NOMINATIVE NATURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: WORD-BUILDING, STYLISTIC AND TRANSLATION ASPECTS

Abstract

This article is centred upon nominativity as a typical characteristic of the English language. In the article, nominative is studied on the material of attributive word combinations that signify the manner of action and, as such, can be regarded as syntactic synonymic versions of the verbal constructions accompanied by adverbs. For example, “a big snorer”, “a rapid packer’”, “a good mixer”, “an avid reader”, and “the biggest killer”. This article aims to identify factors that underlie the importance of the attributive constructions that characterise action in English. The research into the problem makes it possible to single out the following factors: semantic ambiguity of adverbs, compensated by adjectives in the nominative constructions; high productivity and unlimited combinability of the agent suffix -er, which encourages the formation of nouns and presents the action through its doer; general metaphorical characteristics of English which can move any phenomenon or process into the category of the doer of the action. The combination of semantic and morphological word-building makes attributive constructions a universal method of describing the action and its doer and a mechanism to create additional stylistic meaning and nuances (for example, personification and irony). Attributive word combinations of the given type are actively used in all styles and genres in English and are regarded as the ones that fit into the structural type of the English language. Grammatical-semantic properties of attributive word combinations in English are emphasised through translation. English-Ukrainian translation equivalents show that such ways of expression are not typical of Ukrainian, and in the same linguistic contexts, Ukrainian opts for the traditional way to characterise action, namely a verb accompanied by an adverb. The reproduction of the structure of most English attributive word combinations through the language means in Ukrainian is either impossible or leads to violating the language norms. Thus, attributive constructions are a natural way to describe action in English; they constitute a part of the structure of the English language and reflect its properties.