Associative grammar and meaning (on the example of nouns)

Abstract

Using the associative-verbal profiles of several abstract nouns, the author examines the interpenetration of lexical and grammatical semantics, the contribution of inflectional paradigms to the semantic accentuations in the structure of the psycholinguistic meanings of these lexemes. The work was carried out on the materials of associative-verbal databases covering the period from 1988 till 2021. The structural features of the Russian language determine the specifics of lexical and grammatical semantics clustering in the formation of accentuation vectors in the Russian language personality’s (RLP) image of the world. The semantic richness of case meanings of the nouns in the Russian language, the absence of any restrictions on the associative behavior of this part of speech, the variety of word-formation patterns in different groups of abstract nouns make them particularly attractive objects for research. Semantic shades of psychological meanings are activated in a specific way with the network grammatical paradigmatics under the pressure of the culture-bound experience and intentionality of the studied speech community. The construction of the associative-verbal profiles of the lexico-morphological paradigms allows us to evaluate not only the productivity of particular lexical and grammatical units with reference to the entire lexical system or individual classes of words but also their psychological relevance with reference to the motivation of the language personality (the general structure of its sociocommunicative attitudes). A further profound study of associative grammar, given its dynamics, may contribute to overcoming the difficulties in formalizing associative links to optimize the computer technologies supporting human work with verbal materials.