Yankees in Petrograd, Bolsheviks in New York: America and Americans in Russian Literary Perception

Appendix 1: Lexical and Grammatical Neologisms in Pilniak’s OK

Appendix 1 Lexical and Grammatical Neologisms in Pilniak’s OK Vocabulary In his ornamental prose,Pilniak experiments widely with word formation across various parts of speech. Most often he achieves poetic economy by contracting a syntagm into one word. Nouns kholostezh’ (604)—a hybrid, a substitute for the expression kholostaia molodezh’ [young bachelors] vziatkopiaterka (568)—a complex word Pilniak creates for a “five-dollarbribe ” obligatsiederzhateli (508)—a Russian calque of the English noun “shareholder” Adjectives sonno-pushnoi [mister] (448)—sleepy man trading furs konfetno-iziashchnaia [bumazhka kablogrammy] (448)—candy-elegant [cablegram paper] Adverbs vdolepoperek, poperekovdol’—two interchangeable contractions of the idiomatic adverbial expression vdol’ i poperek [through the length and the breadth of] Dorogi peresekli vsiu Ameriku vdol’, poperek, poperekovdol’, vdolepoperek (477) [The roads have crisscrossed and recrossed the length and the breadth of the whole of America] 228 Appendix 1 Verbs Pilniak creates new verbs and new aspectual forms more often than other parts of speech: razmillionit’sia—to become a millionaire Byt’ mozhet, razoriatsia, byt’ mozhet, razmillioniatsia! (599) [Maybe they will ruin themselves, maybe, they will become millionaires!] This verb is formed according to the same model as rasshirit’sia [broaden], razrastis’ [grow] where the prefix raz(s) has the meaning of expansion. Pilniak ironically juxtaposes it with the opposite meaning of the same prefix—rasprodat’ [to sell out] and razorit’sia1 [to go into bankruptcy]—thus linguistically emphasizing that it is a matter of sheer chance whether one becomes a millionaire or a beggar. New verb forms Idiosyncratic perfective aspectual forms: zaprikazyvat’—to start to give orders Papasha zaprikazyval ei tonom boga (553) [Father started to give her orders in the tone of God] Loading existing words with new meanings that point out their unexpected inner form: balovat’—to dance and to be naughty Posle obeda…polagalos’ balovat’ (ot slova bal) fokstrotami (446) [After dinner one was supposed to be naughty/indulge oneself dancing the foxtrot.] Here Pilniak employs several meanings of the verb balovat’— “to be naughty”and “to indulge oneself”and suggests a new etymology of this verb as a derivative of the noun “ball.” Therefore, “naughty” lascivious behavior after the ball is even etymologically determined. Participles serdechno-edushchie—cordially going Kablogrammy dlia serdechno-edushchikh (446) [Cablegrams for the “cordially going,” i.e., apparently, for those “cordially anticipated”]. Inventing this complex adjective Pilniak employs a pun—edushchikh is close to ediashchikh [eating] making the reader suspect an adjective derived from the noun serdtseed [heart-eater]. poluprigashennyi—semi-half-extinguished Appendix 1 229 poluprigashennye pereulochki kaiut (446) [Dimly lighted (semi-halfextinguished ) cabin alleys].Pilniak’s new word formation is redundant rather than condensed: he emphasizes a certain quality aggregating morphemes with similar meanings. Word-Groups and Sentences Non-standard word combinations abound in Pilniak’s travelogue.2 He returns to his favorite idiosyncratic constructions again and again, charting the novel’s recurrent motifs. Violating the norms of neutral speech, the author attracts the reader’s attention; such digressions create semantically loaded loci in the narrative. One of Pilniak’s most widely used metaphors, which entails unusual verb governance,3 is zabor dollara—“fence of the dollar,” which stresses the disjointed nature of the capital. [Bogatye amerikantsy] zalezli za zabory dollara (473) [(Rich Americans) climbed over the fence of the dollar] te, kto svalilsia s zabora dollara (501) [those who have fallen from the fence of the dollar (those who did not succeed)] Pilniak produces elliptical constructions based on this metaphor omitting the word “fence”: dlia zalezshikh za dollary (473) [for those who climbed over the dollars]. The metaphor “the fence of the dollar” also clarifies the meaning of such lexical neologisms as zazabornye chudesa (519) [overthe -fence miracles (miracles that can be observed behind the “fence” of Hollywood]; or zadollarovyi obyvatel’ (515) [over-the-dollar philistine, one who has surrounded himself with a fence of dollars]. Pilniak’s American narrative employs multiple oxymoronic expressions, stressing the presumed hypocrisy of the country, a gap between what it pretends to be and what it really is: dollarovoe teplo (446)—dollar warmth blagorodstvo zhul’nichestv (446)—nobility of tricks bednyi millioner (499)—poor millionaire Pilniak’s synecdoche helps to create pictures similar to Gorky’s: people disappear behind objects: opoennye tufli [shlepaiut po koridoru] (447)—drunk shoes [shuffle along the corridor] Among Pilniak’s grammatical diversions, non-standard governance is the most characteristic: for example, Pilniak uses the instrumental case instead of the prepositional construction blagodaria + dative...