FUNCTIONAL AND SEMANTIC PECULIARITIES OF ADJECTIVES WITH THE MEANING OF INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY (BASED ON H. HESSE’S NOVELS AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS INTO RUSSIAN)
This paper explores semantic aspects of functioning of a lexical-semantic group of adjectives with the meaning of intellectual activity within the context of Hermann Hesse’s works and their translations into Russian. The relevance of the study is determined by the lack of Russian linguistic studies, devoted to the analysis of attributive vocabulary based on the latest novels of an outstanding German-Swiss writer of the mid-20th century. These works are generally described as philosophical and intellectual prose. By means of comparative and contextual analysis, we studied lexical and grammatical features of the Russian translations of this lexicon to demonstrate the diversity of H. Hesse’s linguistic and artistic view of the world. The methods of component analysis and structural classification of adjectives enabled us to identify common and distinguishing features of the considered lexical-semantic group. The latter were structured according to their gradual type between the two extremes: “being intelligent” and “being unintelligent (stupid)”. The lexical semantics of the five subgroups reveals both commonly used meanings and the meanings of individual author's interpretations. The latter add to the writer’s novels a certain “Hessian” individuality and uniqueness, which is especially appreciable in the Russian translations of these lexemes.