SUPERIORITY (AUGMENTATION) RELATIONS: SEMANTIC NUANCES AND FORMAL REPRESENTATION

Abstract

The article analyzes the ways of representation of the superiority relations by the means of the Turkish language. In accordance with the understanding of superiority (augmentation) given in theoretical sources as a type of relationship between the compared objects, which reflect the higher degree of quality in one of them, there were picked out linguistic means that convey this meaning at the defferent levels of language. The purpose of the article is to determine the semantic nuances and formal means of reproducing the relations of superiority as a part of the functional semantic field of comparison in the Turkish language. Theoretical background shows insufficient study of superiority as a component of the field of comparison and lack of description of its semantic nuances in the Turkish language. The selection of linguistic means and separation of semantic nuances of meaning was done using the sampling techniques, descriptive method, opposition and component analysis; the transformational analysis was used to distinguish superlative and elative meanings of the forms of the highest degree of comparison. As the result of the carried out research, the classification of means that are involved in representing degrees of comparison and quantification of the quality was clarified; also the segmentation of the space of superiority zone into narrower semantic subzones was done. Taking into account the relativity of the object of comparison the superiority zone was divided onto relative superiority and normative superiority. The paper marks out that the degrees of comparison work in both mentioned subzone, however, they act more actively for reflecting the relative superiority relations. It is determined that in the Turkish language superlative and elative meanings are represented in the same way by the highest degree of comparison, which means that as far as there are no formal representatives of these meanings in the Turkish language, the transformational analysis is chosen as the way to distinguish them. Based on the semantic and syntagmatic characteristics of the comparative degree, the functional equivalence of constructions with and without «daha» for representation of the advantage of the quality was established. The paper reveals that the predominance of quality in the Turkish language can be transmitted by means of different levels of language: morphological, lexical, syntactic.