National Corpus Research Articles

Verbs of the Emotional States of Shame and Embarrassment in Russian: A Diachronic Aspect

This article is devoted to the description of verbs of the emotional states of shame, embarrassment, and shyness in the diachronic aspect. The relevance of the research is due to the need to expand knowledge about the dynamic changes in the vocabulary of emotions, and the impact of cultural and political transformations on these changes. Although semantic differences in Russian expressions for shame-like emotional states have been well studied, diachronic changes in the meanings of these expressions have received little attention. The scholarly novelty of this work is determined by the fact that it examines the diachronic development of the verbs for these emotional states, which occurred in the Russian language in the eleventh–twenty-first centuries, and the factors that caused these changes. The data have been collected from explanatory dictionaries of the modern Russian language, etymological dictionaries, and historical dictionaries of different ages and coverage, as well as the National Russian electronic corpora. The material for the study was data from explanatory dictionaries of the modern Russian language, historical, and etymological dictionaries of the Russian language, as well as data from the National Corpus of the Russian language. The theoretical basis of this research was formed by works in the field of the linguistics of emotions and linguistic culture. The main research methods were the contextual-functional method, as well as etymological analysis. This study demonstrates that in the process of the semantic development of the verbs of shame and embarrassment in the Russian language, both general tendencies towards a decrease in the polysemy of semantically overloaded linguistic structures and tendencies towards a more accurate and precise labelling of various aspects of emotional states play an important role. It is shown that during the semantic development of words denoting shame and embarrassment, the polysemy “to be shameful” / “to feel shame” was gradually lost and the polysemy “to be ashamed” / “to be embarrassed” decreased in use. The article also describes the main patterns of semantic derivation that are typical of verbs of shame and embarrassment, which appear in the Russian language of different centuries.

WAYS OF TRANSMISSION OF ETHNOCULTURAL UNITS IN THE CORPUS

The paper substantiates the need to include in the national corpus of the Kazakh language the names of material culture in the system of ethnocultural units of the Kazakh language through their description, as well as the need for their marking in the corpus.Ethnocultural units are linguistic symbols with a large cumulative function, reflecting the national identity of the Kazakh language, preserving the language, traditions, worldview, and spiritual world of the nation. Therefore, the language is supported by national culture.Currently, intensive language study is being conducted in an anthropocentric direction. In this regard, the deepening and expansion of the process in this direction are determined by the relevance of the assembly of national buildings. The national corpus of the Kazakh language is a modern innovative and informational tool that serves as a guardian of such national cultural units in a broad way, a carrier of them for generations.The research paper describes the ways of introducing ethnocultural units into the National Corpus of the Kazakh language: coding, modeling, and using algorithmic and programmatic approaches when introducing ethnocultural units into the National Corpus. First of all, collecting ethnocultural units that are the basis for creating the corpus base, determining their cultural and semantic groups and compiling a list of words related to this the group. Transfer each of them to professional programmers only after applying the markup code. Programmers must work on a certain algorithm and carry out further processing. Works to be done in the future are considered as well.The research work is dedicated to the consideration of the issues of inclusion in the corpus of the Kazakh language of markings defined based on the National corpus of the Kazakh language (morphological, word-formation, semantic, lexical, phonetic, and phonological markings) as cultural and semantic markings.

Connotative-Evaluative Transformations of Adjective ‘Patriotic’: Linguistic Embodiment of Concept PATRIOTISM in Russian

