Проявление особенностей семантики слова в тексте (на материале непроизводных прилагательных литовского языка)

MOKSLO KALBOS KULTŪROS IR TERMINOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXIV (1985) Rita Šepetytė MANIFESTATION OF THE FEATURES OF WORD SEMANTICS IN TEXT (BASED ON NON-DERIVED ADJECTIVES IN THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE) This article attempts to show, using a specific set of lexemes and their lexico-semantic variants—namely, non-derived adjectives (NAs) in Lithuanian—how certain features of word meaning are reflected in text. What is relevant here is that the units under study belong to the class of adjectives, a word class with semantics specific in relation to other classes (e.g., nouns) 1. 2.1. Before presenting the results of the analysis, which was conducted mainly on illustrative material presented in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language 2 and its card index, we will briefly consider the meaning of the term “text” and what we understand by the “features” of the semantics of NAs as members of the adjective class. 2.2. We use the term “text” to mean a single utterance. The latter, in turn, is viewed as a communicatively determined sentence. Thus, text is understood as a stretch of speech of any length containing predication as a condition of a sentence. The illustrative examples given in LKŽ, recorded in most cases from the informants’ spoken language, may be considered such texts. 2.2.1. The foregoing may create the impression that the use of the term “text” in this article is unjustified, since the discussion concerns utterances and sentences. In contemporary linguistics, “text” is understood as an extended speech product, while the utterance is often assigned a rather modest place (as part of discourse or a supra-sentential unit functioning as an element of a text). This understanding of utterance is characteristic of many researchers engaged in text linguistics, a field that seeks to establish connections— 1 См. Вольф Е. М. Грамматика и семантика прилагательного (на материале иберо-романских языков).— М., 1978, с. 3—28; Арутюнова Н. Д. Коммуникативная функция и значение слова.— НДВШ, Филол. науки, 1973, № 3, с. 42—52. 2 Lietuvių kalbos žodynas.— V., 1956—1981, t. 1—12. (Сокращение, LKŽ). 261 ties that unite superphrasal units into a coherent text3. But there is also another view, according to which text-forming regularities can be found in a linear sequence of words equivalent to an utterance4. It is assumed5 that one such text-forming factor is the meaning of a word (as the central unit of language), and that it influences the text within the limits of the utterance in which the word is used. Given that a single utterance can be regarded as a minimal text, we believe that replacing the term “utterance” with the term “text” is not impossible. The term “text” is more convenient—it is shorter and, through its etymology (textum), seems to indicate the interweaving of word meanings in their linear sequence. 2.3. What are the features of adjective meaning that, presumably, influence the structuring of a text? We consider the following semantic features, which form part of the semantic structure of adjective meaning, to be such features: qualitative/relative, evaluative/neutral, motivated6/unmotivated, definite/indefinite. The identification of the above-mentioned features is hypothetical; in all likelihood, text structuring is also influenced by semantic features of adjectives that belong to a lower level of semantics, i.e. more specific features (color/light, e.g.: juodas “black” and juodas “dark”; inherent/acquired, e.g.: gražus “beautiful,” sausas “dry,” sūrus “salty” and sausas “dry, dried out,” šlapias “wet,” drėgnas “damp”). At this stage in our study of the semantics of Lithuanian adjectives, our aim is not to establish these features. As for the three binary features mentioned above, their reflection in the text is beyond doubt. We shall try to demonstrate this with examples of Lithuanian simple adjectives. 2.3.1. We adopt a lexicocentric7 approach to lexical meaning, i.e. we consider a word to be endowed with meaning before it enters a text. When meaning is interpreted as a functional unit8, the issue is set aside 3 See, e.g., the collection of articles: Aspects of General and Special Linguistic Theory of Text. — Moscow, 1982. 4 See: T. M. Nikolaeva. On the Functional Categories of Linear Grammar. — In: Syntax of Text. Moscow, 1979, p. 38. 