Взаимодействие компаратив­ных конструкций и их элементов в современной русской прозе

Abstract

The article explores the interaction of comparative constructions in modern prose. The main objective of the study is to determine the types of interaction between metaphors and similes in the texts of modern Russian prose. The material of the study is the works of Buida, Vodolazkin, Ivanov, Ilichevsky, Matveeva, Pelevin, Rubina, Slavnikova, Sokolov, Sorokin, and Stepnova. The authors employed the methods of description, comparison and the struc­tural-semantic analysis and also took into account the semantic field organisation of lexical units. The article distinguishes between formal and semantic interaction of metaphors and similes. The most obvious manifestation of the formal interaction is the reversibility of tropes. Semantic interaction is based on the semantic coordination of elements of comparative con­structions based on predicate-actant relations or involves a combination of metaphors and similes in the text based on various relations between elements of the same semantic field. Along with the indicated types of interaction, the article describes cases of multiple images of one depicted object and representation of different objects in a unified figurative way. These cases are characterized as a special type of interaction of comparative tropes. The article high­lights the main source domains of interacting tropes. The most frequent semantic classes of metaphors and similes used in interaction contexts are anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and culinary images. In addition to them, mechanistic (including computer), scientific and theat­rical metaphors and similes have been identified. The article shows that the interaction of tropes can be intertextual in a literary text. It is concluded that modern Russian prose is characterized by the interaction of metaphors and similes of different types. This interaction is often associated with the presence of contrast, contextual synonymy, the ‘genus — species’ relation between images of comparative constructions in a text.