Reflection of love rivalry in dialect lexis (based on examples from the Russian north dialects)

The article deals with language representation of such psychological and social scenario as love rivalry. Dialectal lexical items observed on the territory of the Russian North are taken as the material for the research. Particular attention is given to semantic and motivational aspects in the analysis of the chosen language facts. Furthermore, contextual analysis of couplet texts concerned with the topic under study is performed. The author notes axiological load of the notion of love rivalry in traditional society as compared to the state of language in modern cities, where competitions in sports and politics are the leading forms of opposition. There is observed a wide nominative prominence of a subject as a component of the prototype situation of rivalry, with the dominance of lexical items rendering the ‘love rivaless’ definition. Such gender modification is explained through the passive role of women in the country society in terms of the love choice. This state of affairs in traditional society makes girls get engaged into the battle for bachelors. Motivational analysis shows that the inner form of lexical items under research mainly consists of the characteristics of behavior typical of rivalesses (brusqueness, violence, etc.). Rivalry is also conceptualized through spatial images, namely an important part is given to the idea of ‘hostile’ loci (‘opposite’, ‘against something’). Love rivalry often acts as a topic for folk pieces. Couplet texts present a unique social model of a girl engaged into the battle for a bachelor. Folk perception credits the love rivaless with a particular appearance, character and features of behavior.