WORD FORMATION POTENTIAL OF WORDS RELATING TO UPPER BODY IN DANISH Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

UDC 811.113.4

Elena Krasnova

St. Petersburg State University

WORD FORMATION POTENTIAL OF WORDS RELATING TO UPPER BODY IN DANISH*

For citation: Krasnova E. Word formation potential of words relating to upper body in Danish. Scandinavian Philology, 2021, vol. 19, issue 2, pp. 255-266. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu21.2021.203

Somatisms, or names of human body parts, are the oldest and most important components of the linguistic "picture of the world" of any nation. People have always had associations with something directly related to them and that they are familiar with — parts of the body. The most frequently used somatisms related to the upper body (head) were chosen as material for this study: hoved 'head', nwse 'nose', mund 'mouth', nakke 'back of the head, hals 'neck:', pande 'forehead, 0je 'eye', 0re 'ear'. Since isolated somatisms act as independent units only in some specific contexts, the study also included compound words with these somatism-components as the second component. The analysis of meanings of the most frequent words belonging to the lexical-semantic group "Upper part of the human body" reveals a rather mixed picture. On the one hand, these units in their literal sense make up parts of many compound words, which allows us to identify the main word-formation patterns for this sphere. On the other hand, somatisms in their figurative meanings are also actively used within compound nouns. Pseudoparticiples represent a separate group that can be metaphorised and in this case are used to characterize a person, together with evaluative nouns containing similar second components. In some cases, pseudoparticiples serve as parallels to evaluative nouns with a somatism as the second component. In the sphere of evaluative nouns, there is a weakening of the semantics of words used as second components, which clearly indicates that these units are on their way to become affixes. The word-formation potential of the somatisms under study is extremely wide and is determined by the importance of body parts in the sensory cognition of the world and

* With the support from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), grant No. 19-012-00146.

in the subject-practical activity of man, which determines the number and regularity of the units derived from them.

Keywords: Danish, names of body parts, somatic vocabulary, word formation, upper body names, pseudo-particles, evaluative vocabulary.

1. INTRODUCTION

Somatisms, or designations of human body parts, are the oldest and most important components of any nation's world picture. People have always had associations with something that is directly related to them and that they are familiar with — parts of the body. The concept of an-thropocentrism, which claims that man is the measure of all things, is now firmly established in linguistics. Metaphorization of words denoting body parts, as well as phraseological expressions with such units, in recent years have repeatedly been the object of research using material from many languages. A number of works touch on various aspects of general theoretical problems [Apresyan, 1995; Arutiunova, 1999; Wier-zbicka, 1996]. However, primary representation of the name of a human body part, i.e. the use of somatisms in their direct meaning, as well as complex words including these units, tend to be elided. Somatisms in Danish, both in their literal and figurative meaning, have so far not been the subject of their own study.

It is only in some contexts (e.g. in medical descriptions) that an isolated somatismacts as an independent unit; in a particular speech pattern it requires some kind of characteristic that is inherently assumed. Somatism either needs a referent (whose) or is used in the context of predicative or attributive combinability. For the Danish language, where the main word-formation method is compounding, compound words with a somatisms as the second component are interesting in two aspects. First, they express a direct anthropocentric picture of the Danish world. Second, while demonstrating high word-formation activity and participating in the creation of a large number of compounds of various types, they allow a new look at the specifics of Danish word formation.

The purpose of this study is to identify peculiarities of the semantics of somatisms relating to the upper body and their word-formation potential in the Danish language when used as a reference word, both in its direct and metaphorical meaning.

2. STUDY MATERIAL

The most frequent somatisms1 relating to the upper body (head) were chosen as the material: hoved 'head', n&se 'nose', mund 'mouth', nakke 'nape', hals 'neck;', pande 'forehead', 0je 'eye', 0re 'ear' — as well as compound words with these somatismic components as the second component.

All the above-mentioned units are recorded in the Dictionary of Modern Danish [Den Danske Ordbog] or in the Danish Language Corpus [KorpusDK]. For this analysis, we used dictionary entries from the Danish Language Dictionary [Ordbog over det danske Sprog] reflecting the state of the Danish language from 1700 to 1950. Some illustrative examples are taken from fiction.