5 “Semantic relations conveyed by the connection between elements of a text may correspond in complex ways to the inherent meanings of the words that make up sentences” (T. M. Nikolaeva. Actual Division as a Category of Text Grammar. — Voprosy Jazykoznanija, 1972, no. 2, p. 53). 6 Motivation is understood as the feature whereby a meaning is secondary in relation to the direct (primary) meaning. 7 См.: Медникова Э. М. Значение слова и методы его описания. — М., 1974, с. 6—11. 8 L. A. Kiseleva. Communicative Functions of Language and the Semantic Structure of Word Meaning. — In: Problems of Semantics. Moscow, 1974, p. 66 ff. 262 The opposition of (purely) lexical 9, grammatical, and connotative (pragmatic) semantic features, and their equal consideration, are all important for describing word meaning. Thus, quality and relationality as grammatical 10 features, and evaluativeness and neutrality as pragmatic features, can be considered, on an equal footing with informative 11 features, components of the semantic structure of adjective meaning—a structure that exists prior to its realization in speech. The binary features shown above are oppositional: a structure containing the feature of quality lacks the feature of relationality, and so on. The interrelations among the listed features of adjective meaning are not entirely clear; all that is known is that the feature of evaluativeness often (but not always) accompanies the feature of motivation (e.g., minkštas ‘soft’—‘figurative + and this is bad’). It is generally accepted 12 that the metaphorical (motivated) meaning of a relational adjective constitutes its conversion into a qualitative adjective (e.g., auksinis žiedas ‘gold ring’ and auksinis žmogus ‘golden person’). This seems debatable to us, since in such a conversion the adjective does not acquire the grammatical properties of a qualitative adjective. 2.3.2. Studies devoted to the semantics of adjectives emphasize the interdependence between an adjective’s meaning and the meaning of the noun with which it combines. In lexicography, the inventory of an adjective’s meanings is established with regard to differences among the nouns that collocate with it. There is no doubt that semantic agreement between adjective and noun takes place in a text. Whether this results from interpretation when the adjective–noun combination is understood, or from the flexibility of the adjective’s semantic structure, is a question we do not address in this article, setting aside, as far as possible, the meaning of nouns. 3.1. Let us turn to the presentation of the results of the analysis. First, let us consider how the quality/relationality of the adjective 13 manifests itself in a text. 3.2 The division of all adjectives into qualitative and relational ones is the most familiar and generally accepted 14 semantic classification of adjectives. Since it is not always possible to make this classification on the basis of an adjective’s lexical meaning 15, as additional criteria 9 See: Kiseleva L. A. Op. cit., p. 66. 10 This understanding is traditional. The formation of adjective forms is closely connected with these features. 11 This refers to those semantic features that, through a concept, link a word to extralinguistic reality (including psychological reality). 12 Lietuvių kalbos gramatika.— V., 1965, t. 1, p. 477. 13 We proceed from the premise that not all meanings of lexemes classified as qualitative (as are most underived adjectives in Lithuanian) possess the feature of quality. 14 Lietuvių kalbos gramatika, t. 1, p. 474. 15 Ibid. 263 The criteria for assigning it to one class or another include formal features such as the formation of degrees of comparison, adverbs with the formant -ai, nouns with the suffix -umas, and a pronominalized form; a textual feature is its combination with gradational adverbs (labai “very,” visiškai “completely,” beveik “almost,” etc.). The presence of these features characterizes qualitative adjectives, while their absence characterizes relative adjectives. Yet even traditional grammars 16 note that not all meanings of a qualitative adjective possess the features listed above. M. I. Trofimov, who proposed a semantic classification of Russian adjectives based on their formal features (including textual positions), considers (or, more precisely, raises the question) that perhaps the division of adjectives into two classes should be abandoned and “replaced with a more fine-grained classification oriented toward two poles” 17. M. I. Trofimov puts forward an extensive program for investigating adjectives in every kind of textual position 18, which, in the author’s view, should help establish the degree of qualitativeness of any given adjective. M. I. Trofimov’s hypothesis, which, as far as we know, has not found support19, seems a highly productive approach to investigating adjective semantics both at the level of the lexeme and at the level of the lexical-semantic variant (meaning). We therefore decided to analyze several textual positions of Lithuanian non-derived adjectives (NDAs), on the assumption that the possibility of filling a given position with an adjective in a particular meaning depends on whether the latter is qualitative or relative. 