Lexical synonymy within the semantic field POWER
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Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij
Abstract
The purpose of our paper is to clarify semantic differences in present-day usage between the words революция ‘revolution’, and переворот ‘revolution’, on the one hand, and мятеж ‘revolt’ and восстание ‘uprising’, on the other. Although they are members of the same semantic field, they display some intuitively obvious disparate semantic features. However, these features are only partly registered in dictionaries. On the basis of present-day text corpora, we are going to describe the most relevant semantic differences between these words. We are also going to identify some possible diachronic shifts that have occurred over the last hundred years.An important element in present-day usage of the four words is evaluation, which is usage-biased towards the positive or negative pole. This leaves considerable room for manipulation. One and the same event can be presented as a positive or a negative change in the political world, as initiated by people or inspired and organised by a small group of politicians. The words революция ‘revolution’, переворот ‘coup’, мятеж ‘revolt’ and восстание ‘uprising’ are ideal instruments for achieving such purposes and are therefore an important means of manipulating public opinion. Revealing the semantic mechanisms behind this manipulation is a central issue in the linguistic investigation of Russian political discourse. Keywords: lexical semantics; pragmatic shifts; lexicography; near-synonyms; corpus-based co-occurrence analysis; manipulating public opinion
Abstract
The purpose of our paper is to clarify semantic differences in present-day usage between the words революция ‘revolution’, and переворот ‘revolution’, on the one hand, and мятеж ‘revolt’ and восстание ‘uprising’, on the other. Although they are members of the same semantic field, they display some intuitively obvious disparate semantic features. However, these features are only partly registered in dictionaries. On the basis of present-day text corpora, we are going to describe the most relevant semantic differences between these words. We are also going to identify some possible diachronic shifts that have occurred over the last hundred years.An important element in present-day usage of the four words is evaluation, which is usage-biased towards the positive or negative pole. This leaves considerable room for manipulation. One and the same event can be presented as a positive or a negative change in the political world, as initiated by people or inspired and organised by a small group of politicians. The words революция ‘revolution’, переворот ‘coup’, мятеж ‘revolt’ and восстание ‘uprising’ are ideal instruments for achieving such purposes and are therefore an important means of manipulating public opinion. Revealing the semantic mechanisms behind this manipulation is a central issue in the linguistic investigation of Russian political discourse. Keywords: lexical semantics; pragmatic shifts; lexicography; near-synonyms; corpus-based co-occurrence analysis; manipulating public opinion
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Abbreviations xi
- Impersonals and Beyond in Slavic 1
-
Section I: Morphosyntax
- Binding and Morphology Revisited 25
- Possessor Raising and Slavic clitics 43
- The Slavonic Languages and the Development of the Antipassive Marker 61
- Clitic SE in Romance and Slavonic revisited 75
-
Section II: Syntactical relations
- The Lazy Speaker and the Fascination of Emptiness 91
- Is the Polish Verb iść an Auxiliary to be? 123
- Towards Evidentiality Markers in Albanian and Macedonian Bilingual Political Discourse 139
- A strange variant of Russian ctoby -construction 149
-
Section III: Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal Constructions in Serbian 169
- Interpretation and voice in Polish SIĘ and –NO/–TO constructions 185
- Dative-infinitive constructions in Russian 199
- On the Nature of Dative Arguments in Russian Constructions with «Predicatives» 225
- Russian Adversity Impersonals and Split Ergativity 247
-
Section IV: Lexical semantics
- Morphological and lexical aspect in Russian deverbal nominalizations 267
- Lexical synonymy within the semantic field POWER 281
- Collocations with nominal quantifiers 297
- Polysemy Patterns in Russian Adjectives and Adverbs 313
- Language index 323
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Abbreviations xi
- Impersonals and Beyond in Slavic 1
-
Section I: Morphosyntax
- Binding and Morphology Revisited 25
- Possessor Raising and Slavic clitics 43
- The Slavonic Languages and the Development of the Antipassive Marker 61
- Clitic SE in Romance and Slavonic revisited 75
-
Section II: Syntactical relations
- The Lazy Speaker and the Fascination of Emptiness 91
- Is the Polish Verb iść an Auxiliary to be? 123
- Towards Evidentiality Markers in Albanian and Macedonian Bilingual Political Discourse 139
- A strange variant of Russian ctoby -construction 149
-
Section III: Impersonal constructions
- Impersonal Constructions in Serbian 169
- Interpretation and voice in Polish SIĘ and –NO/–TO constructions 185
- Dative-infinitive constructions in Russian 199
- On the Nature of Dative Arguments in Russian Constructions with «Predicatives» 225
- Russian Adversity Impersonals and Split Ergativity 247
-
Section IV: Lexical semantics
- Morphological and lexical aspect in Russian deverbal nominalizations 267
- Lexical synonymy within the semantic field POWER 281
- Collocations with nominal quantifiers 297
- Polysemy Patterns in Russian Adjectives and Adverbs 313
- Language index 323
- Name index 325
- Subject index 329
