It is often said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. What kind of mirror is it? What can human eyes be like? Blue, brown, black, green, penetrating, unseeing, passionate... Once "Literaturnaya Gazeta" offered its readers to supplement the list of synonyms for the word die started by the notorious Bezenchuk. Readers readily responded, and the list turned out to be quite impressive. But what about other equally interesting words? You can't even find that many readers... Only one thing remains - to call on the help of equipment.

Recently, the so-called corpus of texts has become very widespread, that is, collections of various kinds of texts in electronic form with the ability to compile frequent word lists, search for examples, etc.They allow you to quickly collect language material. We have at our disposal a corpus of texts of Russian and Soviet fiction of the XX century. It includes works by various authors: M. Bulgakov and A. Tolstoy, M. Sholokhov and Yu. Bondarev, A. Green and V. Aksenov, a total of about 170 texts by 75 authors. The volume of the corpus is 6.5 million word uses. This impressive coverage of the material served as the basis for the study on " What can eyes be like?"

Phrases like "adjective + eyes" were found in the studied texts about 3,200 times. (The data provided should be treated with caution: only adjectives, the nearest neighbors of the noun eye (i.e. from the word "eye") were taken into account.-

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chetania big blue eyes (only the adjective blue is reflected ). In addition, since our corpus includes entire texts, there is an inevitable "bias" towards Sholokhov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn and other authors of long novels. Thus, the presented data indicate only trends in the use of certain definitions in the language of Russian and Soviet writers of the XX century.) There are almost 800 definitions in the list, of which 70 were used more than 10 times. And there are almost 400 cases of a single use of this or that definition.

The most frequent combinations were blue eyes (which is quite predictable) and closed eyes (which is completely unexpected). They met 108 times each. This is followed by black (104), gray (64), open (57), brown (45), blue (44), dark (42), shiny (39), round (38), squinted (37), light (33), bulging (31), burning (31), large (30), red (30), green (29), yellow (25) and live (24).

Definitions of eye color predominate. According to the list, the literary hero of the XX century is most often blue-eyed or black-eyed: 104 uses against 108-the gap is insignificant. The next most frequently used definition of gray was found only in 64 cases.

This, or something like it, is an essential detail in the average "portrait of a nation". But in a work of fiction, what is attractive is not the ordinary, but what goes beyond the norm. Perhaps that is why in our northern latitudes black eyes attract the attention of writers, although in real life they are rare. Rather, you will already meet brown eyes, but these are recorded in our case only 45 times, their frequency is even lower than that of gray eyes.

The individuality of the creative style of writers is also expressed in the originality of epithets and definitions. Truly inexhaustible is the human imagination! It turns out that the eyes can be reed ("I sat for a while, talked about the war and farm news, squinted at Daria with green, reedy eyes and was about to leave" - M. Sholokhov. "Quiet Don"), sea ("There was a languid, black-haired beauty with blue sea eyes, Miss Norcot..." - V. Nabokov. "Other shores"), steppe (Fyodor Ivanovich directly, like a judge, looked into his faded steppe eyes" - V. Dudintsev. "White clothes") and even rotten, and such a very unexpected definition of eyes was found twice, in different writers: in Y. Herman ("...empty, rotten eyes of a certain figure to whom he sometimes came for news" - " I am responsible for everything "and in the Weiner brothers in" Era of Mercy" ("...his face was completely cast-iron, gray, nostrils, with rotten white eyes...").

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Most of the non-standard definitions of the word eyes (13) are found in M. Sholokhov's novel "The Quiet Don". In addition to reeds, the writer uses no less exotic cabbage, sticky, puffy and even marsupials ("Emelyan Konstantinovich went out, squinting the slits of cabbage eyes..."; " A Cossack with green sticky eyes (...) knocked out of a bad state of semi-oblivion..."; "...colonel ( ... ) with tearful, puffy, marsupial eyes..."). The works of V. Nabokov (12 definitions) are almost as rich in "finds". The eyes of his characters can be ghostly, glazed, gorilla ("...the face of Cincinnatus, with sliding, fickle shade, slightly ghostly eyes..."; "With his light, glazed eyes, he politely looked at Cincinnatus..." - "Invitation to execution"; " Black with white polka dots handkerchief (...) hidden from my aged gorilla eyes (...) half-developed breasts... " - "Lolita"), and Nabokov's Lolita has twilight ones ("...shining, softened, caressing me with a look of tender, mysterious, vicious, indifferent, twilight eyes...").

