Semantics of Verbs with the Prefix при- in a Russian Literary Work by N. V. Gogol with Reference to Their Chinese Equivalents

The article analyzes verbs with the prefix при- in a Russian literary work and its Chinese translation from the linguistic perspective. The relevance of the work is determined by the need to overcome intercultural barriers that arise as a result of insufficient comparative analysis of Russian prefixed verbs and their Chinese equivalents in terms of semantics. The purpose of the article is to identify the semantic characteristics of the word-formation prefix при- which determine the meaning of verbs in the Russian literary fiction and its Chinese translation.To achieve this goal, we have formulated the following objectives: 1) to present the main meanings of the prefix при- in the verbs selected from “Revizor” by N. V. Gogol; 2) to find out the main ways of translating the Russian verbs with this prefix the above literary work into Chinese; 3) to identify national and cultural specifics of the translation of the prefix при- into the Chinese language.The sources of materials are contexts, containing verbs with the prefix при-, from the comedy “The Inspector General” by N. V. Gogol. The methods used are a comparative, a semantic, and a linguo-cognitive types of analyses.The novelty of the research is that it is by far the first attempt to: 1) analyze the verbs with the prefix при- in the Russian literary work and in the Chinese translated text based on the comparative, semantic, and linguo-cognitive types of analyses; 2) find out the main methods of translating verbs with the prefix при- from Russian into Chinese; 3) reveal some national and cultural features of the translation of this prefix into Chinese. In our opinion, the results obtained during the analysis are relevant for the study of such branches of linguistics as grammar, word formation, semantics, as well as cognitive linguistics and theory and practice of translation.