3. SOMATISMS IN THE DIRECT SENSE

Obviously, the number of words nominating body parts does not depend on the specific language. However, all translators of Scandinavian languages have often faced the problem of translating somatisms and somatic vocabulary. Seemingly unambiguous matches designating human body parts strongly established in the translator's mind (often following the dictionary) often do not "fit" the context and require the use of a related metonymic equivalent. The phrase Han havde et lille smil om munden clearly does not suggest the use of the word "mouth" in translation, and the smile was rather "on the lips." Meanwhile, the dictionary definition of the words mund and mouth in the modern Danish dictionary and in Russian dictionaries coincides. It is interesting, however, that the old Danish explanatory dictionary offers an additional meaning: "about the outer part of the mouth cavity and what surrounds it, especially about the lips" [Ordbog over det danske Sprog].

A similar divergence of meaning compared to Russian can also be observed when comparing the somaticism nakke with its Russian equivalent. When the hero, who is standing at his brother's coffin, is suddenly approached by his girlfriend, the author writes: "En hand blev lagt pa min nakke" [Hoeg, 2018, s. 279]. In this case we cannot assume that the heroine puts her hand on the back of the hero's head, although this is the most

1 The frequency of somatisms and compound words with somatismic components was determined from the Danish Language Corpus, available at: https://ordnet.dk/ korpusdk.

frequent equivalent. Obviously, she can only put her hand on his shoulder. The analysis of dictionary definitions reveals the following definition of the lexeme nakke: "the back of a human or animal's neck, sometimes also about the lower part of the head and the upper part of the back" [Den Danske Ordbog]. We can say that in this case we are dealing with an undifferentiated meaning in Danish when compared to Russian.

Thus, the meanings of somatisms in Russian and Danish are not always "symmetrical" and do not unexceptionally imply an unambiguous equivalent, even when the direct meaning is concerned.

4. METAPHORICAL MEANINGS OF ISOLATED SOMATISMS

An analysis of metaphorical meanings of isolated somatisms in Danish in comparison with Russian shows significant discrepancies only for some lexemes. In particular, the word ncse has a meaning 'a reprimand, a remark (from the boss)' and the lexeme 0re has an additional meaning 'handle' (for example, the handle of a pot).

However, as part of a compound word, all the somatisms show a great metaphorical potential (see 7).

5. COMPOUND WORDS WITH SOMATISMS IN THE DIRECT SENSE

Most compounds with the second component denoting a body part are compound words created according to models accepted in the language, both potential (not registered in the dictionary, but formed according to the models existing in the language) and occasional which demonstrate the creative capacity of the language.In contrast to the most frequent types of relations between the components of a compound word distinguished in Danish, namely place and time [Krasnova, 2003, p. 93], for somatic vocabulary the relation of belongingisthe most frequent, for example: barne0jne 'child's eyes', grise0re 'pig's ear' (possible use in the terminological sphere, see 11), hestehoved 'horse's head', l0ve-hoved 'lion's head', klovnencse 'clown's nose', lammenakke 'ram's neck', svanehals 'swan's neck' (metaphorically in a compound word, see 6, or as a term, see 11), cesebre 'donkey's ear' (metaphorical use in a compound, see 8).

The second most frequent group of compound words with a soma-tisms as the second component contains the first component describ-

ing appearance: skaldepande bare forehead 'bald + forehead', strit0rer shaggy ears 'floppy + ears.

6. METAPHORISATION OF THE FIRST, CATEGORIZING COMPONENT IN A COMPOUND WORD WITH SOMATISMS

The first component of a compound word with somatism is often ametaphorised first component, which is not surprising since somatism requires some kind of characteristic (see above). It is often represented by a word in its figurative sense: blomkals0re deformed/mutilated ear 'cauliflower + ear'; glas0je empty look 'glass + eye'; 0rnencse eagle nose 'eagle + nose'; tyrenakke bull neck 'bull + nape, neck'; kirsebcrmund bright red mouth 'cherry + mouth'; svanehals long and white neck 'swan + neck' (compare with the use in the literal sense in 5).

