Russian dialectal adjective корыстный in view of the national picture of the world

The given article discusses the history of formation of meanings of appearance in thesemantic structure of the Russian dialectal adjective корыстный. This word characterizes human appearance in Russian folk dialectsfrom the parametric (lexico-semantic variants big, small and thin) and the aesthetic points of view (lexico-semantic variant nice).In the dialect system the given adjective, having a wide area of distribution, is used in a great number of meanings with the basicallyestimation character (useful, respected, successful, rich, envious, strong, etc.), including the meanings of general positive andnegative estimation. The analysis of words cognate to the adjective корыстный in the Russian language has shown that the semanticstructure of these lexemes does not contain meanings of appearance of the person. Having traced the history of the word корыстный inOld Russian, Russian and other East Slavic languages, the origin of the given lexeme, the author has revealed that the semantics of appearancehas not been presented in this material. In order to reveal the sources of formation of semantics of appearance and enantiosemyconcerning the meanings of the scope of the adjective корыстный, the material of all other Slavic languages has been analysed, whichshowed a homogeneous enough semantic field useful, favourable. Only in the Polish-Byelorussian area the semantics of general positiveestimation is observed. The meanings concerning appearance of the person are not presented in Slavic languages. Further a conclusionis made that the parametrical and evaluation characteristic of persons appearance by the adjective корыстный is obviously a secondary,later formation. Meanings nice and big evolve from the semantic transfer from the general positive meaning good, whichdeveloped from useful, favourable. Other minor positive meanings (respected, strong, etc.) developed from big, large and useful.General and minor meanings envious and living by dishonest labour in the semantic structure of the Russian dialect adjectiveкорыстный also traces back to useful, favourable: aiming at benefit, profit, using someone elses things > envious, living by dishonestlabour and bad as unprofitable, insalubrious. Individual lexico-semantic variant small (Novosibirsk), also goes back to thegeneral negative meaning. Meaning thin has developed from small, insignificant. A conclusion is made that the pragmatical estimationof the person by the Russian dialect adjective корыстный became the basis for its parametrical characteristic and aesthetic estimationof appearance.

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