Stylistic marks axiology in the “Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language” edited by D.N. Ushakov and the new lexicographic reality

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Introduction

“A seed is invisible in the ground but it gives life to a huge tree. In the same way, thought is invisible, and only thought begets the greatest events of human life”, wrote L.N. Tolstoy heartfeltly (Tolstoy, 2023: 246). We can say with certainty that the seeds sown by the outstanding Russian linguist Dmitry Nikolaevich Ushakov gave good sprouts. They grow vigorously in the field of Russian science, prompting us again and again to turn to his scientific heritage.

D.N. Ushakov is an outstanding Russian linguist and teacher, known for his works on orthography, history of the Russian language, orthoepy, lexicography. D.N. Ushakov’s scientific ideas, harmonizing theory and practice, united a team of like-minded people and followers: R.I. Avanesov, G.O. Vinokur, V.V. Vinogradov, S.I. Ozhegov, A.A. Reformatsky, V.N. Sidorov and other scientists.

In the life of a scientist, the main biographical facts are books, and one cannot disagree with this. D.N. Ushakov published “Introduction to Linguistics”, “Russian Spelling”, “A Brief Introduction to the Science of Language”, “Russian Literary Language”, “Orthographic Dictionary: for secondary school students” and many other works.

Language, which Dmitry Ushakov studied his whole life, is not only a means of communication, but also the subtlest instrument of personal expression. The creative heritage of “one of the brightest, most interesting and humanly attractive scientists from the cohort of Slavists of the pre-revolutionary pantheon of Russian science” (Nikitin, 2018: 88) is the result of the tireless research of a talented creator. L.V. Shcherba rightly noted that the work of dictionary compiling “as based solely on semantics, requires a particularly fine perception of language...a very special talent, which on some line is probably related to the writer’s talent” (Shcherba, 1958: 76). The multifaceted activities of D.N. Ushakov reflect the tireless scientific thought, systematic language research, creative talent of an outstanding world-famous scientist. Seeing the essence, scientists of different generations try to penetrate into the laboratory of his creative thought, unraveling and developing his ideas (Filin, 1963; Karaulov, 1988; Ozhegov, 2001; Nefyodov, Nefyodova, 2013; Kruglov et al., 2015; Kozyrev, & Chernyak, 2015; Nikitin, 2018; Bazarov et al., 2021, etc.).

A special place in the Russian lexicographic tradition is occupied by the normative academic “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov (1935–1940), which presents a consistent approach to the lexicographic parameterization of the Russian language. This is the first Soviet dictionary, rightly called an academic one, which shows the lexicon of the Russian literary language with grammatical, orthographic, orthoepic and stylistic normative guidelines. The dictionary laid the foundations of accentological, grammatical, semantic, and stylistic normalization of the Russian literary language, “summed up the results of the whole Russian lexicography” (Ozhegov, 2001: 450–451). Ushakov’s lexicographic work, based on the achievements of academic tradition and genuine scientific values, is “a synthesis of philology and culture in the broad sense of the word, which reflect the rapid changes of socio-cultural processes of the first half of the 20th century” (Apresyan, 2014: 453).

The lexicographer has a great responsibility to present optimal solutions based on his own linguistic providence, important for native speakers. “The stylistic classification of words is an integral merit of the Dictionary and a merit above all of Dmitry Nikolaevich, a fine connoisseur and expert in the stylistic nuances of literary Russian speech. The broad stylistic classification of words, extending the boundaries of literary word usage, was new both for Russian and foreign dictionary practice and reflected in essence the specific complexity of Russian literary speech lexicon” (Nikitin, 2018: 90).

The aim of the study is to analyze the interaction of stylistic and emotional-expressive notes, “immersed” in the context of the word lexical semantics, creating an axiological “picture” of D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary as a cultural text in its chronological givenness to man and a forerunner, a precursor of axiography — a promising direction of linguistic science in the new reality.

