On the Semantic and Motivational Interpretation of Russian Dialectal Vocabulary with the Meaning of Disgust (посвирывать, кобзовать, скабежливый, etc.)

Abstract

This article employs the semantic and motivational aspects to study three Russian dialect words, namely Pskov and Tver Regions посви́рывать ‘to be picky, to disdain’, Kaluga Region ко́бзовать ‘to disdain’, Don, Volgograd, Ryazan, and Tambov Regions скабе́жливый ‘squeamish’. The choice to refer specifically to these linguistic facts is determined by the fact that some of the lexical units presented have not been previously discussed in literature, while, in the author’s opinion, some have controversial etymological solutions. The author states that the word посви́рывать has the root -вир-. Here, the idea of turning is recognised as a motivationally significant one since it reflects popular observations of the behaviour of a person who rejects something. Thus, the axiological assessment of squeamish behavior is fixed in the word’s inner form. The author connects the word ко́бзовать with кобызиться ‘to act arrogantly; to be stubborn, to be obstinate’, where быз indicates ‘a whiny, capricious child’. An assumption is made that a number of lexical units, such as Vologda Region бзли́вый ‘spoiled, capricious’, Perm Region скобы́чка ‘a quarreler and a mean person’, etc. belong to the same family. The author builds potential lines of their semantic and motivational development. The family includes designations of character traits (arrogance, boastfulness, foppery, cockiness, quick temper, cunningness) and human behaviour (such ideograms as ‘to cry’, ‘to frown’, ‘to be angry’, ‘to take offense’). The author hypothesises that the lexical unit скабежливый also refers to the family of the -быз- root. This conclusion is made based on phonetic variation in the root (скабе́зливый, скабы́зливый, скобызко́й) and the similarity in the development of meaning for all the lexical units studied (also, they share the semantics of arrogance, sensitivity, and tearfulness).