7. A COMPOUND WORD WITH A METAPHORISED SECOND COMPONENT

In most compound words under consideration, the meaning of a metaphorised component coincides with the figurative meaning of the single word: flaskehals bottle neck 'bottle + throat'; tcndstikhoved match head 'match + head'; skoncse shoe toe 'shoe + nose'; nale0je needle eye 'needle + eye'; s0lvhals silver throat.

However, in some cases there is metaphorisation of the second component in the absence of metaphorisation in the isolated component, e.g. in the compound sprog0re language ability 'language + ear', the component 0re gets a meaning unrecorded in the dictionary 'the ability to perceive, the ability to learn'.

8. METAPHORISATION OF A WHOLE COMPOUND WITH A SECOND SOMATIC COMPONENT

Body part names may also form part of compounds where the metaphorical meaning is further developed, in particular as metaphorisation of the whole composite: nale0je 'narrow place, too high demands that are difficult to meet, lit. needle eye 'needle + eye'; flaskehals 'bottle neck', vulnerable place, bottleneck; ko0je porthole 'cow + eye'; cesebre a bent book page used as a bookmark 'donkey + ear'.

9. PSEUDOPARTICIPLES

All the somatisms under discussion make part of pseudoparticiples, which Danish linguists traditionally refer to as adjectives [Hansen, 1967; Jarvad, 1995]. Pseudoparticiples, words formed from noun bases following the past participle pattern, are the rarest type of nomination, but they form a fairly representative group among compound words with components denoting body parts. In terms of semantics, all these lexical units refer to human appearance and depending on the semantics of the first component the following frequency subgroups are distinguished:

1. Form: langhalset long-necked 'long + neck', krumncset hunched 'crooked + nose';

2. Colour: rndncset red-nosed 'red + nose', bruwjet brown-eyed 'brown + nose', graharet grey-haired 'grey + nose', hvidhovedet grey 'white + head';

3. Size: stor0jet big-eyed 'big + eye, stormundet big-mouth 'big + mouth';

4. Quantitative characteristic: ewjet one-eyed 'one + eye', ernret one-eared 'one + ear, tohovedet double-headed 'two + head', mangehovedet multi-headed 'many + head'.

Most of complex pseudoparticiples with the second somatic component form metaphorical units describing a person's character traits and mental abilities: h0jpandet arrogant 'tall + forehead'; hardnakket stubborn ' firm + back of the head'; fladpandet blunt 'flat + forehead'; abenmundet chatty 'open + mouth'; bla0jet naive 'blue + eye'; rapmundet sharp on the tongue 'quick + mouth'; klarhovedet with a clear mind 'clear + head.

10. SOMATISMS AS PART OF EVALUATIVE COMPOUND WORDS WITH THE MEANING OF "PERSON"

As the second components of a compound somatisms participate in creation of evaluative nouns with the meaning of "person." Evaluative nouns with the meaning of "person" with different components in the Danish language were considered in the works of E. A. Gurova [Gurova, 2012; Gurova, 2015]. Among a large group of evaluative nouns, the author singles out compounds with the second components denoting a

body part: glatnakke 'fool' or 'neo-Nazi, skralhals 'screamer', bangernv 'coward' [Gurova, 2015, p. 25].

Analyzing a group of words referring to the upper part of the body we can identify the most frequent evaluative nouns created on the basis of somatisms under study. At the same time, most of them are words with negative connotations with but a few exceptions: vovehals, lxkker-mund and slikmund. All the evaluative compound words with the components in question are given below (see Table).

The most frequent are formations with the word hoved. It is interesting that unlike the Russian cultural tradition, where head is associated with a series of both positive and negative meanings [Arutyunova, 1999, p. 334], all formations with hoved contain negative connotations. As we can see from the table, other somatisms show a lesser word-formation activity.

In this large group of evaluative nouns, there is a clear semantic neutralization manifested in the fact that all somatisms in the above formations become the designation of a person, while the first component has a categorizing function. The categorizing component may be expressed by a noun that originally represents this quality (torskehoved fool 'cod + head', cf. dictionary meanings torsk 1. 'cod', 2. 'fool'), or a noun that is in no way related to the dictionary meaning of the first component (xgge-hoved clever 'egg + head').