Methods and materials

The stylistic evaluation of a word or its meaning in the dictionary is conditioned by various factors related to different properties of the word. Among them are expressive-emotional-evaluative and functional properties additional to the subject and grammatical meaning of the language unit. In accordance with its tasks, the article uses the methods of analysis, description, generalization, as well as lexico-semantic, contextual, linguistic-conceptual analysis.

Stylistic marks are determined by the specificity of the word as a lexicographic object in its set of lexical-semantic variants. The material of the study was the samples of dictionary entries on the letters “Б” and “Д”. The stylistic marks — (colloquial) and (literary) — are specified. Working with D.N. Ushakov’s dictionary, we used the technique of continuous sampling.

Results

The specificity of D.N. Ushakov’s axiological “picture” dictionary, its originality and uniqueness consist in the undisclosed stylistic and emotional-evaluative coloring, represented in the lexical meaning — the estimating sememe or seme in its semantic structure. The stylistic content of the marking “hides” an estimation (positive or negative, approval or disapproval) — or emotional-evaluative (petulant, diminutive, laudable, dismissive, contemptuous, derogatory, reprehensible) meaning.

It is shown that lexicographic interpretation of a word is an important means of demonstrating the consistency of vocabulary in dictionary definitions, complex representation of a word in grammar and dictionary. The difference between emotional-expressive and proper stylistic (functional) coloring of the word is characterized.

The space of estimative vocabulary and specificity of its dictionary representation in the context of the emotional meaning development has been investigated, trends in dictionaries of estimative vocabulary creation and development have been analyzed.

Considering and precepting the self and the surrounding world in terms of axiological significance, the evaluative work of consciousness in culture and discourse makes a high impact on modern society.

Discussion

Stylistic marks as an important component of the meta-language lexicography

A mark as a dictionary specification of the stylistic level, functional and professional sphere of use, semantic characteristic of linguistic units is presented in abbreviated or conventional (symbolic) notation. An important lexicographic means is a dictionary mark, which contains information that “a linguistic unit (or linguistic phenomenon) refers to a certain set of units or phenomena homogeneous in some respect” (Morkovkin, 1986: 110). Among the types of a word mark there is “a stylistic mark, an important lexicographic technique of clarifying the stylistic features of a word unit” (Emel’yanova, 2006: 444) belongs to the word as a lexicographic object, i.e., lexeme as a set of lexical-semantic variants. Stylistic mark as a kind of dictionary mark emphasizes the attributes of a linguistic unit that determine its position in relation to others, compared to it. Stylistic marks are an important component of the meta-language of lexicography, they indicate the position of a word in the literary language, its expressive and evaluative connotations.

Stylistic marks in D.N. Ushakov’s dictionary systematically and accurately reflect lexical and stylistic processes in the Russian language of the first third of the 20th century, “lexis is denotative ... stylistics is relativistic, it regulates the functional distribution of linguistic means in texts in accordance with the hierarchy of communication types established in the culture; it is a linguistic reflection of the structural features of culture” (Mechkovskaya, 1996: 58–59).

The great lexicographic work “The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” by D.N. Ushakov presents “...the very analysis of meanings and shades of meanings of words, which was the subject of special care of the compilers and more detailed than in the old academic dictionaries and Dahl's dictionary...” (Filin, 1963: 178). The specificity of its stylistic marks testifies to the mental foresight of the scientist who foresaw the development of axiological problems in Russian language studies, the special role of the stylistic qualification of a word, its close relationship with the evaluative nature of the word in negative and positive semantics.

As Yu.N. Karaulov noted, “it is important to bring the dictionary to people, to correlate the structure, the content of the dictionary with the native speakers’ needs (Karaulov, 1988: 3–18)” (Tikhonova, 2016: 18). Thus, the dictionary can be considered as a cognitive-communicative mental activity.

