IN THE LABYRINTHS OF SENSE: IMMERSION IN DOSTOEVSKY’S WORD (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH VOLUMES OF “IDIOGLOSSARY”)


2024. № 1 (39), 215-227

Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University

Abstract:

The article uses the materials of the fi fth volume of “Dostoevsky’s Idioglossary” published in 2021, as well as the sixth volume being prepared for publication, to illustrate the thesis about the recent strengthening of the subjective factor in the construction of dictionaries. Using the examples of lexicographic data given in various parts of dictionary entry commentary and notes — indistinguishability of meanings, symbolic and wordplay of an idioglossa, its textual associative links, the possibilities of an onomasiological approach to describing the meaning of a word are shown, which allows to combine lexical units into semantic groups, which, in turn, are included in semantic fi elds signifi cant for Dostoevsky’s thesaurus — ‘laughter’, ‘fear’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘time, shortening of time until its disappearance, death’, etc. The article also analyzes the peculiarities of the functioning of the idioglossas strashnyi, umilenie, slezlivyi, chyort, primirenie, pochva (terrible, tenderness, tearful, devil, reconciliation, soil) in the texts of the writer, as well as groups of idioglossas with a common component meaning ‘border state’ — fl igel’, prizhival’shhik, trotuar, shirma (wing, hooker, sidewalk, folding screen). The points of intersection of these and other idioglossas are indicated in the semantic space of Dostoevsky’s texts, the writer for whom it is fundamentally important to connect the unconnected, hence the frequent use of such linguistic means as oxymoron, zeugma, violation of the standard compatibility of a word or a standard form of phraseological unit, etc., which serves as one of the ways of linguistic materialization of contrast necessary to create a self-organizing system which for Dostoevsky is a human being.