Unusually Combined Lexemes as Means of Creating Uncertainty in English Postmodern Short-Short Stories

Authors

  • Mariia Zavarynska Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Lviv State University of Life Safety
  • Oksana Babelyuk Lviv State University of Life Safety

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18662/po/13.4/521

Keywords:

lexemes, uncertainty, valence, English postmodern short-short story

Abstract

The issue of words combinations draws attention of linguists starting from the second half of the XX c. until the present day. This study is focused on the research of semantic mechanisms of unusually combined lexemes and unexpected collocations in English postmodern short-short stories. Reconsideration of the literary past and ironic view on traditional poetic canons are reflected in postmodern literary texts due to the principles of postmodern poetics. Being distinctive feature of postmodern literature in general, uncertainty creates multiplicity of meanings of entire literary text, as well as separate unexpected collocations, by means of unusually combined lexemes. The aim of the study is to elaborate the phenomenon of valence violation, created by unusually combined lexemes and unexpected collocations in English postmodern short-short stories. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to define the notion of valence and lexeme compatibility, to identify types of valence violation in lexemes combinations, and to provide their possible interpretation. Functioning in English postmodern short-short stories such language units widen boundaries of their usage and their combinatorial profile. Unusually combined lexemes focus the reader’s attention and provoke a cognitive mechanism of continuous searching for a hidden meaning of unexpected collocations and the general message of a literary text. In this research unusually combined lexemes are regarded as special markers of postmodern short-short story genre for which violation of text structure, violation of usual relations between lexemes in logic, semantic and syntactic aspects are quite common.

References

Allerton, D. (1979). Essentials of grammatical theory. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Anderson, J. M. (2009). In Malmkjær, K. (Ed.), The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia (Ebook ed.). Routledge.

Arnol’d, I. V. (2016). Stilistika. Sovremennyy angliyskiy yazyk: Uchebnik dlya vuzov, 13 izdaniye [Stylistics. Modern English language. Tutorial for higher educational institutions, 13 ed.]. Flinta.

Babelyuk, О. А. (2010). Poetyka postmodernist•sʹkoho khudozhnʹoho dyskursu: pryntsypy tekstotvorennya (na materiali suchasnoyi amerykansʹkoyi prozy maloyi formy) [Poetics of postmodern literary discourse: on the material of American postmodern flash fiction] [Doctoral dissertation abstract, Kyiv National Linguistic University]. http://www.irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?Z21ID=&I21DBN=ARD&P21DBN=ARD&S21STN=1&S21REF=10&S21FMT=fullwebr&C21COM=S&S21CNR=20&S21P01=0&S21P02=0&S21P03=A=&S21COLORTERMS=1&S21STR=%D0%91%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%BA%20%D0%9E.%20%D0%90.$

Brinkmann, H. (1962). Die deutsche Sprache. Gestalt und Leistung. Düsseldorf Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann.

Butler, C. (1985). Statistics in Linguistics. Basil Blackwell.

Combinatorics. (2022, January 15). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorics

Denysenko, Z. M. (2005). Semantychne uzhodzhennya mizh komponentamy slovospoluchennya v ukrayinsʹkiy movi [ Semantic sequence between the components of the phrase in the Ukrainian language] [PhD Dissertation abstract, The Bohdan Khmelnytsky National University of Cherkasy].

Dobrovol'skiy, D. O. (2005). Faktory sochetayemosti: semantika, pragmatika, uzus. Russkii Yazyk v Nauchnom Osveshchenii, 2(10), 43–86.

Erben, J. (1965). Abriss der deutschen Grammatik, 8. Unveränderte Aufl. Akademie-Verlag.

Flash fiction. (2021, October 21) In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

Gal’perin, I. R. (1974). Informativnost' yedinits yazyka [Informativeness of language units]. Vysshaya shkola, 175.

Helbig G. (1973). Geschichte der neueren Sprachwissenschaft. Unter dem besonderen Aspekt der Grammatik Theorie. Lpz.: VEB Bibliographisches Institut.

Helbig, G. (1975). Zu Problemen der linguistischen Beschreibung des Dialogs im Deutschen. Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 2, 65–80.

Homes, A. M. (2006). This Book Will Save Your Life. Viking Adult.

Howe I., & I. W. Howe. (Eds.). (1982). Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories. By David R. Godine.

Hypallage. (2022, Fabruary 18). In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypallage

Katsnel'son, S. D. (1948). O grammaticheskoy kategorii. Vestnik Leningradskogo universiteta, 2, 114-134.

Katsnel'son, S. D. (1987). K ponyatiyu tipov valentnosti. Voprosy yazykoznaniya, 3, 20–32.

Kobozeva, I. M. (2000). Lingvisticheskaya semantika: Uchebnoye posobiye [Linguistic semantics: Textbook]. Editorial URSS.

