PECULIARITIES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLYSEMY IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH (ON THE MATERIAL OF THE MOST FREQUENT SUBSTANTIVE AND VERBAL LEXEMES)

Abstract

Problem statement. The paper considers the peculiarities of the development of polysemy of 200 Russian (100 substantive and 100 verbal) and 200 English (100 substantive and 100 verbal) most frequent lexemes taken from the Frequency Dictionary of S.A. Sharov and the lists of frequency nouns and verbs of the British National Corpus. The development of polysemy in Russian and English is considered from the point of view of the integral theory of polysemy, according to which polysemy exists at two levels: lexical and lexico-grammatical (part-of-speech) in the form of lexical and lexico-grammatical polysemy. The latter exists in two types: lexico-grammatical polysemy proper and lexico-grammatical variation. Results. With the help of the comparative-parametric method of linguistic research developed by the Voronezh Theoretical and Linguistic School, the peculiarities of the development of lexical and lexical-grammatical polysemy in the compared languages are described. Lexical polysemy is considered from the point of view of the average sememic volume of semanthemes, as well as the development of denotative and connotative polysemy. Lexico-grammatical polysemy is considered from the point of view of the development of lexico-grammatical polysemy proper, as well as lexico-grammatical variation. The parts of speech at the level of which the development of lexico-grammatical derivation occurs in both languages are determined. The description is carried out in groups, depending on the volume of their semanthemes. Small-seme, multi-seme, hyper-seme and super-hyper-seme Russian and English substantive and verbal lexemes are studied. Conclusion. On the basis of the integral index of national-specific peculiarities and the scale of the degree of manifestation of national-specific peculiarities developed within the framework of the comparative-parametric method of linguistic research, it was found that in terms of lexical polysemy, national differences can be recognized as noticeable, while in terms of lexical-grammatical polysemy, they are bright.