And now for more information about the frequency of using definitions for the word eyes in different semantic groups. Over 30 different definitions contain groups such as: "brightness" (33), "soreness" (40)," material "(43)," color "(45)," state "(54)," shape "(68)," character " (69). & representative group - "eyes as a reflection of a person's mood" - 133 definitions. These are sad and laughing (14 uses each), tired (9) and happy (14), crying (5) and delighted (5), loving (3) and suffering (2), smiling and listening, drunk and drunk, angry and mad, silly and mourning (1 each). For example: "... cheerful, bright, slightly drunken eyes of a young colonel... " - Yu. German. "I am responsible for everything";" ...shouted Anikushka, circling the chain with silly eyes... " - M. Sholokhov. "Quiet Don"; "What mourning eyes he has - I began to fantasize out of my painful habit" - M. Bulgakov. "Theatrical novel". But most often the eyes of literary characters are frightened (22) and sad (23). It is these two not very happy feelings that are reflected in the Russian eyes. Although it is interesting that the following pairs are sad eyes and laughing, tearful, and funny at the same time, meeting 14 and 13 times, respectively. In general, the ratio of the mood of "good" and "bad" reflected in the character's gaze is approximately 1 to 3 "in favor" of suffering, furious and frightened eyes. Was it related to our real worldview in the turbulent 20th century? Probably, yes... And that's pretty sad.

The groups "nationality" and "person" are approximately the same in size - a little more than 20 in each. Eyes attract attention

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Kalmyk, however, of the six recorded examples, five are from M. Sholokhov's novel "The Quiet Don". Therefore, it is hardly possible to draw conclusions about the "national preference". Similarly, Kyrgyz eyes met 3 times, but only in B. Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago", Tatar - 3 times for two authors, Gypsy, non-Russian and Mongolian-2 times for two different writers. That is, if the corpus of texts did not contain Roman Pasternak, then there would be no Kyrgyz eyes. In total, 23 definitions related to nationality were found. 17 of them are individual author's uses, from Russian and non-Russian to quite unusual okitaychennye ("...to kiss your okitaychennye eyes... " - V. Nabokov. "Lolita") and Novgorod ("...a strange Tatar cross-section of the blue Novgorod eyes... " - V. Aksenov. "Crimea Island"). Most of the definitions (Azerbaijani, Armenian, Irish, German, Polish) only indirectly indicate the nationality of the character ("Adam Kazimirovich's bright Polish eyes glistened with tears." - I. Ilf, E. Petrov. "Golden Calf"). The smaller part has more aesthetic content than informative content. These definitions are associated with stereotypical ideas about people of other nationalities. It is hard to imagine that next to Bulgakov's Margarita - Mongols ("And slanted Mongolian eyes, and faces white and black became indifferent..." - M. Bulgakov. "The Master and Margarita"), that Speransky had Chinese ancestors ("He spoke, round Chinese eyes were half - closed" - Yu. Tynyanov. "Pushkin"), the authors of "The Golden Calf" have a Persian widow ("And a beautiful widow with Persian eyes will not sit on the grave" - I. Ilf, E. Petrov. "The Golden Calf"), and the cheerful cow of the same authors was brought from Spain ("A pretty cow, which looked out of the drawing with one dark Spanish eye, was artfully divided into parts").

There are 20 different definitions in the "person" group, including 12 single ones. In total, there are 60 uses, and in 18 cases the most general definition of human eyes is used, much less often the eyes can be children's (8). Girls ' or women's eyes are more common than men's or men's (6 against 3), maternal eyes are slightly more common than father's (5 against 3). But the mention of women's eyes is by no means a guarantee that we are talking about a woman ("The lieutenant with the most beautiful female eyes..." M. Sholokhov. "Quiet Don"). Just like her father's ("Mincing legs, my son came up to her. Clinging tightly to his mother, he raised his father's eyes to her" - V. Jan. "Baty") or his mother's ("...the son ran out, biting his lips, looked back in the doorway - unshed tears trembled in his gray, maternal eyes" - Yu. Bondarev. "Hot snow") do not always determine family status, but can, as in the examples given, indicate a family resemblance. And in General-

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then all of them are simply earthly, especially when we, earthlings, go somewhere outside the Solar system ("... in the life-giving rays of the green sun, pleasant for our earthly eyes..."- I. Yefremov. "Andromeda Nebula").

A person's occupation also affects their entire appearance, including their eyes. Otherwise, how to explain the appearance of such definitions as pastoral or general. But the bandit, thief, robber, hunting eye have a clear evaluation color ("The hunting eye of the great combinator quickly recognized the scabby citizen" - I. Ilf, E. Petrov. "Twelve Chairs"). Sometimes people completely change their essence. And then their eyes become witchy, witchy, devilish, or even completely ghoulish ("...she put a ghoul's eye on me and looked unblinkingly into my mouth" - The Weiner Brothers. "The Era of Mercy").

