Lexical Cycles in Modern Russian

The article is focused on temporal lexical cycles in Russian – groups of words united by semantic relations of sequence and recurrence. Semantic and pragmatic properties of names-constituents of the day (утро-день-вечер-ночь), week (понедельник-вторник-среда-четверг-пятница-суббота-воскресенье), season (весна-лето-осень-зима) and year (январь-февраль-март-апрель-май-июнь-июль-авгукст-сентябрь-октябрь-ноябрь-декабрь) lexical cycles in Russian which become evident in the course of lexicographic, contextual, derivational and phraseological analysis, testify to the heterogeneity of the cyclical structures (e.g. natural, event-based and conventional ones; terminological/non-terminological: with rigid/non-rigid boundaries, etc.). Most significant is the salience of some member elements within the cycle (ночь ‘night’ in the day cycle, лето ‘summer’, весна ‘spring’ in the seasonal cycle, etc.). Knowledge of ontological features of the time period named, of activity related to it and subjective-evaluative associations’ language users may have on the basis of this information function as the foundation of the salience of cyclical members.The article is focused on temporal lexical cycles in Russian – groups of words united by semantic relations of sequence and recurrence. Semantic and pragmatic properties of names-constituents of the day (утро-день-вечер-ночь), week (понедельник-вторник-среда-четверг-пятница-суббота-воскресенье), season (весна-лето-осень-зима) and year (январь-февраль-март-апрель-май-июнь-июль-авгукст-сентябрь-октябрь-ноябрь-декабрь) lexical cycles in Russian which become evident in the course of lexicographic, contextual, derivational and phraseological analysis, testify to the heterogeneity of the cyclical structures (e.g. natural, event-based and conventional ones; terminological/non-terminological: with rigid/non-rigid boundaries, etc.). Most significant is the salience of some member elements within the cycle (ночь ‘night’ in the day cycle, лето ‘summer’, весна ‘spring’ in the seasonal cycle, etc.). Knowledge of ontological features of the time period named, of activity related to it and subjective-evaluative associations’ language users may have on the basis of this information function as the foundation of the salience of cyclical members.

Keywords:

Temporal Lexical Cycle , Sequence , Recurrence , Salience , Frequency.