The value components of the concept PATRIOTISM are studied. The immediate focus of the proposed research is the connotativeevaluative transformations of the adjective ‘patriotic’ in representative contexts. The technique of discursive corpus analysis was used. The material for the study is the lexicographic interpretations of the word ‘patriotic’, presented in a number of Russian explanatory dictionaries, as well as the language data of the Russian National Corpus. It is shown that the implicit positive appraisal for the word ‘patriotic’ is naturally generated by its general language semantics ʽimbued with patriotism, filled with patriotismʼ, ʽexpressing a feeling of patriotismʼ, etc., as a result of which positive-evaluative connotations ʽhaving value significance for the speakerʼ are implied; ʽcorresponding to national ideals and valuesʼ; ʽtrue, correct, the one that should beʼ. The analyzed material confirmed the relevance for the speech implementation of the word ‘patriotic’ models of negative evaluation in the usage of overly affected patriotism; external, ostentatious patriotism; false, imaginary, false patriotism; insufficient patriotism. The conclusion is made about the complexity of the ethnos “language of values” structure, about the ambiguity of certain phenomena linguistic evaluation of reality mechanisms in the speech practices of native speakers.

WAYS OF TRANSFERRING PARTIALLY WORD-FORMING AFFIXES IN THE NATIONAL CORPUS OF THE KAZAKH LANGUAGE

Creating a linguistic corpus that can automatically set the word-formation markings in the Kazakh language texts requires conducting word-formation analysis in a linguistic system in a clear formal system. The reason is that the computer distinguishes language units depending on the formal markings embedded in the memory. Therefore, in our research work, we have considered the issues of word formation and described the ways of word-formation affixes transfer in the National Corpus of the Kazakh language. Our research work aims to create a linguistic basis for the inclusion of word-formation markers in the corpus of the Kazakh language. The scientific and practical significance of the work is that the linguistic markup will be introduced and implemented in the creation of the National Corpus of the Kazakh language. A brief description of the research methodology: in our research work we have used the descriptive method in reviewing the problems of word formation, word-formation markers, method of analysis, and systematization in determining the functions of affixes that perform partially word-formation functions. Main results and analysis, results of research work: To create linguistic corpora that can automatically put word-formation markings on texts in the Kazakh language, we have taken steps to translate word-formation analyses into a clear formal system, revealed word-formation functions of functional affixes (-лық/-лік, -дай/-дей, -ша/-ше, -сыз/-сіз, - лы/-лі, -ғы/-гі) that do not fully meet the requirements of word-formation. The value of the study: the results obtained in preparing the development of wordformation markers in the Kazakh language, contribute to the addition and development of theoretical problems in the areas of word-formation, morphology, and corpus linguistics of the Kazakh language. The practical importance of the results of the research work: they can be used in lectures and seminars which are held in higher educational institutions on the following subjects: "Modern Kazakh Language", "Word-Formation", "Corpus Linguistics", "Computer Linguistics".

Phenomenon and Concept of EMANCIPATION

The study of the conceptual sphere is a field of linguistics which is closely related to the study of culture, the mentality of a particular linguistic personality or society of a certain epoch, the people as a carrier of mentality. Research in this area is important not only in synchrony, but also in diachrony, due to the historical variability of cultural codes, the volume and content of language resources as the means of representation of concepts, the evolution of the social substratum of language in the developing world. This determines the relevance of addressing the phenomenon of emancipation, since it is associated with shifts in social (primarily legal) relations of various kinds, in culture, rightly regarded by science as having humanitarian value. The aim of the study is to characterize from a linguistic point of view the content features of the concept of EMANCIPATION, which are determined by social trends, the passionarity of the epoch, the intentions of individuals evaluating the phenomenon, taking into account the noticeable stability of the core of Abstract semantics of its most important representative - the word emancipation. The research is carried out from anthropocentric positions, in synchronous-diachronic terms, using a set of methods: descriptiveanalytical, elements of component analysis, comparative analysis, synthesis, methods of cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistic (survey). The main material was the data of the National Corpus of the Russian Language (Ruscorpora), namely, the contexts of a sample of documents presented in it from different eras with the word emancipation in various grammatical forms. The research has shown that the word emancipation in the Russian conceptual sphere is consistently represented primarily by the concept, the semantic dominant of which is formed by ‘woman’ ( the phenomenon of women’s emancipation, female emancipation ), so that we can talk about its prominence in the Russian culture with this name: EMANCIPATION. Artistic and journalistic works of Russian writers, including “women’s prose”, contributed to the isulation of this concept. The word emancipation, used with other pragmatic attitudes, performs the function of one of the verbalizers of the concepts of related spheres: INDEPENDENCE, FREEDOM of CREATIVITY. The practical application of this material can be associated with its use in university linguistic courses, in the study of terminology, in lexicography, in literary studies, in explaining the scope of the term emancipation in the official business style, modern legal discourse.