The study of modern dictionaries, the “attunement” of modern lexicography to the needs of the user are extremely important for solving both “theoretical problems of lexicography (the volume of the lexicon, the object of lexicographic description, the zones of the dictionary article, the branching of meanings, the meta-language of the dictionary, etc.) and practical aspects of textual communication with the potential dictionary user” (Lexicography of the Digital Age, 2021: 12).

The space of evaluative lexicon and peculiarities of its dictionary representation in the context of emotional-evaluative marks development

Realizing oneself as a linguistic person and a world constructor, a carrier of a linguistic worldview and its realizer prompts to address the space of evaluative lexis in any dictionary and the specifics of its representation. The tendency to create and develop dictionaries of evaluative vocabulary relates to this process (see, for example, V.Yu. Melikyan “Emotional-expressive word combinations of live speech” (Melikyan, 2001), L.K. Bairamova “Axiological phraseological dictionary of the Russian language: dictionary of values and anti-values” (Bairamova, 2011), the model of M.A. Tikhonova’s “Dictionary of evaluative lexicon of the Russian language” (Tikhonova, 2015) — the new reality of representing axiography as a separate major field of lexicography.

As a marker of this reality and its catalyst we consider the system of stylistic and emotional-expressive labels that “work” for the lexicographic description of the evaluative lexicon. The urgency of systematization and underdevelopment of marks, especially those with positive evaluative connotation, is specific for the dictionary picture of the Russian language, which is also observed in the object of our study — the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov.

Let us characterize the essential difference between emotional-expressive and stylistic (functional) coloring of the word with the statement of V.V. Vinogradov: “Linguists usually distinguish two series of stylistic colorings or ‘tones’: stylistic colorings of expressive-emotional character and stylistic colorings related to the limited speech area of corresponding linguistic means application” (Vinogradov, 1955: 69). Emotional-expressive coloring is one of the components of the semantic structure of a word, relating to its connotation. Functional-stylistic coloring does not significantly affect the semantics of the word (Tikhonova, 2016).

The main difficulty of the lexicographic situation consists either in the mark correlation, in our case “colloquial” and “literary”, and the evaluative connotation — “approval” and “disapproval”, or in the absence of one of these phenomena, or in discrepancies: each dictionary uses its own system of stylistic and emotional-expressive marks and their combinations.

We must emphasize that the Dictionary edited by D.N. Ushakov paves the way between the tradition of stylistic marks in pre-revolutionary dictionaries and the innovation of dictionaries of 20th–21st centuries. Many dictionaries of the pre-revolutionary period are not rich in stylistic marks. V.I. Dahl’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” uses only terminological and dialectal notes: “The dictionary is compiled for the Russians, so I make almost no references to the extent to which a word is in use, whether it has become vulgarized, what stratum of society it lives in, and so on. ... given the precariousness of our unsteady language, it is impossible to draw a strict line or boundary’ (Dahl, 1956: 36). The “Dictionary of the Russian Academy” contain limited stylistic notes — простор. ‘vernacular’, умалит. ‘diminutive’ and унич. ‘derogatory’. The predecessor of D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary is in a sense the Dictionary of the Russian Language by Ya.K. Grot (Grot, 1895), which for the first time contained many emotional-evaluative marks (without using this term): груб. ‘rude’, бран. ‘swear’, шутка ‘joke’, иронич. ‘ironic’, ласкат. ‘affectionate’, презрит. ‘contemptuous’, уменьш. ‘diminutive’, униз. ‘derogatory’, уничижит. ‘humiliating’, шуточ. ‘joking’, шутл. ‘joking’. The traditions of this dictionary, which marked the beginning of evaluative vocabulary systematization, influenced, in our opinion, D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary and the system of its stylistic and emotional-evaluative marks (see the material below), giving the user more evaluative possibilities for finding an evaluative characteristic, the degree and level of its qualification:

• ВЕРЗИЛА (разг. ‘colloquial’, фам. ‘avuncular’, неодобрит. ‘disapproving’). Very tall, clumsy person¹
• ДЕКЛАМИРОВАТЬ … 2. Speaking solemnly, pompously, in a complex way (книжн. ‘literary’, ирон. ‘ironical’)^[2].

