THE LANGUAGE STATUS OF SUBJECTIVELY-EVALUATIVE DERIVATIVES (A CASE STUDY OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE)

Abstract

The suffixes of subjective evaluation of nouns have high expression. For a long time, such formations were considered to be the forms of words and not independent words, as a result of which a tradition of not including them in dictionaries has been formed, which can cause difficulties in interpreting the meaning of these derivatives by persons for whom the Russian language is not native; in addition, even in lexicographic sources, such derivatives may have incorrect interpretations. All this determines the relevance of this research. The main methods used in the paper are a descriptive method, comparative analysis method, descriptive-analytical method. Modern linguistics tends to refer to the suffixes of subjective evaluation to word formation, however, the theoretical understanding of their status in the language is not always unambiguous and has a long history. Initially, several scholars believed them to be dependent, considering these names to be forms of inflection, rather than derivation. The article traces the evolution of determining the status of the suffixes of expressive evaluation beginning from the 18th century to the present. It is shown that from the point of view of modern linguistics, the formations of subjective evaluation are independent words, and not the forms of words and have a modifying word-formation meaning. However, it should be remembered that many suffixes of the Russian language are characterized by ambiguity, therefore the same suffix can act both as a modification and as a mutation.