Sebe and vpolne sebe: semantics, pragmatics, functions

Linguists are particularly interested in observing lexical units, reflecting the picture of the world of a modern person. It allows to visually study fashionable words and expressions as indicators of the linguistic taste of the era. The relevance of the research is due to the need to study the trends in using colloquial lexical units as markers of cognitive and social development of personality at the present stage. The aim is to characterize the functions and pragmasemantic meanings of the particle sebe (to oneself) and the set expression vpolne sebe (quite) in modern Russian linguistic culture. The material was taken from the explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language and examples from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. The author used the methods of continuous sampling, contextual and interpretive analysis, elements of quantitative analysis, and semantic analysis of dictionary definitions. It was found that quite often the freedom and independence of actions of the statement protagonist, conveyed by this particle, his autonomy and sovereignty receive negative assessment of the subject of speech: they are considered as indifference to others, disregard for ethical norms and norms of social life and they are condemned, and this assessment is emphasized by the presence in the statement of the particle sebe (oneself). It was determined that the increase in the activity of the particle sebe (oneself) in modern speech is associated with changes in the modal type of the Russian personality. The semantic core, which focuses the basic meanings of the set expression vpolne sebe (quite), is concentrated in the lexeme vpolne (quite), while pragmatic meanings remain in the particle sebe (oneself). The author revealed that the main communicative purpose of the expression vpolne sebe (quite) is the function of taking off the responsibility for the statement's content, singling out the object of speech and identifying the speaker with the social group which is elite in his perception. Being a fashionable expression, the phrase is nowadays actively used in Runet, penetrates into public speech, reaches the peak of its popularity and then may give way to new indicators of linguistic fashion.

Speech acts and Russian text-generating discourse

The relevance of the study is determined by the hidden turbulence of such concepts often used in Russian studies as “speech activity”, “speech acts” and “discourse”. The aim of the work is to determine the genetic connections of this trinity and the functional purpose of each of the categories under consideration. The main research means is the authors’ method of discursive-modus analysis of artistic speech. The research materials were dictionary definitions from explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language, in particular from “Dictionary of expressive stable phrases of the Russian language” compiled by V.Ju. Melikyan, as well as utterances extracted from the Russian National Corpus. The authors found that the communicative-speech act is a synergistic combination of mental-psychic and speech activity. Mental-psychic activity involves mental acts - the thought processes of the communicant at the moment of his locative readiness to make a statement and psychic activity of searching for adequate ways to reflect a communicatively significant event in the discursive consciousness of the communicants. Mental-psychic activity encodes and decodes the semantic content of the author's intentions with the help of the means of the language system. Speech activity produces speech acts - functional units of speech communication embodying a purposeful speech action. In conclusion, the categorical essence of the speech act and discourse are generalized. The perspective of the research is the development of a cognitive-pragmatic theory of speech-thinking activity based on the material of the Russian language.

Lexico-Semantic Macrofield “Homeland” in Modern Russian (On the Material of the National Corpus of the Russian Language)

The lexical-semantic macrofield homeland is based on semantic origins, which are the components of the dictionary definitions. The lexeme homeland is a polysemy, which indicates its wide semantic range and productive use. The boundaries of the lexical-semantic macro-field under study are conditional and united on the basis of semantic combinations of the terms “fatherland”, “country”, “birthplace”, “origin”, “birth / origin” (of someone or something). Lexical units of the field “homeland” are distributed on the principle “core – periphery”: lexical-semantic groups with synonymic and antonymic series organize core (subject lexical-grammatical groups), near-core (procedural lexical-grammatical groups) and peripheral (attribute lexical-grammatical groups) zones of lexical-semantic field. Syntagmatic relations between lexical units of the lexical-semantic macrofield “homeland” are built according to three basic models (“adjective name + homeland”, “homeland + noun in the genitive case”, “verb + homeland”) and are distributed in thematic groups.

