Semantic Shifts of Verbs in Modern Russian Slang

This study attempted to catalog and analyze new meanings that develop verbs in modern spoken language. Each derived meaning was interpreted, the verbs were divided into semantic classes based on the similarity of derived meanings, each class was illustrated with a detailed interpretation of the vocabulary form of several verbs belonging to it with the analysis of models of their semantic derivation. Further, the general mechanisms of semantic shifts operating in this language zone were considered, which were then compared with the mechanisms described in previous studies. The main question that this study is designed to answer is as follows: what are the derivation mechanisms that act upon the development of derived meanings in particular verbs of the literary Russian language? The purpose of the study is to collect and organize the verbs of modern Russian slang and analyze the mechanisms of their derivation. The starting point of the study was the thesis that slang verbs are formed using semantic transformations that are non-standard for the Russian literary language (Rosina 2002). In the course of the work, we are to verify this statement on the material of a large sample of slang verbs. The result of the study was a list of 100 verbs, the sources for which were the lexemes of the literary language. The resulting verbs were classified into semantic groups according to the type of derived values, for all units descriptions of vocabulary type were compiled, which take into account the initial and derived syntactic structure, initial and derived semantics, examples of uses are given, the mechanism of semantic derivation is discussed. The obtained results can be used in further research in the field of the theory of semantic shifts and sociolinguistics.