| Sumario: | The subject of this paper is the semantics of noun phrases (adjective+noun combinations) used in Soviet Russian political discourse. The study has the following objectives: 1) to reveal the semantics of certain types of noun phrases, and the internal relations in them, i.e., the laws and patterns of their formation; 2) to investigate the pragmatic value of these word groups; 3) to contribute to the investigation of general peculiarities of Soviet political discourse. It will be demonstrated that the adjectives under discussion are similar to epitheta ornantia used in traditional texts, especially in folklore. The concept of tautological epithets can be applied to the word groups under consideration because of the proximity or even the coincidence of semantic contents of the noun and the adjective within the noun phrase. The adjective often serves here as an intensifier or qualifier, the classificative function of attribute being absent. The evaluation can be contained in each element of the word group or in both of them. The abundance of such adjectives is a striking feature of Soviet political discourse. They contribute to a certain "monumentalism" of text and provide a ready value judgement of events, the judgement prevailing over the informative content of the texts.
|
|---|