Later, a system of stylistic and emotional-evaluation marks continued to be formed, but they were not used in all dictionaries and did not represent a logical system.

Innovations in the lexicography of the second half of the 20th — the beginning of the 21st century show the development of a system of emotional-expressive and estimative marks — ирон. ‘ironical’, бран. ‘swear’, ласк. ‘affectionate’, неодобр. ‘disapproving’, уменьшит.-унич. ‘diminutive-humiliating’, шутл. ‘joking’, etc. Note that “Russian semantic dictionary” by N.Yu. Shvedova contains evaluative vocabulary, uniting non-expressive lexemes, in the form of a unique lexical tree in the macro class “The Naming Words”. Along with words naming specific objects — things, phenomena, people, animals, plants — there is a lexical set “Assessment proper” (for example, along with “Person’). Its structure typologizes ratings that are undoubtedly correlated with a system of emotional-expressive marks.

This tree includes the gradation of communicative evaluations: “praise”, “approval”, “affection” // “ridiculous”, “ironic attitude”, “affectionate sympathy” // “condemnation”, “disapproval”, “rejection” // “swearing” “blasphemy”. We should also note the fact of mark inconsistency: ОЧАРОВАШКА (разг. ‘colloquial’) — “cute, charming, pleasant person” (i.e. the absence of an emotional-expressive mark)³, and the vocabulary item НИЧТОЖЕСТВО — “insignificant, petty and empty person”⁴ does not have any mark. Nevertheless, the close location of the sets “Person’s face” and “Assessment proper” corresponds with V.G. Gak’s idea that the semantic field of evaluation is “the nearest neighbour of the ‘mental field’ of a person, demonstrating the interrelation of evaluation, thought and emotion” (Gak, 1998: 28).

The “evaluative transformation” of the lexicon and the strengthening of axiologization in Russian society mentality is confirmed in the “Large Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” (Kuznetsov, 2000) where marks are for the first time oriented “at the communicative nature of the ‘CONSENT’ / ‘NON CONSENT’ evaluation on different elements of the scale” (Tikhonova, 2016). The term “marks of evaluative characterization” appears for the first time in the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language of the Early 21st Century. Actual vocabulary” edited by G.N. Sklyarevskaya (The Explanatory Dictionary... 2006). The marks consistently demonstrate stable emotional or evaluative coloring of the word, emphasize its axiological functionality: ирон. ‘ironical’, неодобр. ‘disapproving’, презрит. ‘contemptuous’, пренебр. ‘humiliating’, шутл. ‘joking’.

The Russian National Corpus marks the following specificity: verbs are not provided with evaluation marks, and subject and non-subject names, adjectives and adverbs contain evaluation. Marks include only positive or negative evaluation, as well as indefinite, contextual evaluation, which can be both positive and negative. This does not allow us to speak about grading the marks on the evaluation scale (very good, quite good, good/bad, quite bad, very bad) for the reader.

The analysis of innovative dictionaries in the context of emotional-evaluative marks development shows the strengthening of axiological tendencies in the new lexicographic reality and to return to the idea that the system of marks in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary (in comprehending the relationship between tradition and innovation) allows us to look at an evaluative word and its dictionary entry as a cultural text in a specific period of lexicographic development.

