Among all the we alth of the Russian language, expressive means such as antithesis, metaphor, metonymy, litote, hyperbole, synecdoche, and, of course, epithet occupy a special place. We see examples of epithets in our life at every step, we unconsciously use them in speech, but we are not aware of how
we own a unique means of expression. In the article we will talk in more detail about what an epithet is. Examples will help to better and more clearly understand how the epithet differs from other expressive means of the great and mighty Russian language. For example, what is its difference from a metaphor and whether it exists.
So, what is an epithet? Examples of epithets are as follows: velvet nights, golden hands, brilliant role, brilliant performance, white light, honored artist, gray wolf.
There are a lot of examples of epithets, even for the word "light" you can pick up to 10 epithets. That is, the epithet is a trope,expressive language. In a broader sense, an epithet is a word or even a phrase that acquires a new meaning in a sentence and highlights certain features in the described object. Thus, the reader evaluates the described object from an unusual point of view. The epithet, along with metaphor, metonymy and other expressive means, gives the subject, as well as the text, a certain expressive coloring.
There is no consensus on the grammatical form of epithets. Some scientists, for example, Kwiatkowski, believe that only an adjective-definition can be an epithet in a sentence. Others tend to think that any part of speech can act as an epithet if it serves as a defining word for another word. This is the so-called broad approach to understanding the lexical-semantic meaning of an epithet. If we consider the epithet from the standpoint of this approach, then even an adverb can play its role, if it carries a shade of the author's perception of the phenomenon. For example: madly rejoice, whistle wildly, try desperately, defend furiously.
An application can also be an epithet, for example: a beautiful girl, an ignorant fool, a cow-nurse, Ivan the Fool and others.
Despite the existence of a broad approach, most linguists consider the epithet to be the defining word in attributive constructions built according to the A + N model, adjective (A, adjective) + noun (N, noun).
Epithets are most often used in poetry. Homer used epithets - in his
"Illiade" contains such epithets as the cunning Odysseus, fleet-footed Achilles. This technique is called a constant epithet, or a frozen definition.
The well-known linguist Zhirmunsky points out that, in a broad sense, an epithet is, in fact, any definition that highlights and emphasizes any feature of an object. In a narrow sense, the epithet is a decorating feature characteristic of classicism.
From the history of the epithet, it can be seen that at first they were constant with certain words, for example, dark sea, starry night, crowned ruler.
According to the structural characteristics, one can distinguish a simple, fused, compound, complex epithet. Examples of complex epithets are often found in Akhmatova's poetry.
