The motivational structure of the subfield “Evil Eye, Jinx” of the lexical-semantic field “Harm” in the dialects of the Russian language

The article discusses the vocabulary of negative pragmatic evaluation with the meaning ‘evil eye, jinx’ from the point of view of its semantic-motivational structure. The research was carried out on the material collected by the method of continuous samples from the dictionary of Russian folk dialects (more than seven hundred lexical units). Basically, this is lexicon which has no correspondences in the literary language with the exception of the lexemes sglaz [evil eye], sglazit’ [to hoodoo], porcha [jinx], portit’ [to jinx] and their derivatives. After the analysis of the semantic structure and the identification of the motivational feature, the studied lexical units were separated into three main nomination models. The first model - “evil eye, jinx ^ (to make) unfit, sick with a look (evil eye)” - is represented by derivatives from the roots glaz- [eye], glyad- [look], -zor- [see, watch], zep- [eye] (cf. sglaz [evil eye], sglazit’ [to hoodoo], poglyadka [evil eye], pereglyanut’ [to bring misfortune], prizor [injury], oprizorit’ [to hoodoo], ozep [evil eye], ozepat’ [to jinx by evil thoughts], sozepit’ [to hoodoo]; izzevat’ [to hoodoo], ozev [evil eye] with the original meaning ‘to watch with an open mouth’, obokhat’ [to hoodoo], podivit’sya [to hoodoo] and the original meaning ‘look with a surprise, a sigh’, etc.). The second model - “evil eye, jinx ^ (make) unfit, sick by word, hex, conspiracy” - is mainly expressed by derivatives from the roots rek- [speech], rok- [speech], govor- [talk], zyk- [tongue], -sud- [discussion], etc. (vrek [evil eye], urekat’ [to do harm], urok [jinx], urochit’ [to jinx by unkind, envious eyes], izurochit’ [to jinx by witchcraft, evil eye], otgovor [cause of disease and damage], ogo-vorit’ [to do harm by word], ozykat’ [to hoodoo],peresud [evil eye], etc.). The third model - “evil eye, damage ^ (make) unfit, sick by a special action (ritual), a mental message” - is represented by words with the meaning ‘to spoil (health, psyche) by the power of witchcraft’. This action is expressed by verbs with generalizing semantics and their derivatives (sdelat’ [to do harm],popritchit’ [to inflict harm], nasazhivat’ [to send harm], pokhitit’ [to do harm], poteryat’ [to unleash harm], pogadit’ [to make unfit], podumka [thinking of harm], etc.). The analysis shows that most of the dialectal units reflect the traditional culture representatives’ faith in the effective, magical power of eyesight/look, speech/word, mental message, some actions interpreted as being able to harm the addressee, as a particular ritual-sorcery. Lexemes with the historical meaning ‘speak/speech’ (urochit’ [to jinx by unkind, envious eyes], etc.) have lost their connection with the original concept; and the meanings ‘hoodoo/evil eye’ and ‘do harm’, including in verbs with the broad semantics of action, are generalizing, ‘generic’.

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