3.2.1. Textual position in relation to the noun. As is well known, an adjective can precede a noun, functioning as an attribute, or follow it, functioning as a predicative 20. It is assumed that “an adjective (A) in predicative position does not realize its relative and modal meanings; most often, in 16 Jakaitienė E., Laigonaitė A., Paulauskienė A. Lietuvių kalbos morfologija.— V., 1976, p. 62. Термин «качественные» в данной работе отсутствует. Вместо него введен термин kintamosios ypatybės būdvardžiai «прилагательные изменяющегося признака». Несмотря на разницу в терминологии, единицы, подводимые под термины «качественные прилагательные» и «прилагательные изменяющегося признака», почти совпадают. 17 Trofimov, M. I. On the Formal-Semantic Classification of Adjectives in Russian (A Statement of the Problem).—In: Problems of Structural Linguistics. 1971.—Moscow, 1972, p. 460. 18 Trofimov, M. I. Op. cit., pp. 462–463. 19 See the critique of M. I. Trofimov’s article in: Shramm, A. N. Essays on the Semantics of Qualitative Adjectives (Based on Modern Russian).—Leningrad, 1979, pp. 11–13. 20 On the dependence between position and adjective meaning, see, e.g.: Jakaitienė E. Dėl daugiareikšmių žodžių reikšmių skyrimo kriterijų.—Questions of Syntax and Semantics: Abstracts of Papers. Šiauliai, 1982, p. 81. 264 predicative use expresses the adjective’s specifically qualitative meaning” 21. Among the meanings of Lithuanian NDAs marked as relative, that is, those realized only in attributive position, we can distinguish: 1) meanings of intensification, e.g.: didėlis “big” (Šiaip būtų geras žmogus, tik didelis melagis Vvr. “He would be a good person, except that he is a big liar”); gyvas “alive” (Šitas vaikas gyvas tėvas Alk. “This child is the spitting image of his father”); juodas “black” (Lig pat juodo vakaro Šts. “Until the very black (late) evening”); kiauras “holey” (Kiaurą dieną rugius pjovėm Grž. “We cut rye all day long”); pilnas “full” (Aš jau buvau pilnas vyras, kad siūdinau batus Pln. “I was already a full-grown man when I made myself boots”); raudonas “red” (Abu buvo raudoni latrai... Btg. “Both were red drunks (i.e. big-time ones)”); baisus “terrible, awful” (Baisus džiaugsmas, kad gavo kolkozas pirmą mašiną Dj. “Enormous joy when the collective farm got its first machine”), etc.; 2) temporal meanings, e.g.: senas “old” (Sitame kaime aš viena esu likusi sena gyventoja Slk. “In this village I am the only old resident left (i.e. someone who has lived here for a long time)”); šviežias “fresh” (Pernai atėjo šviežias pirminykas ūki pakelt Dg. “Last year a fresh (i.e. new) chairman came to raise the farm”); naujas “new” (Prariekėm naujų grūdų ragaišį Rm. “We began eating bread made from new grain (i.e. this year’s harvest)”); etc.; 3) certain figurative meanings, e.g.: plikas “bare” (Ryto metą išvirs tą pliką putrą Krt. “In the morning she’ll cook that plain (i.e. unseasoned) porridge”); sveikas “healthy, sane” (Sudege smagenai, sveiku protu šitei nedarut Klt. “His brains got burned out (he went mad); no one in their right mind would do that”); sunkus “heavy” (Saulės ašarėlės tur sunkų kvapą Klp. “The sun drops have a heavy scent”); pigūs “cheap” (Taip tik pigiuose romaniūškčiuose būna M. Sluck. “That only happens in cheap novels”); šviesus “light” (Jei koks šviesesnis kąsnelis, tai vis jam Gdr. “If there’s a somewhat better morsel, it always goes to him”); sausas “dry” (! Kauną iš čia sauso kelio yra 10 km, o Nemunu — 12 Rdd. “From here to Kaunas by dry land is 10 km, but by the Nemunas it is 12”); minkštas “soft” (Salė užlieja minkšta šviesa A. Vencl. “The hall is bathed in soft light”); gilus “deep” (Gili senatvė — jau devintoj dešimty Šmn. “Deep old age—already in one’s eighties”), etc. All the meanings listed belong to the semantic structure of the corresponding NDA, contrasting with meanings marked as qualitative. For example, the meanings of the NDA baisus “terrible” include a qualitative meaning, “causing fear, terrifying,” and a relative meaning, “large, intense.” In the first meaning 21 Vol'f, E. M. Op. cit., p. 159. 22 Here and below, a literal translation is given. 