Contrastive relations in horoscopic texts

Abstract

   The article determines the specifics of the horoscope text syntax, the subject that rarely attracts attention of contemporary researchers. The horoscope has all the principle features of text with all its inherent features - coherence, integrity, completeness, etc. The essential features of text can include various kinds of lexical, stylistic and syntactic types of communication. Is it possible to consider semantic-syntactic relations as text-forming? What syntactic constructions are typical for a horoscope? These and similar questions are solved in the article.

   The purpose of our research is to identify the chief, basic syntactic models that form the structure of a predictive text.

   The analysis of more than 1000 horoscopes from Russian sites suggests that the special syntax of horoscopes reflects modern processes. It cannot be called a traditional, classical syntax, since it is formed on the basis of colloquial syntax. Identifying common features of horoscope texts, we established that the structural dominant of the horoscope is syncretic contrastive-concessive constructions, implemented explicitly and implicitly. As a rule, such constructions have a three or four-event dictum including causal relationships, while their complicating meanings are formed using lexical semantics or presuppositions. In horoscopes, such constructions manifest both basic semantic relations and new ones, provoked by the specifics of the text.