Compound adjectives in the Erzya language

Abstract

Introduction. The changes occurring in the modern world have an impact on the language, in particular, this results in an increased appearance of complex word forms. Regarding the Erzya language, this is also relevant, as in it stem-composition is the most productive way of building new words. There is a constant interest in compound adjectives in the academic world; they are studied based on the material derived from regional languages, in the comparative aspect, in terms of their functional and stylistic characteristics, syntactic analysis and inner structure. The purpose of the article is to study the ways of building complex adjectives, their spelling, functional and stylistic aspects. Materials and Methods. Compound adjectives in the Erzya language were examined on the material taken from the Erzya-Russian dictionary [Erzyan-Ruzon Valks = Erzya-Russian Dictionary 1993]. The following research methods were employed throughout study: induction (methods of observation, comparison, generalization and interpretation), quantitative calculations, component analysis. Results and Discussion. The article targets to study the mechanisms of word-building pertaining to compound adjectives, their spelling, functional and stylistic aspects. The Erzya-Russian dictionary entries showed that stem-composition in relation to adjectives is not the predominant way of word-building. In particular, there are very few adjectives of a subordinating type. Among compound adjectives of a coordinating type two groups were revealed: 1) adjectives built by the blending of two adjectives (among them, a stem-compound (complex word) formed by the blending of two descriptive adjectives and complex words made up of descriptive adjectives, denoting colors), 2) compound adjectives, built by the blending of two derivative adjectives (among them, compounds made up of two similar or identical in meaning adjectives and compound adjectives, formed as a result of repetition of derivative adjectives). Conclusion. Although the question of how to write complex words in the Erzya language remains disputable, in respect to compound adjectives the established tradition requires that compound adjectives of a subordinating type to be written in one word, compound adjectives of a coordinating type are hyphenated.