The periphrastic potential of colorative collocations in contemporary newspaper discourse

The article deals with colorative collocations examined within the framework of combinatorial lexicology, which studies syntagmatic connections of lexical items and their combinatorial potential. This paper proposes a special perspective on the specifics of colorative collocations as a means of periphrasis in newspaper discourse. The periphrastic potential of colorative collocations is investigated with regard to the combinatorial‑semantic nature of these units. The aim of the research is to identify the specifics of the implementation of the periphrastic potential of Russian colorative collocations used in contemporary newspaper discourse. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the first-ever identification and description of a particular type of colorative collocations – colorative periphrastic collocations – and in revealing the semantic‑cognitive correlations that underlie their formation. It is demonstrated that colorative periphrastic collocations in newspaper discourse are created and employed as means of expressivity and influence. The research findings show that colorative periphrastic collocations possess semantic capacity that includes informative, manipulative (affective/influencing), and stylistic components. The mechanism of formation of colorative periphrastic collocations is based on five types of semantic‑cognitive correlations. It is established that the periphrastic potential of colorative collocations is determined by the socio‑historical, aesthetic, and emotive information contained in the color component, as well as by the authorial intention to create units with informational‑influencing specificity.