“LEXICAL ASSIMILATION”: ITS SCOPE AND BASIS FOR A TYPOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

The paper addresses the problem of paronymic attraction, to the study of which a significant contribution was made by Victor P. Grigoryev. By analyzing the convergence of different lexical units, it is possible to model the vectors of their associative ties. Paronymic attraction belongs to a broader range of phenomena, called “lexical assimilation” by Nikolay V. Krushevsky. The different types of “lexical assimilation” may be classified according to the nature of the associative ties between words, which are based on their form (phonetic and/or grammatical, viz. combinability) or their meaning (the signified). The following types of “lexical assimilation” are proposed in the paper: 1. Paronymic attraction (an explicit associative link between two words based on the similarity of phonetic form and its graphical representation); 2. Semantic attraction (an explicit and implicit link between two words based on similarity between components of their meanings), which is further divided into 2a. Logical semantic attraction (based on denotational similarity), 2b. Mythological semantic attraction (based on connotational similarity) and 2c. Semantic “anti-attraction” (elimination of lexical duplicates in speech); and 3. Syntagmatic attraction (an explicit associative link between nouns based on common combinability patterns). Theoretical foundations of this classification include the opposition of linear (speech) and non-linear (thinking) processes, the notion of linguistic sign asymmetry and the fundamentally different status of the signifier and the signified in speech: the former being material (spoken or written) and the latter ideal. The data upon which the classification is based was obtained from everyday speech interactions, in particular from dialogues between adults and children.