Adjectives ‘otdalyonnyy’ [distant], ‘priblizitelnyy’ [approximate], and ‘neulovimyy’ [elusive] as Means of Expressing Semantics of Implicit Similarity

This article is dedicated to linguistic means that denote implicit similarity between one object and another. The author aims to identify common patterns in constructing contexts that describe situations of implicit similarity. The study focuses on the specific usage of the adjectives ‘otdalyonnyy’ [distant], ‘priblizitelnyy’ [approximate], and ‘neulovimyy’ [elusive], along with their derived adverbs, as tools for expressing implicit similarity. The research employs definitional, componential, distributional, and contextual analysis methods, utilizing data from linguistic dictionaries and the Russian National Corpus. The analysis of corpus data reveals that situations of implicit similarity can be characterized by four criteria: “semantic class,” “basis for comparison,” “degree of similarity,” and “presence of explanations.” It is demonstrated that the contextual synonyms ‘otdalyonnyy (-o)’  [distant (-ly)], ‘priblizitelnyy (-o)’ [approximate (-ly)], and ‘neulovimyy (-o)’ [elusive (-ly)] exhibit several distinctions in their functioning across various criteria: frequency of use, collocational compatibility, semantic class of the compared objects, basis for comparison, and degree of expressed implicit similarity. In most cases, implicit similarity between objects is not thoroughly motivated but is presented as a ready result of perception, comparison, and interpretation carried out by the speaker.

contextual synonyms, comparison, semantics of implicit similarity, distant, elusive, approximate