The system of stylistic marks in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary

The system of marks in the Dictionary is based on the general lexical-stylistic approach:

1) marks indicating the varieties of oral speech (разг. ‘colloquial’, простореч. ‘vernacular’, фам. ‘avuncular’, детск. ‘childish’, вульг. ‘vulgar’, арго ‘argot’, школьн. ‘school’, обл. ‘regional’);

2) marks indicating the type of written speech (книжн. ‘literary’, науч. ‘scientific’, тех. ‘technical’, спец. ‘professional’, газет. ‘newspaper’, публиц. ‘journalistic’, канц. ‘officialese’, офиц. ‘official’, поэт. ‘poetic’, нар.-поэт. ‘folk-poetic’);

3) marks establishing the historical perspective in the modern language (нов. ‘new’, церк.-книжн. ‘Church-literary’, старин. ‘old’, устар. ‘obsolete’);

4) marks to words denoting objects and concepts of other life (истор. ‘historical’, дореволюц. ‘pre-revolutionary’, загр. ‘foreign’);

5) stylistic marks indicating emotional-evaluative and expressive meanings of words (презрит. ‘contemptuous’, пренебр. ‘dismissive’, уничиж. ‘humiliating’, ирон. ‘ironical’, неодобрит. ‘disapproving’, бран. ‘swear’, шутл. ‘joking’, укор. ‘reproachful’, ласкат. ‘affectionate’, торж. ‘solemn’, ритор. ‘rhetoric’, эвф. ‘euphemistic’⁵) (Tikhonova, 2016: 18).

Linguistic observations of the axiological and stylistic cultural text in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary demonstrate a special correlation of marks, representing the “strong” axiological stylistic context, showing a new impulse of stylistic coloring development as a variety of oral and written forms of speech. The interrelation of stylistic and emotional-expressive marks creates an axiological “picture” of D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary as a cultural text.

The essence of this axiological picture, its specificity, originality, and uniqueness consist in the non-distinction of stylistic and emotional-evaluative coloring, confirmed in its lexical meaning — an evaluative sememe or seme in its semantic structure. The stylistic content of the mark “hides” evaluative (positive or negative, approving or disapproving), emotional-evaluative (affectionate, diminutive-affectionate, praiseworthy, or disparaging, contemptuous, pejorative, reprehensible), or expressive (high, humorous, ironic, swear) content.

A continuous sample of lexis with stylistic marks of spoken and written speech — (разг. ‘colloquial’) and (книж. ‘literary’) — starting with the letters “B” and “Д”, partial sample — starting with “Б” and “E” in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary demonstrate the following tendencies:

Predominance of negative emotional-evaluative semantics (coloring) in words marked colloquial (разг. ‘colloquial’):

• ВАВИЛОНЫ (разг. ‘colloquial’, устар. ‘obsolete’). A winding, ornate design.
• ВДОЛБИТЬ (разг. ‘colloquial’). With effort, explaining for a long time, push in....
• ВЕЛИЧАТЬСЯ. 3. To boast, have a high opinion about oneself (разг. ‘colloquial’).
• ВЕРЕЩАТЬ (разг. ‘colloquial’). Shrill and annoying screaming, squeaking.
• ВЕРЗИЛА (разг. ‘colloquial’, фам. ‘avuncular’, неодобрит. ‘disapproving’). Very tall, clumsy person;
• ДРЮЧИТЬ (прост. ‘vernacular’). To beat, to influence someone by severity and beatings.
• ДУШОК (разг. ‘colloquial’). 1. The odour of rotting things. 2. Figurative. Hints, manifestations of any ideology, doctrine, direction (ирон. ‘ironical’);
• ЕГОЗА (разг. ‘colloquial’, фам. ‘avuncular’). Fidgety, agile, restless person⁶.