The analyzed material suggests that it is not only semantic neutralization, but also a means of nuancing the attributes used in the Danish linguaculture to characterize a person. The reference component is involved in creating the meaning of "intellectual or emotional quality": the reference components pande, nakke — in negatively characterizing a person by their intellectual quality, hals- in negatively characterizing a person by their speech ability, mund by their gastronomic predilections. The development of such a broad word meaning is one of natural manifestations of the tendency in modern Danish towards analyticism and syntagmatic discreteness: "Another manifestation of the features of ana-lyticism in compound word formation in Scandinavian languages is a tendency to develop a broad word meaning with a supporting component of the compound. Having analyzed the formation of Danish compounds, we can argue that "broad-meaning" components of Danish compounds, without losing their connection with the original meaning of the lexemes, are used as a productive manner of complex nomination. The

Table. The evaluative compound words with the components in question

Brokkehoved bore, grumpy 'grumble + head'

Brushoved fiery man 'hissing, hissing + head'

Fxhoved fool 'cattle + head'

Färehoved fool 'sheep + head'

Gmdhoved fool 'mush + head' rodehoved

Hxngehoved dull man 'hang + head' (cf. the phraseology hwnge med hovedet)

hoved Kvajhoved stupid, limited person 'stupid, limited person + head'

Paphoved idiot, stupid 'cardboard + head'

Rodehoved careless man 'mess + head'

Skvadderhoved fool 'chatterbox + head'

Torskehoved fool 'cod + head'

Tossehoved fool 'fool + head'

Vmvlehoved chatterbox 'chatter + head'

Mggehoved clever 'egg + head'

L0gnhals liar 'lie + neck'

hals Skrighals screamer 'shout + neck'

Skrälhals screamer 'scream + neck'

Vovehals daredevil 'dare + neck'

pande Fladpande bounded man 'flat + forehead'

Kvajpande stupid, limited person 'stupid, limited person + forehead'

nakke Dummenakke fool 'fool + back of the head'

Glatnakke stupid 'smooth + back of the head'

mund Lxkkermund sweet tooth 'tasty + mouth'

Slikmund sweet tooth 'sweet + mouth'

nsse Snotnxses not nsse 'snot + nose'

more productive the model, the more functional differentiation of its components is manifested, when, while retaining its own lexical meaning, one of the components develops a generalizing, or categorizing, service function" [Nikulicheva, 2006, p. 44].

It should be noted that evaluative nouns in this group are stylistically heterogeneous. Many of them belong to slang. Some may be perceived by native speakers as obsolete. When comparing the old and the new Danish dictionaries, it was found out that a number of compound words with the component -pande were not included in the new dictionary.

11. SOMATISMS IN COMPLEX TERMINOLOGICAL NAMES

Somatisms with a metaphorical meaning are extensively used in a variety of terminological fields, a complete list of which is impossible to provide. The following are examples of the fields most "susceptible" to somatisms.

1. "Tools and tool parts": borehoved 'drill head', svanehals 'curved tube for mounting a lamp', 0ksenakke 'axe shoe'.

2. "Anatomy": blxrehals 'bladder neck', strubehoved 'larynx';

3. "Animal names": hvidnxse white-faced dolphin 'white + nose', fr0mund smoky frog-mouth 'frog + mouth', rand0je ox's eye, or velveteenakke ox (butterfly) 'edge, rim + eye', rndhals 'robin 'red + neck,

4. "Plant name": grise0re crassula 'piglet + ear, l0vemund lion's beak 'lion + mouth, torskemund flaxseed 'codling + mouth'.

The analysis of the development of meanings of words included in the lexical-semantic group "Upper part of human body", as well as the semantics of derivative units shows the peculiarity of implementation in them of worldview principles of anthropomorphism. The human body is undoubtedly very important in terms of cognition of the surrounding world.

12. CONCLUSION

The large number of derivative nominations from Danish soma-tisms hoved, mund, hals, nakke, pande, nxse, 0re, 0je suggests that these body parts are extremely significant for representatives of the Danish linguacultural community. This vocabulary group is characterized by

the width and variety of connections with most different realias of the surrounding world.

