MODELLING OF THE FRAGMENT OF THE SEMANTIC FIELD, REPRESENTED BY ABSTRACT NOUNS IN OLD ICELANDIC
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2021-4-75-82
Introduction. Over the last decade’s studies on semantics of derivational morphemes have primarily dealt with contemporary language data. The article focuses on a group of Old Icelandic masculine nouns that are formed by means of the derivational suffix -skapr-. The aim is to model a fragment of the semantic field that is represented by the Old Icelandic derivatives with an abstract semantics and marked by the suffix -skapr- . Materials and methods. The source of material for the study is etymological dictionaries of the Old Icelandic language. The corpus of empirical material includes 86 lexical units. The study of the linguistic material draws on the methods of comparison, component and word-formation analysis, methods of etymological analysis, interpretation. Results. The corpus of masculine nouns belonging to the masculine a-declension, derived from nominal stems with the help of the suffix -skapr-, includes 86 units. The conceptual areas, verbalized by derivatives with the suffix under consideration, include designations of personal qualities of a person, character or method of action and its results, designation of specific objects, goods in a collective sense, types of relationships, designation of concepts related to religion, paganism or witchcraft. The most numerous group of designations covers the names of traits or behavior of a person, both encouraged and condemned by the members of society. It has been revealed that the same quality of a person’s character can be verbalized by a series of synonymous derivatives with the suffix -skapr-. Besides, a number of derivatives with the suffix display their syncretic semantics, involving both abstract and concrete meanings. The suffix -skapr- present in the morphological structure of the analyzed derivatives is etymologically related to the independent word skap “species, state”, which goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)keH. A series of derivatives, built according to the same word-formation type, allows us to consider this type as a separate format for representing knowledge, a kind of mental construct objectified by the suffix. The suffix in this analytic construct functions as a format marker. It is argued that the suffix under analysis marks the format that can be defined as “an abstract entity called by the base, conceived as an independent object in an absolutized form, i.e. in isolation from the real owner of this characteristics”. Conclusion. Derivatives with the word-formation suffix -skapr- represent a whole range of concepts related to the characteristics of a person and his activities. The word-formation suffix functions as a marker of the semantic invariant in the semantic structure of derivatives, which can be viewed as a profile of this word-formation type. The semantic filed indicated by the suffix is of a compositional nature due to the semantics of the components of the suffix itself.
Keywords: Old Icelandic, word-formation, suffix, semantics, abstract nouns
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Issue: 4, 2021
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: GERMANIC LANGUAGES
Pages: 75 — 82
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