Predominance of positive emotional-evaluative semantics (coloring) in words marked “literary” (книж. ‘literary’):

• ДЕВСТВЕННЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. Chaste, innocent...
• ДЕЕСПОСОБНЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. Having the right to perform legal actions of and responsible for their actions (law).
• ДЕЙСТВОВАТЕЛЬ, I, m. (книж. ‘literary’ устар. ‘obsolete’). The same as agent.
• ДРАПИРОВАТЬСЯ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. To put on clothes so that they lay in beautiful folds.
• ДРУЖЕСТВО (книж. ‘literary’ устар. ‘obsolete’). The same as friendship.
• ДУШЕПОЛЕЗНЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’ устар. ‘obsolete’ церк. Church). Instructive, morally didactic.
• ДУШЕЧКА (разг. ‘colloquial’ фам. ‘avuncular’). 1.A pretty girl. 2. Same as darling.
• ЕДИНЕНИЕ (книж. ‘literary’). Bringing to unity; close connection, cohesion, solidarity.
• ЕДИНОДУШИЕ (книж. ‘literary’). Agreement, unity in thought, feeling, or action⁷.

The stylistic content of the mark “разг. ‘colloquial’” can also have a positive emotional-evaluative semantics, but less frequently than the negative one:

• ВАЖНЕЦКИЙ (прост. ‘vernacular’). Of good quality.
• ВАТКА (разг. ‘colloquial’). 1. Affectionate to cotton.
• ДУХОВИТЫЙ (разг. ‘colloquial’ обл. ‘local’). Fragrant, flavorous, aromatic.
• ДЮЖИЙ (прост. ‘vernacular’). Strong, of large build.
• ДЯДЕНЬКА. Affectionate to uncle (разг. ‘colloquial’ фам. ‘avuncular’)⁸.

The stylistic mark “книж.” ‘literary’ also “hides” the negative emotional-evaluative semantics, but less frequently than the positive one:

• БЮРОКРАТИЗАЦИЯ (книж. ‘literary’). Action on the verb to bureaucratize.
• ВАЛИТЬ. Imperfective to kick down (разг. ‘colloquial’).
• ВВЕРНУТЬ. To insert, paste into a conversation (word) (разг. ‘colloquial’).
• ВВЯЗАТЬ. 2. To involve somebody, something (разг. ‘colloquial’ фам. ‘avuncular’).
• ВЕЛЕРЕЧИВЫЙ (книжн. ‘literary’ устар. ‘obsolete’ or ирон. ‘ironical’). Grand sounding, pompous;
• ДВОЙСТВЕННЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). ... 2. Two-faced, indirect.
• ДРОЖАТЬ. 3. To tremble, to be afraid (книж. ‘literary’).
• ДУШЕВНОБОЛЬНОЙ (книж. ‘literary’). Suffering from a mental dis-order⁹.

The observed interaction of stylistic coloring and axiological nature of the word content demonstrates the formation of the stylistic system of the Russian language, dating back to M.V. Lomonosov's doctrine of “three styles” — high, medium, and low: “The simple or low style is entirely composed of elements of lively colloquial (emphasis added — T.M., M.N.) Russian speech, even with an admixture of vernacular expressions. The middle style consists of words and forms common to Slavic-Russian and Russian languages. The high style includes Slavicisms and expressions common to Russian and Slavic-Russian languages” (Vinogradov, 2007: 351–352).

However, in the system of stylistic marks there remain those that are neutral in evaluation. Linguistic observations demonstrate an insignificant number of “evaluation-free” words with the mark разг. ‘colloquial’ or книж. ‘literary’:

1) ДВУГРИВЕННЫЙ (разг. ‘colloquial’). Silver coin of 20 kopecks.
ДРЫГАТЬ (разг. ‘colloquial’). To make sharp, jerky movements...
ВДОВЕТЬ (разг. ‘colloquial’). Live as a widow or a widower.
ДУХОВКА. Iron box for cooking, embedded in the kitchen stove, heated on all sides by flame.
2) ДАННЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. Passive Past Participle from to give ... || Now accomplished, present.
ДВУКРАТНЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). Produced twice.
ДЕКЛАМАЦИОННЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). Adjective to declamation.
ДЕКЛАРАЦИЯ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. An official or solemn claim.
ДРИАДА (книж. ‘literary’). In Greek mythology — a forest nymph.
ДУЭНЬЯ (книж. ‘literary’). In Spain — an elderly woman, watching someone or running a household.
ЕВАНГЕЛИСТ (книж. ‘literary’, церк. ‘Church’). 1. The author of the gospel;
ЕДИНИЧНЫЙ (книж. ‘literary’). 1. ... Singular, one ¹⁰.

