Features of the use of pejorative "villain" in the Ukrainian language

Abstract

The article is devoted the analysis of functioning of pejorative «scoundrel» in modern Ukrainian, to opening of its semantics as a linguocultural concept, to determination  of  features   of  linguistic expression. There is a sufficient number of research works devoted to the study of lexical-grammatical features of individual tokens in linguistics. But today the question of the functioning and transposition of pejorative «scoundrel» has not been fully studied in the modern Ukrainian language.  In the article, by means of the analysis of the definitions of lexeme «scoundrel» in the Academic Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language, the Etymological Dictionary, and Dictionary of Synonyms, a description of the conceptual features of this lexeme is given, grammatical features are determined, and its transposition phenomena are analyzed in the system of the Ukrainian language.

The token of a scoundrel denotes a despicable, vile, dishonorable person. These definitions do not have a specific or unique focus on the characteristics of a person who is called a scoundrel. Typically, this word can be used in all situations where a speaker intends to verbally express a negative attitude towards anyone, that is, has a general investment meaning: his semantics does not indicate what the villain did, but emphasizes that his actions lower than any moral standards. The grammatical transformation of the analyzed word has affected not only at the loss of its original meaning, but also its compatibility with other words. Prospects of the research are the study of verbal representation of the lexeme scoundrel   in a separate fiction text.