265 it can be placed in the predicative position (Naktis baisi, tamsu Pnd. “The night is frightening, it is dark”; see the ambiguity in the sentence Eglūnai baisi buvo Krž. “The spruce groves were frightening (large or terrifying)”), whereas in the second case, as already noted, it cannot. 3.3. What, then, explains the impossibility of placing an adjective with a relational meaning in the predicative position? Predicativity, as the basic category of the sentence, “is potentially present in the word as well, in the form of communicative purposefulness (…)”²³. Generative semantics advanced the idea that every surface (attributive) combination of an adjective and a noun presupposes the predicate to be in the deep structure, e.g.: Nusipirkau gerą knygą — knygą, kuri yra gera “I bought a good book — a book that is good.” However, as E. M. Wolf writes, citing Z. Vendler’s well-known article²⁴, “it became clear that by no means all attributive combinations presuppose the predicate to be in the deep structure”²⁵. Thus, it may be assumed that, just as the complex predicates susijęs “related,” skirtas “intended for,” būdingas “characteristic of,” and so on, are present in the classical relational adjectives bulvinis (peilis) “(knife) for peeling potatoes,” kopūstinis (drugys) “cabbage (white butterfly),” their presence being determined by word-formation motivation, in the relational meanings of the adjectives discussed above (and others), more complex predicates than the predicate to be are present. It is possible that the association between, and establishment of a relation between, the direct and figurative (derived) meanings of an adjective²⁶ plays a certain role in the formation of this complex predicate (all the meanings of the adjectives discussed are secondary to the direct, primary meaning). 3.4. Position in the text: modification by the words koks “what kind of,” toks “such,” kaip “as.” M. I. Trofimov identifies this position as relevant to the study of adjective semantics in terms of their qualitative versus relational character. The combination of adjectives in the text with the pronouns koks, toks is synonymous with their combination with the degree adverbs labai, itin “very” (cf. Ji tokia graži “She is so beautiful” and Ji labai graži “She is very beautiful”); the latter combination is generally regarded as a criterion for classifying an adjective as qualitative. It seems that when adjectives are combined with koks, toks, as well as with kaip (comparison), it is not only the quality feature that is activated 23 Ольшанский И. Г. Взаимодействие семантики слова и предложения.— ВЯ, 1983, № 3, с. 57. 24 Вендлер З. О слове good.— В кн.: Новое в зарубежной лингвистике. М., 1981, вып. 10, с. 531—554. 25 Wolf, E. M. Op. cit., p. 16. 26 “The direct meaning serves as a distinctive presupposition in interpreting the derived meanings of a word” (Olshansky, I. G. Op. cit., p. 61). 266 of quality, but also the feature of evaluativity 27. Therefore, whether the adjective is used in a relational or an evaluative meaning 28, it does not consistently combine with koks, toks, kaip. In meanings that allow combination with these words, the feature of evaluativity is actualized alongside the feature of quality 29. (It should be noted that evaluative adjectives such as geras “good” and blogas “bad” often “claim” objectivity, i.e. seem to point to the actual state of affairs rather than to an evaluation; cf. Tu labai geras “You are very kind” and Tu toks geras “You are so kind”—with the evaluative feature.) A few examples from the meanings of Lithuanian adjectives. The relational meaning of gražus cannot be modified by combining it with toks30: Gali prižiūrėt taboką, turi gražaus laiko Рс. “You can look after the tobacco (i.e. the plant); you have beautiful (i.e. a lot of) time.” Qualitative meaning of gražus:Tokio gražaus šienelio pasipjovėm… Snt. “We mowed such beautiful hay…”; mažas “small”: Sveikata maža, nedirbu Dg. “My health is poor, so I do not work,” and Toks mažas vabalukas, o tokius skruzdynus suvelka Vdk. “Such a tiny bug, yet it drags together anthills like these”; rūgštus “sour”: Viršim bulbas su rūgštum pienu LKT316 (Stlm). “We’ll boil potatoes (and eat them) with sour milk,” and Tokia duona rūgšti, žarnas, rodos, sutraukė Trgn. “This bread is so sour, it seems to make your bowels cramp”; baisus “frightening”: Darbininkas baisus buvo Vl. “The worker was formidable (i.e. worked well, a lot),” and O toks baisus avinas buvo Lnk. “And such a frightening ram it was,” and so on. Similar examples can be given with the pronoun koks and the pronominal adverb kaip. For example, three meanings (according to LKŽ) of the adjective blogas “bad” are not realized in the text in combination with kaip; only the fourth—“thin”—allows this combination, e.g.: Blogas kaip pjūklas arklys PPr319. “As thin as a drunkard’s horse.” Cf. the shift in meaning in O ligonis buvo sunkus and O ligonis buvo sunkus kaip vienas geležis Rmš. “And the patient was heavy” and “And the patient was as heavy as iron.” 27 On evaluativity as a feature of adjective semantics, see: Wolf, E. M. Op. cit., p. 19. 