The Syntagmatic Potential of the “Cossack Smile” in M. A. Sholokhov’s Novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”

Aim. The article examines the syntagmatic connections of words with the root ulyb (smile) in M. A. Sholokhov’s novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”.Methodology. The lexemes smile, small smile, half-smile, to smile, to break into a smile (smile), smilingly, smiley (unsmiling), smiling, having smiled are analyzed, the most frequent semantic partners of these linguistic units are identified, meliorative and pejorative evaluative characteristics of the “Cossack smile” are presented. A systematic description of the realization of these words in a work of fiction proves that M. A. Sholokhov expands their semantic structure due to connotative meanings.Results. 718 units with the root ulyb (smile) are analyzed, syntagmatic and paradigmatic connections used by the author to reveal the emotional state of the characters are established. Based on this, the main characteristics of the “Cossack smile” were determined.Research implications. The study of this material has shown that the evaluative characteristics of the syntagmatic environment diagnose a change in the semantic content of a particular linguistic unit. The practical significance of the research is determined by the possibility of applying materials and conclusions in teaching the stylistics of the Russian language, the language of fiction.