Perhaps one of the richest groups in terms of definitions is the group with evaluation characteristics. Here, out of 28 characteristics, 23 occur only once, and the remaining 5 occur approximately 2 times each. Eyes can be strong just as often as helpless: both definitions were found 2 times each ("And Bobynin's strong eyes flashed with open hatred" - A. Solzhenitsyn. "In the first circle"). And also good and bad, familiar and unforgettable, improbable and experienced, cute, but also disgusting, and simply disgusting ("...prima donna (...) rolling out her huge improbable eyes, she fell backward on the stage" - V. Nabokov. "Mashenka"; "Zina instantly had the same nasty eyes as the bitten one" - M. Bulgakov. "The heart of a Dog"). A series with a negative rating is more refined. In addition to those already mentioned, they are also bad, trashy and completely cursed !

But still, they are not so bad, "these eyes opposite". In any case, the group "intellect" is quite representative: There are 27 definitions and 113 word usages, 13 of which are singular. In most cases, the eyes are simply alive (24), and smart ones are identified almost equally with crazy ones (14 and 13). In general, the power of intelligence in the eyes is reflected more often than stupidity. Only 9 definitions speak of incomprehensible, meaningless and simply stupid eyes. The vast majority of the characters have capacious, thoughtful, all-knowing and all-understanding eyes ("Ruska studied not only the major's large head with his sharp, capacious eyes..." - A. Solzhenitsyn. "In the first circle"). In the world of literature, even a dog can have communicating eyes (A. Green. "Scarlet Sails").

And it is not difficult to determine the character of a literary character by the eyes. If a person is evil, then his eyes are evil, if he is kind, then his eyes are also kind. There are no such definitions in the studied texts of the oca-

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69. The eyes of the heroes of our literature are more often evil than good (18 vs. 14). But in general, both pleasant and unpleasant things are distributed fairly evenly in this group. On the one hand - such "positive" adjectives as strict, affectionate, innocent, tender, trusting, dreamy, on the other - mad, greedy, shameless, unkind, spiteful, sullen, etc.

On the contrary, the "age" group is not particularly diverse: old (5), senile (1) and young (7), or simply non - adult (1). For example: "...looking with your round, brown, still non-adult eyes..." - Yu.German. "I'm responsible for everything."

Like most of our contemporaries, literary heroes often have problems with their eyes. Inflamed, nearsighted, unseeing, watery - the first in this (35 words) list of definitions of" soreness " of the eyes. The dying and the lifeless, the dead and the distraught, the mad and the crazy-this quite fully characterizes not so much the health of the characters, but again their self-perception in the world of raging passions ("All around I saw the same feverish eyes and listened to the same nonsense" - I. Ehrenburg. "The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito").

A very prominent place in our material is occupied by various metaphorical models, the essence of which is in the "study" of the physical properties of human eyes.

13 different definitions that occur 35 times can be grouped into the "humidity" group. Note that the eyes are mostly dry (13), not wet (10). But they can be moistened or moistened (11), watery (7) or just wet (4). For example: "A whitish signalman with watery eyes, puffing, removes the device over his head" - V. Nekrasov. "In the trenches of Stalingrad".

Approximately the same number of definitions (14 variants, 37 uses) are given to the eyes according to the character's temperament. The most attractive adjectives are cold (10) or icy (4). In total, these adjectives are used more often than warm, hot, and flaming. Although in general, taking into account the individual incandescent and flaring ones, the authors give a slight preference to fiery eyes rather than frozen ones ("He thought again, staring at me with frozen eyes, and said..." Iskander. "A man's camp"; "Bagration had the heavy, fiery eyes of a warrior" - Yu. Tynyanov. "Pushkin").

The degree of" transparency " of the eyes may also be different (18 different definitions). At the same time, clear eyes in literary characters are just as common as muddy ones - 19 word uses each. There is a much greater variety in descriptions of eyes that are clouded, clouded, cloudy or blurred - a total of 15 different synonyms for this type. In addition to the clear ones, only

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clean (7) and with some assumption ghostly ("Yakov Menelaevich remembered: those clear eyes, that confident look he saw in Taganskaya prison in 1922..." - I. Ilf. E. Petrov. "Twelve Chairs"). The same ratio applies to adjectives that contain aesthetic eye ratings. Of the 19 different definitions, just beautiful and just scary occur the same way 13 times each. But the other 17 are different variations of "beautiful" so: from the eyes of ordinary, ordinary and prettier to beautiful (6), mysterious (5) and expressive (5). For example: "... a thirty-year-old woman with a beautiful face, a heavy look in her large, expressive eyes..." Iskander. "Human parking lot".

