Polymarker contexts with the particle “still”: semantics and pragmatics

Abstract

The aim of the study is to establish whether the use of several units with similar meaning as part of the combinations “but still”, “although ... but”, “although ... but still” is a manifestation of linguistic redundancy or each component contributes to the formation of the integral meaning of the utterance, and to describe the semantic status of “still” as part of polymarker utterances. To solve this goal, the article analyzes the semantics of the units “but”, “although”, “still” both independently functioning and as part of combinations. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that for the first time the semantic contribution of units with similar meaning “but”, “although”, “although … but” in polymarker utterances is revealed and described on the material of contexts from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. As a result of the study it was found that in the contexts with the combinations “still”, “although ... but”, “although ... but still” the formation of the meaning of the statement is carried out due to the semantics of each component, which has its own functional load. “Still” in polymarker contexts acts as an indicator of information of different degrees of importance and is used to correct possible misinterpretation of implicit meanings.