Axiology of power in the Russian language and culture

The relevance of linguocultural modeling of power is due to the high importance of this phenomenon in institutional and personal communication and the multidimensionality of its evaluative characteristics. The aim of the study is to identify and describe linguistically relevant norms of behavior encoded in the concept of “power”. The data from dictionaries and reference books, examples from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, poetic and prose texts in Russian were used as material for the analysis. Methods of semantic, contextual, interpretative and associative analysis were applied. It has been established that power in the conceptual plane represents coercion and includes: (1) the condition (force, authority, tradition or law); (2) struggle for getting and keeping power; (3) manifestation of power (persons or organizations vested with power, the sphere of power application and the degree of coercion); (4) power assessment (fair/unfair, cruel/merciful, effective/ineffective). In figurative terms, the situational characteristics of power manifestation, verbalized in texts and reactions of the informants, were highlighted. The conceptualization of power is discursively specific. The authors revealed that the most vivid situational characteristics of power implementation in relation to its representatives are noted in journalistic texts. In fiction texts (mainly in poetry), power is shown as an irresistible force. In evaluative terms, it is possible to identify norms of behavior associated with the understanding of power - its acceptance as the most important condition of social order and condemnation of excessive striving for power and its abuse. These norms expressed in proverbs, jokes and aphorisms largely coincide, differing in that proverbs recommend to stay away from power, jokes sharply criticize corruption in power, aphorisms give a holistic picture of the proper behavior of the power holders and their subordinates. Prospects for the study consist in defining linguistically relevant personal typological evaluations of power.

Emotiveness and Emotive Valence of Language Units

In modern linguistics, attention is paid to the study of the national and cultural content of the activity of emotional vocabulary. This is especially important in understanding the semantic nature of language units. However, considering such lexical units from the point of view of their combined ability and synctaxic function allows us to achieve more results. Therefore, in this article, emotive words are studied in the aspect of semasiology and communicative linguistics. The purpose of the article is to study the valence of emotive words, their linguistic justification and reveal their communicative essence. It is planned to show that language units in an emotive combination are able to carry out their emotional activities by communicating with other units. It is known that this emotive valence further develops the idea of the regularity of emotional-expressive and expressive-stylistic harmony of language units in speech. In the article, the authors touched upon approaches to the study of emotional valence, considering the structural and functional aspects of emotional valence of a word. In particular, the types of emotive valence of a word and the mechanisms of opening valence abilities are analyzed. The object of research is the emotive components of word semantics. As a source, the main analytical materials were taken from the National Corpus of the Kazakh language, as well as fiction. In the course of the study, it was proved that an independent word is transformed into an emotive one in context or in combination with a word. The scientific conclusion that one of the main ways of emotiveness is Valence in Kazakh linguistics has not previously been properly analyzed and given in research. The small number of theoretical and practical works in the direction of studying the valence of a word indicates the relevance of this topic and the need to study emotive valence. In the course of the work, it was assumed that the emotiveness of any word is dynamic, that is, the emotional and semantic multiplicity of lexical units that occurs in accordance with the current, potential situation