Kocherhan, M. P. (1980). Slovo i kontekst (Leksychna spoluchuvanistʹ i znachennya slova) [Word and context (Lexical compatibility and meaning of the word)]. Vyshcha shkola.

Kudrevatykh, L. P. (1996). Semiologicheskiye osnovaniya semanticheskikh tipov slov v sovremennom angliyskom yazyke [Semiological basis of semantic types of words in modern English] [PhD Dissertation Abstract].

Mugnai, M., & van Ruler, H., & Wilson, M. (Eds.) (2020). Leibniz: Dissertation on Combinatorial Art (Leibniz from Oxford). Oxford University Press.

Matveyeva, T. V. (2010). Polnyy slovar' lingvisticheskikh terminov [Complete dictionary of linguistic terms]. Feniks.

Miller, F. P., Vandome, A. F., & McBrewster, J. (2010). Experimental Literature. VDM Publishing House.

Nikitin, M. V. (2007). Kurs lingvisticheskoy semantiki: Uchebnoye posobiye, 2 izdaniye dop. i ispr. [Course of linguistic semantics: Textbook, 2nd revised ed.]. The Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia Publisher.

Samatar, S. (2017). Huntress. https://tinhouse.com/the-huntress/

Schomburg, Z. (2018). Death Letter. In J. Thomas, R. Scotellaro (Eds.), New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction. WW Norton & Company.

Selivanova, О. О. (2008). Suchasna linhvistyka: napryamy ta problemy [Modern linguistics: directions and problems]. Dovkillya.

Semantics of logic. (2022, January 15). In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_of_logic

Semenyuk, M. P. (1977). Urovni issledovaniya valentnosti [Levels of valency research]. Leksiko-grammaticheskaya sochetayemost' v germanskikh yazykakh, 2, 111-115.

Shapard R., & Thomas J. (Eds.). (1986). Sudden Fiction: American Short-short Stories. Gibbs Smith.

Shvedova, N. Yu. (1982). Tipy kontekstov, konstruiruyushchikh mnogoaspektnoye opisaniye slova [Types of contexts constructing a multidimensional description of the word]. Russkiy yazyk: Tekst kak tseloye i komponenty teksta: Vinogradovskiye chteniya XI. Nauka.

Sidhu, S. (2021). Fading. http://www.100wordstory.org/fading/

Simile. (2022, February 13). In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simile

Sokolov, O. M. (1997). Osnovy implitsitnoy morfologii russkogo yazyka [Fundamentals of the implicit morphology of the Russian language]. RUDN.

Steinberg, S. (2019, July 31) Killers. https://americanshortfiction.org/killers/

Steiner, W. (1999). Postmodern Fictions, 1970-1990. In S. Bercovitch (Ed.), The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. 7. Prose Writing 1940-1990 (pp. 427-528). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521497329

Stepanova, M. D., & Helbig, G. (1978). Chasti rechi i problema valentnosti v sovremennom nemetskom yazyke [Parts of speech and the problem of valency in modern German]. Vysshaya shkola.

Struganets, L. V. (2018). Leksyka na peretyni naukovykh paradyhm [Lexis at the intersection of scientific paradigms] [Monograph ed. by L. V. Struganets]. Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University.

Syntahmatyka [Syntagmatics]. (2020, 13). In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntahmatyka

Transpozitsiya [Transposition]. In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpozitsiya_(lingvistika)

Tseng, J. (2021, January 27). Cat’s eye. https://americanshortfiction.org/cats-eye/

Ullmann, S. (1959). The Principles of Semantics. Blackwell.

VanSpanckeren, K. (1994). Outline of American Literature. Global Publishing Solutions.

Vlavatskaya, M. V. (2014). Combinatory Linguistics: An Area of Theoretical and Applied Language Study. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2(3), 165-173. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.15

Vlavatskaya, M. V. (2017). Sintagmatika vs. kombinatorika: osnovy kombinatornoy lingvistiki [Syntagmatics vs. combinatorics: essentials of combinatorial linguistics]. Nauchnyy dialog, 1, 35-45.

Vykhovanets, І. R. (1988). Chastyny movy v semantyko-hramatychnomu aspekti [Parts of speech in the semantic-grammatical aspect]. Nauk. dumka.

Downloads

Published

2022-11-29

How to Cite

Zavarynska, M., & Babelyuk, O. (2022). Unusually Combined Lexemes as Means of Creating Uncertainty in English Postmodern Short-Short Stories. Postmodern Openings, 13(4), 346-360. https://doi.org/10.18662/po/13.4/521

Issue

Section

Postmodern Literature

Publish your work at the Scientific Publishing House LUMEN

It easy with us: publish now your work, novel, research, proceeding at Lumen Scientific Publishing House

Send your manuscript right now