Object Combinability as a Means of Semantics Actualization of the Deictic Verb Чувствовать (To Feel)

Abstract

The article is devoted to a peculiar linguistic phenomenon – polyfunctional deictic verbs in the Russian language, one of which – the lexeme чувствовать (to feel) – is the object of this study. The purpose of this study is to determine the functional correspondence between situations described in a statement and the semantics of the lexical means that effectuate the object valency of the verb чувствовать. This goal is achieved through a contextual analysis of the corresponding text fragments available in the Russian National Corpus. A quantitative method is used to define the main lexico-semantic variant of this verb. We performed a semantic classification of the object expanders of the verb to summarize the observations on the ability of every one of its lexico-semantic variants to combine with the vocabulary of certain semantic categories. The conclusions are the following: the deictic nature of the verb чувствовать allows it to combine in an extensive and free way with nouns of various semantic groups that effectuate its object valency; this verb is polyfunctional as it is used to describe situations of various states (emotional, physical, subjective-mental) and to define some types of sensory perception and the capability of aesthetic perception. The experience of our study can serve as an example of an analysis of a row of analogous deictic verbs such as ощущать (to sense), испытывать (to experience), воспринимать (to perceive), понимать (to understand) etc.