SEMANTIC COMPATIBILITY OF PERSONIFYING METAPHORS AND SIMILES IN A LITERARY TEXT

The article is devoted to the problem of interaction of metaphors and similes of different semantic classes in a literary text. It is suggested that each semantic class of tropes has its own most frequent directions of semantic agreement with tropes of other classes. It is noted that personifying metaphors and similes are the most active in terms of combining with elements of various fi gurative fi elds. They are often combined with tropes the images of comparison of which belong to the semantic category “Objects created by man”. Such interaction is due to the close connection between the semantic categories “Person” and “Objects” in extralinguistic reality. The class of artefact images most often combined with personifying tropes, is “Fabrics, fabric products”. The tropes of the “Clothes” subfi eld are characterized by the highest frequency of use in literary texts, they in themselves can create an anthropomorphic image, characterizing various natural phenomena. In most contexts, the words of the “Clothes” subfi eld are combined with words denoting persons and with metaphorical predicates denoting the situation of dressing. Other personifying elements can also be included in the fi gurative description: verbs of movement, designations of body parts, etc. Denotations corresponding to the fi gurative designation of clothing and of the subject dressed in it (covered by it) are characterized by wide variation. The semantic basis of each trope can be presented in a variety of semantic and syntactic variants. The elements of the fi gurative fi eld “Fabrics, fabric products” are also involved in the description of various other fi gurative situations, except for the most frequent situation of dressing. These are such situations as “undressing”, “changing of clothes”, “weaving, spinning, knitting”, “spreading, hanging fabric” and some other, rarer situations: “raising the fl ag”, “tearing the fabric”, etc. Interaction of tropes with images of comparison of the class “Fabrics, fabric products” with personifi cation, the semantic-syntactic variation of fi gurative situations contributes to the creation of vivid, lively, various personifying metaphors and similes.