The observed disproportion between the content of stylistic marks as interpretation of evaluative meanings and “non-evaluative” stylistic marks for words “non-evaluative” in content (let us conditionally call their marks “purely” stylistic coloring) indicates a tendency to lose in the D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary the primary significance of the stylistic coloring of a word in spoken (colloquial) and written (literary) speech and the active development of the evaluative semantics “disapproval” in colloquial marks, which prevails in the studied material, and the evaluative semantics “approval” in literary marks. The perspective of the conducted research includes the statistical calculation of the stylistic and evaluative characteristics of the signs of D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary lexicographic space.

The “internal”, implicit axiologization of the dictionary stylistic mark in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary is superimposed on the process of combining stylistic and emotional-evaluative marks. This syncretism not only strengthens the dictionary’s proximity to a person and his pragmatic needs, but also testifies to the forward-looking thinking of the lexicographer. Let us give examples of syncretic dictionary entries. They are not numerous in the total volume of dictionary entries but are significant.

Combination of stylistic and emotional-evaluative marks with the semantics of negative evaluation (double marks):

• ВЕРТЛЯВЫЙ (разг. ‘colloquial’ неодобр. ‘disapproving’). 1. Fidgety, excessively ... 2. Frivolous, windy.
• ВЕРТИХВОСТКА... (разг. ‘colloquial’ вульг. ‘vulgar’ неодобр. ‘disapproving’). Frivolous and flirtatious woman.
• ВЕРТУШКА... 3. Frivolous, windy person, mostly about a woman (разг., с оттенком шутливого порицания ‘colloquial, with a touch of humorous censure’)¹¹.
• ДАРМОЕД... (разг. ‘colloquial’, презрит. ‘contemptuous’). Living on other people’s money, idler, slacker.
• ДРЯННЫЙ... (пренебр. ‘contemptuous’). Bad, worthless.
• ДРЫХНУТЬ... (разг. ‘colloquial’ неодобр. ‘disapproving’). Sleep too much¹².

There are few double marks with the semantics of positive evaluation in the surveyed material:

• ДАР (книж. ‘literary’) 1. An offering, a gift (торж. ‘solemn’)¹³.

We assume that this is due to the disproportionality of the number of emotionally evaluative markings of positive and negative evaluation: 3 markers — ласк. ‘affectionate’, ритор. ‘rhetoric’, торж. ‘solemn’ — out of the total number of 12 express a very indirect positive evaluation (by semes of love, tenderness, friendly attitude — ласк. ‘affectionate’; by semes of the art of speech, beautiful speech — ритор. ‘rhetoric’; by semes of important, stately, sacred — торж. ‘solemn’). This situation demonstrates some semantic poverty of the positive zone of Russian lexicon and needs further research.

The analysis of dictionary entries also reveals the phenomenon of combining stylistic and emotional-evaluative marks with the semantics of positive and negative evaluation. This indicates the development of axiological tendencies in word interpretation:

• ВЕЛИКОДЕРЖАВНЫЙ. 1. Peculiar to the great power (книж. ‘literary’) ... Imitating the behavior of the great power, arrogant in public and political affairs (публиц. ‘journalistic’ неодобрит. ‘disapproving’).
• ВЕЛИКОВОЗРАСТНЫЙ … (книжн. ‘literary’ устар. ‘obsolete’; теперь с оттенком насмешки ‘now with a touch of mockery’). Out of young age; older than one is supposed to be for a given state¹⁴.

