The modern linguistic science still keeps the issues concerning the combinatorial potential of the lexical units in the focus of its attention. The significance and importance of the problem of adjectival lexemes’ combinability remains burning in modern linguistics, especially taking into account that behind the combinatorial possibilities of lexical units there lays the notional substratum that finds implementation during the semantic actualization of a definite lexeme when this lexeme enters a certain structural model of a sentence. The present paper deals with the combinatorial power of adjectival lexemes that are rather recurrent in their usage both in English and in Russian. On the one hand, we are interested in the combinatorial analysis of such adjectival lexemes as anxious, certain, difficult, beautiful, etc., in English and their equivalents in Russian, and, on the other hand, in the functional peculiarities of the named lexemes as dependent on a structural scheme in which they are used. The adjectival lexemes are the object of the present paper, and the peculiarities of these lexemes’ functioning in different constructions constitute its subject. No less interesting is the demonstration of functional differences of adjectival lexemes determined by their semantic structure and their seme composition. The dictionaries data, extracts chosen from fiction and media editions are used as a material for the investigation. The method of componential analysis, the conceptual and transformational methods compose the methodic framework of the paper. As a result, there have been determined the four classes of the adjectival-predicative lexemes, their main characteristic features being determined by their specific combinatorial and semantic structure. Such adjectives may perform different semantic roles while preserving their isomorphic semantic peculiarities. In the paper, the conclusion is given that the semantic peculiarity of the adjectives is the main source for the common vector of the constructions’ syntagmatic features, as well as the determinant of using the definite classes of verbs in the form of the infinitive and pronouns and substantives in the role of a subject.
The modern linguistic science still keeps the issues concerning the combinatorial potential of the lexical units in the focus of its attention. The significance and importance of the problem of adjectival lexemes’ combinability remains burning in modern linguistics, especially taking into account that behind the combinatorial possibilities of lexical units there lays the notional substratum that finds implementation during the semantic actualization of a definite lexeme when this lexeme enters a certain structural model of a sentence. The present paper deals with the combinatorial power of adjectival lexemes that are rather recurrent in their usage both in English and in Russian. On the one hand, we are interested in the combinatorial analysis of such adjectival lexemes as anxious, certain, difficult, beautiful, etc., in English and their equivalents in Russian, and, on the other hand, in the functional peculiarities of the named lexemes as dependent on a structural scheme in which they are used. The adjectival lexemes are the object of the present paper, and the peculiarities of these lexemes’ functioning in different constructions constitute its subject. No less interesting is the demonstration of functional differences of adjectival lexemes determined by their semantic structure and their seme composition. The dictionaries data, extracts chosen from fiction and media editions are used as a material for the investigation. The method of componential analysis, the conceptual and transformational methods compose the methodic framework of the paper. As a result, there have been determined the four classes of the adjectival-predicative lexemes, their main characteristic features being determined by their specific combinatorial and semantic structure. Such adjectives may perform different semantic roles while preserving their isomorphic semantic peculiarities. In the paper, the conclusion is given that the semantic peculiarity of the adjectives is the main source for the common vector of the constructions’ syntagmatic features, as well as the determinant of using the definite classes of verbs in the form of the infinitive and pronouns and substantives in the role of a subject.