Фреймовая структура концепта «успех» в русской лингвокультуре

The present article discusses the structure of the concept "success" using the method of frame analysis. The relevance of the topic is justified by the great popularity of success research in various sciences, such as philosophy, cultural studies, psychology and sociology. In linguistics, the study of success is also a promising study. Modern society aims at achieving success, scientific and journalistic literature presents various approaches to the definition of success, its importance in the life of society, as well as ways of achieving it. The article aims at studying and describing linguistic means of success in Russian, as well as at revealing the attitude to success in Russian speakers. The concept "success" is one of the significant in Russian linguistic culture and has a high frequency of verbalization in speech. The authors consider that success, as it is understood by modern people, originates from the national idea of the "American Dream", while highlighting the difference in the perception and verbalization of universal concepts. The concept, being a cognitive structure, is verbalized in frames, which was the choice of frame analysis as a research method. The article emphasizes the importance of acquiring frames in the process of life experience, which manifests itself in the reflection of language consciousness. Frame analysis resulted in the identification of eight sub-frames and fourteen slots, which formed the basis of the objectification of the concept "success". Thus, the review of etymological interpretations and the study of the material of the National Corpus of the Russian language allowed us to identify the differences between folklore and modern understanding of success.

Large-scale patterns of number use in spoken and written English.

This paper describes patterns of number use in spoken and written English and the main factors that contribute to these patterns. We analysed more than 1.7 million occurrences of numbers between 0 and a billion in the British National Corpus, including conversational speech, presentational speech (e.g., lectures, interviews), imaginative writing (e.g., fiction), and informative writing (e.g., academic books). We find that four main factors affect number frequency: (1)Magnitude- smaller numbers are more frequent than larger numbers; (2)Roundness- round numbers are more frequent than unround numbers of a comparable magnitude, and some round numbers are more frequent than others; (3) Cultural salience- culturally salient numbers (e.g., recent years) are more frequent than non-salient numbers; and (4) Register- more informational texts contain more numbers (in writing), types of numbers, decimals, and larger numbers than less informational texts. In writing, we find that the numbers 1-9 aremostly represented by number words (e.g., 'three'), 10-999,999 are mostly represented by numerals (e.g., '14'), and 1 million-1 billion are mostly represented by a mix of numerals and number words (e.g., '8 million'). Altogether, this study builds a detailed profile of number use in spoken and written English.

Музыкальное семиотическое пространство в современном художественном тексте (по материалам Национального корпуса русского языка)

The study is devoted to the analysis of the implementation of the music semiotic space in a modern literary text and is carried out on the basis of the Russian National Corpus, which records the works of fiction of the last two decades. The objectives of the study were to identify language units that represent the music semiotic space in a literary text; define their main functions; establish the symbolism of music in contemporary works of art. It is noted that the music semiotic space is closely connected with the culture of the society, it is an integral and important part of it, the basis for understanding what is happening in the semiotics of music. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the appeal to the units of music semiotic space as components of a literary text, important for the authors to translate cultural meanings, emotions, aesthetics, psychological characteristics of the heroes of the works. It was revealed that when the units of the music semiotic space perform informational and emotional functions, their semiotic significance is minimal, while their main functions in semiotic terms are aesthetic, expressive (emotional), psychological. Moreover, the image of a musical phenomenon is usually combined with a description of that strong impression (up to transformation of personality, feelings, behavior), which it has on the hero of the book. In addition, it is noted that the components of the semiotic music space actualize their symbolic, aesthetic, emotional functions when used in comparisons and metaphors, including conceptual ones. For the authors of modern works of art, it is important to depict the world as sounding, filled with music, which forms a common cultural space for the author and readers, indicates the unity of their cultural codes.

