Linguistic modelling of “irreality” perception in Viktor Pelevin's Generation P (a visual aspect)

The aim of the article is to consider linguistic features of modelling of a visual perception situation in Viktor Pelevin's novel Generation P and its role in the formation of ontologic ideas about reality in the semantic evolution of the text. The linguistic analysis of propositions with visual perception semantics is carried out on the semantic syntax basic according to which the situation of perception is presented by a two-actant proposition including the predicate, the subject and the object of perception. The material for analysis was a fragment of the novel Generation P (chapter “The Babylonian Stamp”) in which specific ontologic ideas are formed on the basis of visual perception of irreal events. When representing visual perception of an irreal event, the author uses various ways of representation of the subject: explicit (by a personal pronoun or a proper name) or implicit (when the situation is modelled by the “story-teller's eyes”). The verbal predication structure is closely connected with the degree of the subject's expressiveness. In the analysed fragment, several types of predicates are used, among which there are verbs of the nuclear group of visual perception: to see, look; verbal combinations with nouns as a dependent component: to cast a glance, to raise one's eyes, to look in the eyes; impersonal predicates: to be in sight, it was impossible to see clearly. The research has shown that in spite of the main role of predicates in the representation of a perception situation perception objects possessing non-standard characteristics become a reason of a semantic structure transformation. At the language level, objects are described by a large number of single adjectives and participial phrases that allow to present what was seen visually. The subject perceives both single objects and whole situations, which is expressed by a large number of complement clauses with the conjunction that at the syntactic level. In this case the statement becomes polyproposi-tional. The analysis of the material showed that the specificity of linguistic representation of the main components of a visual percep- 27 tion proposition leads to the emergence of deviations from ontologic norms which at the language level consist in the use of personification of the phenomena of inanimate nature (fire) and also in the violation of lexical compatibility between a predicate and actants, a predicate and a locative. Thus, the considered lexical and syntactic means of expressing perceptual semantics indicate the universality of the model of visual perception in the Russian language consciousness, on the one hand, and “contextual accretions” that form Pelevin's individual style, on the other. It is concluded that the formation of ontologic semantics is an essential element of the author's strategy of describing irreal events that obliterate distinctions between the external world and the consciousness of the characters of the novel.

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