Nationally marked neolexemes in T. Melnychuk’s poetry (structural-semantic aspect)

Abstract

The article studies the individual authorial neologisms in T. Melnychuk’s linguistic world. A structural-semantic analysis of the neolexemes that have a national-cultural colouring is given.

The main attention is paid to the examples of noun word formation as a powerful corpus of the poet’s lexical neologisms. Occasional diminutive innovations with a folk-based component in their stem are outlined. It is established that the diminutive lexemes are actively formed by the suffix formants -ат(а), -ят(к)(о, а), -оньк(о), -еньк(о), -ен(ят)(а), -ен(ятк)(о), by means of which nouns denoting the state of being not fully grown are made. The author consciously breaks word formation rules and combines the above suffixes with motivating nouns that denote lifeless thing, thus making occasional words (бриндушата, калинята, скибенята). This way the poet spiritualises his images, which is a characteristic feature of folk songs. The formation of certain lexical innovations (горенятко, снігурчата) is studied, whose derivational direction can only be defined via context.

Diminutives are found in compound nouns formed by combining a numeral and a noun denoting a typical folk stylised linguistic pet form. At the level of expressive word formation, the artist forms compound words in pet forms of negatively connotated abstract nouns (трижурбонька, трилишенько etc).

Juxtaposite innovations are proved to be active word formative means in the author’s linguistic world, among them hendiadys forms (казочка-перев’язочка, колисонька-висонька etc), whose specific modelling in folk song tradition is a specific feature of lullabies.

It is shown that active use of ethnocultural linguistic signs, making them more structurally and semanticaly complex, their modern combination and interpretation form the main feature of T. Melnychuk’s individual style.