Augmentatives as suffix forms of Russian nouns

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of augmentative forms (augmentatives) of Russian nouns, selected from dictionaries and the National Corpus of the Russian language in terms of their formation. Augmentative suffixes do not change the part of speech of the generating word. So it allows us to consider augmentatives as suffixally marked forms of a noun. The article proves that the augmentative is an element of the category of noun dimension, consisting of 3 grammes. And it is closely related to the category of expressiveness and diminutiveness. An analysis of dimensional paradigms is given, potential forms are identified and cases of defectiveness of the paradigm are discussed, as well as errors in the markup of augmentatives in the National Corpus of the Russian language, due solely to the semantic approach. Morphologically expressed augmentatives imply the presence of morphologically expressed diminutives in the language. The defectiveness of the paradigm is minimal. Most cases of defectiveness are associated with the absence of diminutive forms. The main reason for defectiveness is seen in semantics, or rather, in the inability to combine the lexical meaning and grammatical semantics of diminutiveness. As a rule, the suffix -isch-, forms prototypical augmentatives. The suffix -in- is more often used to form words of a mixed nature – having both augmentative and evaluative meanings. Other suffixes are few and form mostly expressive forms. The material also reveals examples of morphemic homonymy of the suffixes -isch- and -in-. Augmentatives are forms, not new words, and the category of augmentativity itself is grammatical, as it demonstrates the obligatory presence of a formant in a marked member of the paradigm. In addition, augmentatives reflect the most important problems of grammar: the distinction between morphology and word formation, form formation and inflection, as well as the interaction of the rational and the emotional in the language.