Discourse Analysis of the Semiotic Field of the Concept FAMILY: A Comparative Study of the Chinese and English Parallel Corpora (In Eng.)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the semiotic field of the concept FAMILY in the English and Chinese languages through the application of the methodology of critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. The article is based on the materials of the Chinese English Learners Corpus (CELC) and the combined materials of the BROWN and the written British National Corpus (BNC) for studying the vocabulary co-occurrence of the node word “family” from the point of view of collocation, colligation, semantic preference, and semantic prosody. The differences between Chinese and Western family cultures are revealed from the perspective of critical discourse analysis and the use of a horizontal combination of vocabulary relevant to the semiotic field of family. The study exemplifies the significant differences between Chinese learners and English native speakers in the choice and the use of core collocations in the minimal context of the family-related vocabulary. The conducted examination of the use of the node word “family” and its collocations in the Chinese English Learners Corpus compared to the combined English native speakers corpus in terms of semantic preference and semantic prosody demonstrates the most significant differences in understanding of the related concept as observed through the most common collocations. The article demonstrates the efficiency of the critical discourse analysis use in combination with the methods of corpus linguistics for the purpose of validation and verification of the conclusions regarding the content of the semiotic fields, as exemplified on the basis of the semiotic field of the concept FAMILY. Future research developments are seen in the possible extension of the corpus material base, including the materials on a wide variety of languages, for the purpose of further comparative analysis.

Functional idiosyncrasies of suggesting constructions in British English

This study aims to examine functional idiosyncrasies of seemingly synonymous constructions and explain their frequency distributions in different spoken registers. To this end, lexical and discoursal approaches in the corpus-based research of constructions are combined to investigate how significant collocates of three suggesting constructions – namely, let's, what/how about and why don't you/we – are contextually situated in British English. Constructional analyses of the spoken part of the British National Corpus show that the three suggesting constructions primarily perform different metadiscourse and directive functions. Based on these functional variations, the present study explains the distribution and usage of the three suggesting constructions across the five spoken registers.

On the subject of the subjunctive infinitive in Middle Russian and Modern Russian

The article explores the subject valency filling of the subjunctive infinitive in Middle Russian and Modern Russian. Our research is based on the handwritten collections of zagоvory dated the 17th and 18th centuries and the materials from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. Usually, both in the modern Russian language and in the Middle Russian period, the subjunctive infinitive was used with agent subjects, referring to creatures with will and consciences. This kind of restriction can be overcome only through personification, as a result of which the non-agent subject is reinterpreted as an agentive one. The restriction on the compatibility of the subjunctive infinitive with non-agent subjects follows from its grammatical semantics: in the Middle Russian language, this verb form expressed an imperative meaning that could be realized if the subject of the action had will and consciousness and was able to control the situation. Over time, the subjunctive infinitive has lost its imperative semantics and in Modern Russian is used in contexts with evaluative meanings. Its usage only with agentive subjects has been preserved as a result of the lost imperative semantics.

PRODUCTIVITY OF SELECTED SUFFIXES IN THE TERMS OF MATHEMATICS

The article deals with the analysis of mathematical terms, i.e. simple nouns. Complex terms are avoided in order to prepare a detailed lexico-grammatical analysis. The research examines the term formation within the word class of nouns. Origins of the English and Slovak terms are analysed, described and compared. Latin and Greek languages are languages of science for the English language. The original languages of terms in both languages. Furthemore, Slovak terminological equivalents are compared with the English ones in term preference the Latin/Greek term or the native term if exists. According to term formation processes, the following suffixes representing bound morphemes are analysed: -er, -or, -ion. The terms formed by affixation using the selected suffixes are compared with the Slovak counterparts in terminology of mathematics. Terms are analysed according to principles for term formation. The following principles should be followed in the formation of terms and appellations, as far as possible and as appropriate to the language: transparency; ⎯ consistency; ⎯ appropriateness, linguistic economy; ⎯ derivability and compoundability; ⎯ linguistic correctness; ⎯ preference for native language. Subject of analysis are terms taken from the Slovak National Corpus 10.0, i.e. English –Slovak Parallel Corpus 4.0 en, Slovak –English Parallel Corpus 4.0 sk and the British National Corpus. In the research, electronic corpora are applied. They use mathematical ad statistical methods to evaluate e.g. occurrence, frequency, collocability of words. The previous mentioned methods are taken into consideration and help to prepare the effective, precise and objective analysis of the planned analysis. The research is based on both languages and comparison of terms in both parts of the corpus. Specific trends and tendencies in the strategies of term formation are analysed. Descriptive method is used and the methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis are applied. Due to analysis of two languages, contrastive and comparative approaches are entailed. Terminology records of terms are examined from lexico-grammatical point of view and on the basis of term-formation tendencies in each analysed language. i.e. Slovak language and English language. Records include entry, identification number, reference to the term, synonyms, subject field, formula, abbreviation, context, reference to the context, definition, reference to the definition. 

