.: Bednyy, bednyy Dantes ne vozbuzhdal v nem uchastiya), the ambiguity of one of the components of the blend (e.g.: ona stala ryt'sya v sumke, muchitel'no ishcha v ney temu dlya razgovora i nakhodya tol 'ko slomannyy grebeshok), as well as creating a detailed metaphor. Syntactic clipping becomes possible when connecting parts of synonymous constructions with direct and indirect speech (e.g.: . . . dazhe moy Mit'ka govorit, chto u nas v Leningrade [A] lyabotayut, a v Belline bul'zui nichego ne delayut [b]) or the replacement of individual components of the narrator's speech with a synonym or a pronoun the character used (e.g.: Petrishchev umolyal vsekh ob"yasnit' yemu, pochemu [A] my znayem, chto oni ravnyayutsya dvumpryamym [b]). In Nabokov's novel, clipping can be accompanied by a rearrangement of the components of the original units, it can connect the distant parts of the text or even require the reader to recreate its missed parts using information obtained from the broad context preceding the blend. Single and plural overlapping and clipping are used in the novel in order to depict the situation from the point of view of one of the characters in the novel, to describe the relationship between the characters or to reflect their psychological state. Syntactic blending in the novel The Luzhin Defense is one of the means allowing to depict the loneliness of its hero with a high degree of artistic certainty, to demonstrate disharmony in his relations with the surrounding world and people, and is therefore one of the most adequate artistic ways of expressing the idea of duality in the novel.

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