Linguistic observations show that emotional-evaluative marks are very rarely used independently in dictionary entries, more often it occurs in one of the meanings of a polysemantic word:

• ДРЯНЬ … Only singular. Junk, worthless thing (пренебр. ‘humiliating’) … || Trifles, nonsense, nasty (разг. ‘colloquial’) … 2. Only singular. Lowly, insignificant person (пренебр. ‘humiliating’) … 3. Nasty woman (бран. ‘swear’ вульг. ‘vulgar’)¹⁵.

The palette of marks with the semantics of negative evaluation in the space of one dictionary entry reflects the axiologization of description, the desire of lexicographers to realize the range of attitudes to the evaluated object, to prepare the basis for evaluative communication. These are predominantly marks with negative evaluative semantics with meanings related to the communicative nature of evaluation — disapproval on different elements of the evaluative scale, e.g.:

Пренебр. (humiliating) — for words containing the evaluation of condescending censure with a touch of arrogance (“bad”).

Уничиж. (pejorative) — for words conveying a connotation of extreme disdain, hurting the addressee with arrogant contempt (“very bad”).

Презрит. (contemptuous) — for words containing sharp censure, contempt (“quite bad”), etc.) (Tikhonova, 2016).

This picture is undoubtedly motivated by the subjective-objective nature of evaluative meanings, their numerous bases — aesthetic, ethical, utilitarian, psychological, sensory-taste, normative, teleological (Arutyunova, 1999: 198–199). At the same time, it creates asymmetry of negative (predominant) and positive evaluative meanings, turns to the fundamental meaning of “attitude” as the basis of the relationship between evaluation and modality. Their “inseparability” is still a linguistic mystery.

Conclusion

D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary is an example of Russian lexicography, which draws great interest of different generations of researchers. The dictionary is rightly recognized as an invaluable monument of the Soviet era, where each vocabulary unit is presented in its individuality and uniqueness. Each dictionary entry is a synthesis of logical structure of lexicographic science in the inseparable unity of artistic expressiveness and imagery, an invaluable gift of its creators in the integrity of lexicographic theory and practice of the art of the word.

The analysis of the “life” of stylistic and emotional-expressive marks in D.N. Ushakov’s Dictionary demonstrates a bright tendency to axiologization of lexicographers’ mentality, reflecting evaluative transformations in the thinking of society members. The new reality, permeated by global evaluation of any objects, led to an increase in the number of evaluative notes, to the realization of approving and disapproving intentions in dictionary entries, to the image of a person evaluating in the lexicographic space. The great predecessor of this process was undoubtedly D.N. Ushakov and the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by the great scientist, which paved the linguistic and mental “bridge” to axiography — a promising direction of linguistic science in the new reality.

 

_{¹ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : 251.}

_{² Ibid, I : 676.}

_{³ Russian Semantic Dictionary. 1998, 1 : 343.}

_{⁴ Ibid, 1 : 345.}

_{⁵ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : ХХV–ХХVШ.}

_{⁶ Ibid, I : 218–826.}

_{⁷ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : 668–828.}

_{⁸ Ibid, I : 219–824.}

_{⁹ Ibid, I : 216–820.}

_{¹⁰ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : 651–827.}

_{¹¹ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : 251–256.}

_{¹² Ibid, 652–807.}

_{¹³ Ibid, 652.}

_{¹⁴ Ibid, 243.}

_{¹⁵ The “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” edited by D.N. Ushakov. 1935, I : 807.}

About the authors

Tatyana V. Markelova

Institute of Modern Art

Email: tvmarkelova@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4400-6175
SPIN-code: 4862-5769

Doctor of Philology, Professor, First Vice-Rector - Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs

27A Novozavodskaya St, Moscow, 121309, Russian Federation

Marina L. Novikova

RUDN University

Author for correspondence.
Email: novikova-ml@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4673-067X
SPIN-code: 1502-9636

Doctor of Philology, Professor, Russian Language Department

6 Miklukho-Maklaya St, Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198

References