28 Intensification meanings may be regarded as such evaluative meanings (see: Wolf, E. M. Op. cit., p. 20). 29 The evaluative character of combinations such as baltas kaip drobė “white as a sheet,” raudonas kaip burokas “red as a beet,” and so on, is evidenced at least by the fact that Lithuanian has a neutral form of comparison, expressed by means of deadjectival nouns denoting an abstract property, e.g. buroko raudonumo “the redness of a beet,” i.e. the color of a beet, kavos rudumo “the brownness of coffee,” i.e. the color of coffee. 30 We consider only those cases in which the pronouns koks, toks refer only to adjectives, and not to the noun phrase as a whole (e.g. Apsivilkusi tokia (t. y. viena, kažkokia) (siaura suknele) “Dressed in such a (i.e. some kind of) (narrow dress)”; here the pronoun refers not to the adjective but to the noun. 267 As for the adverb kaip, it most often actualizes the feature of evaluativeness with such underived adjectives (UA) as color terms (Jų žąsys baltos kaip gulbės Pn. “Their geese are white as swans”; Geltonas kaip kiaušinio trynys Ldvn. “Yellow as an egg yolk”), taste terms (Cukraus pr idejo, pyragas išėjo saldus kaip medus Jnš. “She added sugar, and the cake turned out sweet as honey”), parameter terms (Paukštis tas didelis kaip jaučias Kz. “That bird is as big as an ox”; Kambarys mažas kaip rankovė Snt. “The room is as small as a sleeve”; Plonas kaip silkė Kps. “As thin as a herring”; O yr įs i penė j usi, plati kaip mašina End. “She is well-fed, as wide as a car”), and so on. In these cases, as already noted, the UA realizes the features of quality and evaluativeness in its meaning. If a UA’s meaning has the feature of evaluativeness before being realized in the text (meanings of intensification and others belong to this group), then combinations of a UA in this meaning with koks, toks and kaip are infrequent (judging by the examples in LKŽ). For example, the adjectives geras “good,” blogas “bad,” and do-ras “honest” do not typically occur in the textual position: geras kaip… “good as,” and so on. (In this connection, it should be noted that the UA blogas is more evaluative than its antonym geras.) Among the meanings of Lithuanian UAs, one group consists of units that do not allow combination with koks, toks and kaip. These are the literal meanings of the UAs gyvas “alive,” žalias “raw,” tuščias “empty,” aklas “blind,” šlubas “lame,” and others. It may be supposed that these are endowed with the feature of neutrality, which is associated with the feature of definiteness, also characteristic of adjective semantics. This feature stands in opposition to the feature of indefiniteness. 3.5. Most adjectives traditionally classified as qualitative display a certain semantic indefiniteness. How large must an object be for it to be described as “big” or “small”; what timbre must a voice have to be called “thin” or “low” (in Lithuanian storu)? Such indefiniteness is especially characteristic of adjectives that enter into antonymic relations within the adjective class (aukštas—žemas “high—low,” and so on). However, when we speak of indefiniteness/definiteness as a semantic feature of an adjective’s meaning, we mean the following: some meanings require explication in order to be realized, while others do not. We consider the former to be endowed with the feature of indefiniteness, and the latter with the feature of definiteness. 3.5.1. Among the latter, one can distinguish a group of meanings sharing the general feature of “state” (gyvas “alive,” aklas “blind,” girtas “drunk,” žalias “raw,” piktas³¹ “angry (becoming angry),” nuogas “naked,” linksmas ³¹ This refers to the meaning realized in texts such as Jis šiandien piktas. Vaikšto piktas “He is angry today. He walks around angry,” and so on. 268 “cheerful,” liūdnas “sad,” and so on), as well as a group of meanings that we call terminological, for example: Dabar skarele gerąją ³² puse ryšių Slm. “Now I wear the kerchief with its good (i.e., front) side”; Gal prastų kojinių y[ra]? Sk. “Might there be plain stockings?”; Pikta uotis ilgai nežūgyja Rod. “An angry boil takes a long time to heal”; Ar kavą dar rami? VĮkv. “Is the coffee still calm (i.e., warmish)?”; Labai visko reikia saugotis ir sunkių darbų ir valgių Krs. “One must take care with everything, both strenuous work and (heavy) food”; Jūsų šulinio kietas vanduo Ml. “The water in your well is hard”; Jis kalba storu balsu Rmš. “He speaks in a thick (low) voice”; Plono milto kiaulė nepar daugėda End. “A pig doesn’t much care for fine (i.e., finely ground) flour,” and so on. These meanings (and others not listed here) are characterized as definite by the fact that they are not expanded through explication in the text. The latter, in turn, is characteristic of meanings endowed with the feature of indefiniteness. 