Interjections and interjection complexes in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky

Abstract

An analysis of the use of interjections and interjection complexes in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky was carried out, whose 200th birthday is celebrated all over the world this year. The playwright’s works significantly changed the Russian theater; ordinary people, representatives of the merchant class and the lower social classes appeared on the stage. They spoke the folk language, in which dialectisms, vernacular units, proverbs, sayings, and phraseological units were widely used. There important component of folk speech are interjections. They represent a complex part of speech with contradictory lexical-semantic and grammatical properties. Among them there are units with non-standard phonetic composition. Attempts to convey such interjections by means of the alphabet lead to the use of traditional notation, which very approximately reflects their real sound appearance (ugh), which becomes the cause of ethnospecific forms of transmission of such physical phonations in different languages, and this causes difficulties in their translation. At the same time, it is hardly worth talking about a special phonetic system of interjections, since the overwhelming majority of primary units (well, ah, ah, ba, wow, alas, and many others) consist of standard phonemes of the language, and their prosody generally corresponds to the prosodic characteristics vocatives and other lingual units. Interjections are widely represented in the texts of A.N. Ostrovsky’s plays. A significant place in the speech of the characters is occupied by primary interjections, with the help of which the author reflects the diversity of feelings and experiences of the characters. Among the most frequent words in plays by A.N. Ostrovsky includes interjections, well, ah. In almost all works there are also primary interjections oh, eh, hey, etc. Secondary interjections in the plays of A.N. Ostrovsky is mainly represented by the interjectivated words God, God, Lord, used both independently and as part of interjectional constructions (God bless, God be with you, etc.). In many cases, it is not easy to draw a line between interjection and religious use of these units in the speech of characters.