About the Ratio of Form, Value and Functions of Word-Formation Affixes
The article is an attempt to show the correlation between a form, meaning and functions of derivational affixes. The form as a material essence is opposed to the meaning and functions. Derivational meanings (mutational, transpositional, modificational) are not homogeneous, because the word-formation, according to academician V. V. Vinogradov, occupies an intermediate place between grammar and vocabulary. Transpositional meanings by their regularity and generalization approach grammatical meanings while mutational meanings are more close to lexical meanings. Derivational affixes fulfill a cognitive function when they join the concept of the underlying word together with the concept of the affix in order to create a new concept of the derivative word. Derivational affixes function in syntactical, lexical and lexico-syntactical derivation. Suffixes expressing emotions or estimation of addresser fulfill a pragmatic function. Affixes can not fulfill a communicative function. In the article the questions of variation, synonymy and syncretism are considered from the cognitive point of view. According to E. S. Kubryakova, synonyms occupy different places in the same mental space corresponding with different ways of reality representation. From the cognitive point of view, variants occupy adjacent places in the same mental space and represent the reality by adjacent ways. As the syncretism means coincidence of signifyings in different signifieds, mental space of syncretical forms is not homogeneous.