3.5.2. Position in the text: adjective + explication. Explication is understood as follows: words (or sentences) are introduced into the text that help identify the meaning, that is, reduce its indefiniteness. Forms of explication include an explicating sentence or word (1), a restrictive word (2), and a synonymous clarifying word (3). Examples: 1. Jie ma nebūvo prasti: darbą gerą davė Pgg. “They were not bad to me: they gave me good work”; Jų karvė gera, daug pieno duoda Ldv. “Their cow is good; it gives a lot of milk”; Jų tiršta giminė — vien brolių ir seserų devyni Rs. “A dense (numerous) family—nine brothers and sisters alone”; Kokie žmonės skysti pasidarė: šalčio nebetrijoja, šilimos nebetrijoja Vdn. “How weak people have become: they can no longer bear the cold or the heat”; Pikti čia čibuliai, teip ir ėda akis Ob. “The onions here are fierce (i.e., pungent); they make your eyes sting”; Anas labai minkštas: kad tik bent kiek, tai ir rauda Dbk. “He is very soft-hearted: at the slightest thing, he cries”; Neturit gero medaus, jūsų cukraus medus Ssk. “You don’t have good honey; yours is sugar honey”; Mano oblia prasta, atšipus Slm. “My plane is bad; it has gone blunt,” and so on. 2. Bjauri p a v e i z ė t i kaip liūčna Yl. “Ugly to look at (i.e., in appearance), like a scarecrow”; Vincukas labai geras kur pasiųst Mš. “Vincukas is very good to send somewhere (i.e., when there is somewhere he needs to be sent)”; Šita giesmė lengva išgiedot Rmš. “This song is easy to sing”; Ans y kietas prašne kinti Šts. “He is hard to get talking (literally: he is hard to start talking)”; Anas tai minkštas an darbą Ml. “He is soft when it comes to work (i.e., weak, unable to endure it)”; Aš gi lengvas ant kojų Trgn. “I, for my part, am light on my feet (i.e., I move easily and— ³² In the literary language, geras realizes this meaning in a pronominal form. In dialects, it is also used in the simple form. 269 I walk well»; Zalos karvės good for milk Klt. «Brown cows are good for milk (i.e., they give a lot of milk)»; Kodėl toks silpnas pri rūkymo? Rdn. «Why so weak when it comes to smoking (i.e., unable to resist)?»; Plaukais mes seserys stiprios... Sv. «We sisters are strong in our hair (i.e., we have good hair)»; Daktarai silpni buvo su vaistais Trgn. «The doctors were weak when it came to medicines (i.e., they did not have good medicines)» and so on. 3. Kritinėje a dull, aching pain rš. «A dull, aching pain in the chest»; Straipsneliai fluid, unsubstantiated, the topics not examined Pt. «The articles are flimsy, unsubstantiated, the topics not examined»; Žmogus sausas, išdžiūvęs, kai duonos ar vandenio neregėjęs Asv. «A person dry, withered, as if they had never seen bread or water» and so on. As the examples show, the feature of indeterminacy is most characteristic of meanings with the general seme “evaluation” (geras 1 and 5 “good” (according to LK2), prastas “bad”, bjaurus “ugly, vile”) and to secondary, motivated meanings of various qualitative adjectives. 4. In conclusion, it should be said that some of our propositions require verification against statistical data. We have only touched upon such a complex question as “the word in its interrelations and interdependencies”33. But the path from the meaning of a word to the text in which it is used is, in our view, productive. In this connection, we may cite the words of Prof. F. Kopečný: «(…) the progress of linguistic science consists in the fact that, having begun with the word and gradually deepening and broadening its subject matter, it has reached such complex objects as the sentence and the text; the next step in deepening and complicating the object (…) will be the transition from the linguistics of text… to the linguistics of the word»34. 32 Shvedova N. Yu. Types of Contexts Constructing a Multidimensional Description of the Word.—In: The Russian Language. Text as a Whole and Components of Text. Moscow, 1982, p. 143. 34 Shvedova N. Yu. Op. cit., p. 142.