Olena Yuzhakova

                                                                  Odessa National Academy for Food Technologies

SEMANTIC MODELS OF NOMINATIONS WITH THE BASIC WORD REVOLUTION

© Yuzhakova O. I., 2015

The article investigates semantic models of nominations denoting dynamic processes, changes and transformations in various fields of human activity that are represented at the language level as collocations with “revolution” as the basic word. These nominations are analysed on the ground of suggested signs of revolution and presence of components in the collocations used in their direct and figurative sense. Besides, the article aims at establishing degree of correspondence between the event and its name.

Keywords: semantic model, onomasiological variation, specifier, metonymiser, metaphoriser.

The names represented as collocations with revolution as the basic word are analyzed in the article as these names that are used to denote the state of dynamic changes which makes it possible to register progress as well as distinguish between progress and setbacks in any domain of knowledge and any field of human activity.

The material for research embraces over 170 nominations designating revolutionary events divided into three groups. This classification is based on certain signs of revolution called basic, individual, symbolic and presence or lack of components in the collocations which are metonymisers or metaphorisers of the basic word revolution. Thus, fundamental signs of revolutions include “place of the event”, “time”, “presence of the leader”, “driving forces”, “ideological trend” etc.; individual signs include “aim of the revolution”, “its cause”, “presence of assessment seme in its name”, “revolution history” while “symbolic signs” involve presence of various symbols in the names. Besides, regardless of the number of words in the collocations the generalized semantic model is presented. It is divided into two parts: specifier(s) or limiter(s) of the basic word / Basic word “Revolution”.

Therefore, semantic models of the first group covers approximately 125 nominations (73.5%) forming seven subgroups mostly with limiting metonymisers (there are 77 such nominations, in the rest of units the words are used in their direct meaning) e.g.: “COUNTRY”, “YEAR/YEARS” / “REVOLUTION” (“the Algerian Revolution, 1954-1962”), “MONTH”, “COUNTRY”, “YEAR” / “REVOLUTION” (the September Revolution in Portugal, 1836), “THE PERSON LEADING THE REVOLUTION” / “REVOLUTION” (Solon’s Revolution), “REVOLUTIONARY DRIVING FORCES” / “REVOLUTION” (the Youth Revolution in Egypt, 2011), “FIELD OF HUMAN ACTIVITY” / “REVOLUTION” (information revolution) etc.

The second group is not so numerous (over 13 units – 7.6%) with most of the nominations being metaphorical. Semantic models of these group nominations are as follows: “PURPOSE OF THE EVENT” / “REVOLUTION” (the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine), “CAUSE OF THE EVENT” / “REVOLUTION” (the Starvation Revolution, 2010-2011, in Tunisia), “ASSESSMENT OF THE EVENT” / “REVOLUTION” (the Glorious Revolution in England in 1687–1688), “COURSE OF THE EVENT” / “REVOLUTION” (velvet revolutions in countries of Western Europe).

The third group (32 names, i.e. 18.9% - their semantic structure is mostly made up by the various symbols) contains mostly models with the metaphorising component. This group includes most of the nominations of “coloured” revolutions or revolutions with a word denoting colour in their names, e.g.: the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the White Revolution in Egypt in 2011etc.

Therefore, the names of the revolutions in the first group are mostly metonymical with periphrastic variants (cognitive revolution – revolution in the domain of cognitive science) being peculiar to these metonymised collocations. Names of the second and the third groups are largely metaphorical. However in the second group there are some names whose components have direct meaning and there are no nominations of that sort in the third group although the third one comprises certain metonymised nominations. Furthermore, the seme of “non-violent resistance to the government” in the third group collocations is represented as various positive images like flowers, plants and fruits (the Tulip Revolution, the Cedar Revolution) as well as non-aggressive colour (the Orange Revolution) etc. Syntactic and periphrastic variation is not peculiar to the nominations of the second and third groups with six exceptions out of thirty-two collocations which can be used to form syntactic variants e.g.: the Rose Revolution – the Revolution of Roses.

Finally, if any nomination is the reflection of human mind work, these nominations can be used to track the course of changes in the attitude towards revolutionary processes. Transformation shifts from one state to the other one are known to be attended with violent reaction of society that may be shaped as protests, ralli           es, clashes with the authorities and as a rule leads to murderous consequences. However the feature of “losses of lives during revolutions” is not expressed in their names anyhow. Certain changes in that direction took place in the twenty-first century when the world got overwhelmed with “coloured” revolutions, when the forms of protests that were peaceful (at least at first) altered, and the names themselves started to evoke more or less positive emotions and to differ in semantics from the preceding nominations.