Continuum of Fuzzy Emotions

The article deals with the current trends in the field of linguistic categorization of emotions. The emotional spectrum is much wider than the experiences that possess stable verbal explications. Fuzzy emotions include mixed, blended, complex, and other emotional experiences. They are primary, but they have never been subjected to independent linguistic research. This article focuses on the cultural particularities of emotions that reflect the ability of language consciousness to actualize the boundless emotional and semantic potential of the word to express the inner world. The research relied on the National Corpus of the Russian language to describe the process of creating emotional endoconcepts, i.e., emotional experiences that go beyond the traditional classification of emotive words. The authors believe that the controversial nature of the basic emotional paradigm is argued by the class of emotive words formed from basic emotions, e.g., sad emotions. Their dominant remains fuzzy, and only the evaluative meaning is clear. The approach that the linguistics of emotions adopts to categorize emotive words has a number of advantages because it takes into account the poly-ambivalence, discursivity, and flexibility of emotions that depend on the communicative situation.

Polyfunctional particles in spoken Russian: The case of čto li

This article examines the use of the Russian polyfunctional particle čto li in spoken language. Drawing on the Multimodal Subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, I analyzed a sample of occurrences of čto li to provide evidence of the variety of contexts in which it is used, i.e., interrogatives, declaratives, exhortatives, optatives and imperatives. Such an analysis has introduced new elements into the description of the particle that have not been identified in the literature so far. As a second aim, an explanation that could account for the polyfunctionality of čto li is put forward, relying on the notion of non-exclusion of factuality, as it was first theorized by Pietrandrea (2007, 2012). With the support of the data, it is demonstrated that čto li implicitly presents the constituent in its scope as just one of a set of mutually exclusive alternatives, thus reducing the commitment of the speaker to the utterance and entailing derived functions, such as the interlocutor's involvement in the process of meaning construction and meaning approximation.

The Syntaxeme 'pri tsare' (‘in tsarist time’) in the Meaning of ‘in Russia until 1917’ (according to the Russian National Corpus)

The article is devoted to the linguistic means, trought which native speakers of the Russian language structure their history, divide it into periods. Such means include, in particular, indications of significant events (before / after the Revolution) and the nature of state power: pri tsare (‘in tsarist time’), under the Soviet regime. The aim of the article is to describe the semantics, the pragmatics, the synonymic and antonymic relations of the syntaxeme pri tsare (‘in tsarist time’) in the temporal absolutive use (without the extension of the definition). This use of the syntaxeme emerges after 1917, before which the syntaxeme is used in the temporal sense only with specifying definitions such as pri tsare Petre (‘in the time of Peter 1’). The research material was found in the contexts borrowed from the main subcorpus of the Russian National corpus, the entire collection of samples consists of 964 contexts, 368 contexts are related to the temporal absolute use of the syntaxeme in questions. The analysis of contexts with the absolute temporal use of the syntaxeme allows us to identify the meaning 'in Russia before 1917' and several subtypes (shades of meaning): ‘under the tsarist regime’ (denotes a wide time range with a blurred lower border), ‘in the pre-revolutionary period’ (several decades, the reign of Nicholas II), ‘a very long time ago'. The article uses quantitative, functional-semantic, descriptive methods, uses the method of component analysis, and considers the dynamic aspect (analyzes the change in the meaning of syntaxeme during the last century). The relevance of the study is due to the fact that lexicographic sources cannot explain the peculiarities of the use of the nominations under consideration, therefore, a description of their semantics and pragmatics with а linguocultural commentary is required.