On the temporality and modality of the internal predicates of lexical meanings (on the material of personal names)

Abstract

The article examines the lexical semantics of personal names and the modality of "internal predicates of meaning" hidden in this semantics on the material of the modern Russian language. The study is relevant due to the insufficient knowledge of the modality of internal predicates of personal names. The article aims to identify and analyse the temporal and modal semantics of internal predicates of lexical meanings. The theoretical significance of the research is determined by the observational results the authors arrive at while studying the semantics and modality of the lexical meanings of personal names and their internal predicates in modern Russian. The article concludes: 1) direct and metonymical meanings of personal names in dictionary entries have "internal predicates" of real modality in their semantic structure although they are characterised by emotional-expressive modality to varying degrees; 2) implicit predicates of irrealis modality are inherent in metaphorical meanings; 3) functional names and relatives contain predicates of real modality in their semantics; 4) some personal names include predicates with perfective semantics; 5) a group of names designates a person by a visually observable actual action; 6) different meanings can include a predicate in different modal-temporal aspects in the semantic structure of a polysemantic word; 7) the semantic structure of one meaning may combine the perfective meaning of the predicate and the meaning of the usual present. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that it attempts to resolve the issues of correctness, ambiguity, or even nonstandardness of certain types of syntactic constructions. Such language structures include the analysed personal names with one or another modal-temporal characteristic of the internal predicate.