Figurative Comparative and Similitudinal Adverbs in the Ukrainian Language: The Role of Context in the Formation and Consolidation of Their Motivational and Lexical Semantics

Abstract

This article analyzes the specific nature of the contextual relationships of figurative comparative and similitudinal adverbs in the Ukrainian language, given that their individual lexical and derivational meanings and thus their lexical meanings depend on and are clarified within brief or extended verbal contexts. It has been noted that idiomatic expressions constitute a special type of context, the traditional reproducibility of which can lead to the identification of adverbs as independent lexical units.

The following contextual components are described, which help distinguish instances of the repeated formation of figurative adverbs based on various motivating features, and thus confirm the consolidation of their polysemy. We classify many figurative adverbials as polysemous, which mostly denote non-processual features regarding the intensity of an action or a state of being, as well as features of a subject acquiring a certain form or appearance. Adverbs with the ‘intensity’ semantic feature are used with verbs of motion and do not require a connection to a noun ‒ the subject of associative-figurative comparisons. Adverbials that denote the subject taking on a certain form or appearance require, in their verbal context, a subject of comparative relations which indicates who (or what) is taking on that form or appearance.

The contextual nature of motivational semantics means that, in the processes of adverb formation, certain aspects of the motivators’ meaning are expressed that are not reflected in derivatives of other parts of speech.