The Intentional Semantic Shift Gradable → Non-Gradable as a Means of Creating Ambiguity and Implication in a Literary Text

The aim of this research is to study the intentional semantic shift as a means of creating and conveying new meanings. The intentional semantic shift is seen here as a functioning of a grammar category in the functioning sphere of another grammatical category, which may be viewed as a grammatical metaphor. The object under study is the intentional semantic shift in the grammar category of graduality, i.e. the ability of a quality, a process or a state to be gradable. The material for the research is structures with the intentional use of non-gradable adjectives, adverbs, verbs and also nouns, numerals and pronouns as gradable, as used by modern English-speaking writers. Viewing the intentional semantic shift as the process of conceptual integration of grammar categories helps to explain its mechanism and the origin of new concepts and meanings. This methodology appears to be new and effective, and may be employed in the study of other grammar categories. The topicality of the present research is seen as an attempt to analyze the dialectics of language categories interaction, as exemplified by the category of gradable → non-gradable, as the result of the conceptual integration. The importance of this article also lies in systematizing the principles of creating and conveying additional non-grammatical meanings. The article opens the prospects for studying the intentional semantic shift gradable → non-gradable in other languages to discover the differences and the common laws of language creativity. The analysis of the intentional semantic shift gradable → non-gradable in different non-gradable parts of speech demonstrates that such inherently non-gradable characteristics and states as ‘existence', ‘marital state', ‘termina-tion'/‘death', names of people, places and nationalities, and time periods can be made deliberately gradable. These intentional semantic shift structures are, as a rule, expressive and convey additional meanings, being often emotional and evaluative, and focusing the reader's attention on a particular characteristic. Their degree of expressiveness depends on the gradual scale type and the semantics of the non-gradable characteristic/state being viewed as gradable.

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