СИНОНІМІЧНІ РЯДИ ПРИКМЕТНИКІВ РОЗМІРУ ЗІ ЗНАЧЕННЯМ «ВЕЛИКА ВЕЛИЧИНА» В АНГЛІЙСЬКІЙ МОВІ

Abstract

Summary. This research aims to form a corpus of English adjectives with the meaning of size “large” and to determine the lexical and semantic features of this layer of vocabulary by dividing it into synonymous series based on differential features. The research material was based on data obtained from explanatory, synonymous and frequency dictionaries. Examples illustrating the basic principles of lexical compatibility were taken from The Oxford English Dictionary. To analyze lexical units, the semasiological method of research is used in this work. According to the semasiological approach, the most successful for studying is a lexical-semantic group of words that semantically unites homogeneous groups of words (parts of speech). The criterion for distinguishing a lexical-semantic group is linguistic, which implies the presence of semantic relations along the line of lexical meanings of words. The scientific novelty is that, although individual adjectives of size with the meaning “large size” have been the subject of research, the authors have developed a general structure of the functional and semantic characteristics of these adjectives that have the meaning of spatial orientation in length, width, height, depth, thickness, and their participation in the construction of a system of semantic groups of adjectives in modern English. The result of the study is the grouping of English adjectives into thematic groups and the identification of differential features of synonymous series of these adjectives. The etymological parallels of the adjectives great, large, big are highlighted and their lexical belonging to the oldest layer of the English vocabulary is established. It has been established that the adjective large is used mainly to denote a large volume of an object, great – in addition to the meaning of large size is often accompanied by some emphatic meaning: surprise, admiration, big is used to denote a large mass and weight of an object. The expressiveness of the adjectives in the analyzed synonymic series is determined.