Stylistic Affiliation of Set Expressions with the Component MAYOR, MENOR in the Spanish Language

The article is devoted to the study of set expressions in the Spanish language, one of the components of which is the lexical unit mayor or menor , from the point of view of identifying their linguistic features when used in various functional styles of speech. The lexical units mayor and menor, which have the dictionary meaning of “greater” or “smaller”, acquire additional connotations in the composition of various phrases, on which their translation into Russian largely depends. The work considers the most commonly used set expressions fixed in the phraseological dictionary. The source of the study were texts of various genres characteristic of each style of speech: the Constitutions of Spain and Latin American countries, codes, laws, decrees, regulations, orders, contracts, agreements, business letters, works of Spanish-language fiction, texts of periodicals, articles, essays, reviews, conversations, interviews, blogs and comments on social networks. When analyzing stable expressions that actively function in the Spanish language, their semantic meaning is indicated, and their stylistic affiliation is determined. The study presents a classification of stable phrases with the components mayor / menor based on grammatical features, describes their lexical component, determines the component composition, and analyzes the evaluative connotation, functional and stylistic potential. The article studies language means in the field of Spanish stylistics and phraseology, which are of scientific interest to Hispanists in matters of identifying the national and cultural specificity of the Spanish language. The work also provides a brief overview of the history of linguistic research on stylistics in Spain and Russia, notes the importance of the functional direction of stylistic research, presents functional styles of speech and speech genres characteristic of them. All the studied set expressions are used in texts of various genres inherent in the functional styles of speech in the Spanish language, while each of them, due to its semantic and stylistic features, is used mainly in a certain style. The study of stylistic possibilities of set expressions with the components mayor / menor helps to identify genre features of texts characteristic of different functional styles of speech, and to determine the features of the formation of the linguistic picture of the world of Spanish-speaking peoples. The article may be useful for philologists, specialists in the field of Spanish studies, teachers of Spanish, students studying Spanish.