The analysis of the modification of meanings of most frequent words included in the lexical-semantic group "The upper part of the human body" shows a rather mixed picture. On the one hand, these units in their literal sense make part of many compound words, which allows us to identify the main word-formation patterns for this sphere; on the other hand, somatisms in their figurative meanings are also actively used within compound nouns. At the same time, the figurativeness and expressiveness of the metaphor are eliminated in transition to the sphere of terminology where the figurative component is preserved. Pseudoparti-ciples represent a separate group, which can be metaphorised and in this case are used to characterize a person, in parallel with evaluative nouns containing the same second components. The presence of a large group of pseudoparticiples in the somatic vocabulary indicates the fluidity of the Danish language system. In some cases, pseudoparticiples serve as parallels to evaluative nouns (fladpandet — fladpande). In the sphere of evaluative nouns, there is weakening of the semantics of words used as second components, which clearly indicates that these units are on their way to become affixes.

The word-formation potential of somatisms under study is extremely wide, it is determined by the importance of body parts in the sensory cognition of the world and in the subject-practical activity of man, which affects the number and regularity of units derived from them.

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Wierzbicka А. Language. Culture. Cognition. Moscow: Russkie slovari Publ., 1996. 412 p. (In Russian)

Елена Краснова

Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет СЛОВООБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПОТЕНЦИАЛ СЛОВ, ОТНОСЯЩИХСЯ К ВЕРХНЕЙ ЧАСТИ ТЕЛА, В ДАТСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ*

Для цитирования: Krasnova E. Word formation potential of words relating to upper body in Danish // Скандинавская филология. 2021. Т. 19. Вып. 2. С. 255266. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu21.2021.203

Соматизмы, или обозначения частей тела человека, являются наиболее древним и наиболее важным компонентом картины мира любого народа. У человека всегда возникали ассоциации с тем, что непосредственно связано с ним и хорошо ему знакомо — с частями тела. В качестве материала для данного исследования были выбраны наиболее частотные соматизмы, относящиеся к верхней части тела (голова): hoved 'голова', ncse 'нос', mund 'рот', nakke 'затылок', hals 'шея', pande 'лоб', 0je 'глаз', 0re 'ухо'. Поскольку изолированный соматизм лишь в отдельных контекстах выступает в качестве самостоятельной единицы, для исследования были также использованы сложные слова с данными компонентами-соматизма-ми в качестве второго компонента. Анализ значений наиболее частотных слов, входящих в лексико-семантическую группу «Верхняя часть тела человека», демонстрирует достаточно пеструю картину. С одной стороны, данные единицы входят в состав множества сложных слов в их прямом значении, что позволяет выделить основные словообразовательные модели для этой сферы, с другой стороны — активно используются переносные значения соматизмов в составе

* Работа выполнена при поддержке гранта РФФИ № 19-012-00146.

сложных существительных. Отдельную группу представляют собой псевдопричастия, которые могут подвергаться метафоризации и в этом случае используются для характеристик человека, употребляясь параллельно с оценочными существительными, содержащими сходные вторые компоненты. В некоторых случаях псевдопричастия служат параллелями к оценочным существительными со вторым компонентом-соматизмом. В сфере оценочных существительных наблюдается ослабление семантики слов, используемых в качестве вторых компонентов, что явно свидетельствует о том, что данные единицы находятся на пути превращении в аффиксы. Словообразовательный потенциал исследуемых со-матизмов чрезвычайно широк, он определяется значимостью частей тела в сенсорном познании мира и в предметно-практической деятельности человека, что определяет количество и регулярность производных от них единиц.

Ключевые слова: датский язык, обозначение частей тела, соматическая лексика, словосложение, обозначения верхней части тела, псевдопричастия, оценочная лексика.

Elena Krasnova

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University,

7-9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation E-mail: e.krasnova@spbu.ru

Краснова Елена Всеволодовна

кандидат филологических наук, доцент, Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет,

Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7-9 E-mail: e.krasnova@spbu.ru

Received: August 20, 2021 Accepted: September 30, 2021