The eyes are not the most "mobile" part of the human face. And literary characters seem to look at each other mostly with unblinking, motionless (20 and 14) eyes. Together with the ones that stopped (10), these three definitions from the semantic group "movement" account for more than half of the word usage. Although in general, movement is much more diverse than static-22 different definitions for the eyes of moving people: fast, fast, sneaky and only 7 for their antonyms: motionless, stopped and frozen. Shifty eyes (9) also become more familiar than frozen eyes (1). The most original of the group "movement" is the adjective ryskuchy ("...a thin middle - aged man came, with a sharp yellow face and fast prowling eyes " - Yu. Dombrovsky. "Faculty of unnecessary things").

The semantic group "taste"is very poorly represented. There are only three definitions, each of which occurs only once: salty, sweet and bitter ("Sailor, salty eyes, give me a cigar" - A. Tolstoy. "Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin"; "And Bruzzhak turned his sweet eyes, not hiding the triumph" - V. Dudintsev "White clothes";" But she herself does not lie down and sits by the lamp with a book, looks with bitter eyes at the sleeper " - M. Bulgakov. "The Master and Margarita"). Two definitions are included in the "weight" group (heavy - 4 and heavy - 1). For example: "Aloysius Rvatsky, an athletic man with heavy eyes..." - M. Bulgakov. "Theatrical novel".

It has already been said that the most frequent definitions for the word eyes are color values such as blue, black, gray, etc. In total, 45 color values for eyes are recorded in our corpus. Along with the "traditional" colors, there are also not quite ordinary ones. For example, unexpectedly common were white eyes (10 uses) ("...red-faced blonde with white eyes... " I. Ilf, E. Petrov. "Golden Calf";"...a lonely prisoner with feverish white eyes... " - A. Solzhenitsyn. "In the circle

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the first one"). Contrary to all the claims of stylists, the eyes can also be brown (6 uses), and this definition is recorded in different authors ("And it seemed to warm up in the corners of strict brown eyes" - M. Sholokhov. "Quiet Don"; "He was very funny, ( ... ) with hot brown eyes" - V. Aksenov. "Oranges from Morocco"). The eyes can even be red (6 uses). For example:"...Kalin looked from one face to another with his small red eyes... " - V. Voinovich. "The life and extraordinary adventures of soldier Ivan Chonkin". Well, the most unexpected among the color designations is probably the mottled eyes ("...the vibrating roar of the engines instantly forced out of Zhorkina's consciousness the remnants of memories of the murdered boy with mottled eyes " - Yu. Bondarev. "The battalions are asking for fire").

The authors clearly prefer bright or shiny eyes - 31 and 39 uses, respectively. There can be eyes of fire (10), in the next group there are already four definitions, and for 8 dim eyes 24 radiant, sparkling, shining. The ratio is approximately the same for the entire group: "light" clearly defeats " darkness "(3 to 1). And in addition to the Grinovsky dog with communicating eyes, a cat appeared who "looked at me with fluorescent eyes" (A. and B. Strugatsky. "Monday starts on Saturday").

Most of the definitions of the group "form" indicate an unusual appearance of the hero, caused not so much by his physical features, but by the peculiarity of his internal state ("Under the hoods glittered startled eyes and bared teeth" - A. and B. Strugatsky. "Escape attempt"). Interestingly, large eyes appear much more often than small ones (30 vs. 13, this discrepancy is difficult to explain by chance). In fact, big eyes are only in third place in terms of frequency. Rather, they are round (38) and bulging (31). Describing the eyes in terms of their shape, writers prefer ugly and unattractive (bulging, bulging, oblique, swollen, sunken, sunken, deflated, slanted, hatched, etc.) rather than attractive (huge, deep, almond-shaped). In this semantic group - mainly cases of single use of definitions. Moreover, among the once-encountered ones, there are also quite ordinary ones, such as asymmetric ("Imagine an adult brunette, (...) with charmingly asymmetrical eyes... " - V. Nabokov. "Lolita"), and the already rather cliched almond-shaped ("..Bogaevsky whispered in his mind, not taking his wet almond-shaped eyes off Alekseyev. "Quiet Don"), and the author's definitions of the shaggy, pupillary type ("Sometimes he stopped, (...) he looked at us with his shaggy eyes and said:-

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chal... " - V. Aksenov. "Oranges from Morocco";" ... there was a lot of this animal breed in him: (...) in the manner of looking from under his brows with green pupillary eyes... " - M. Sholokhov. "Quiet Don"),

The group of adjectives with the meaning of physical condition is close to the "form" group. It has already been noted that the eyes, oddly enough, are more often closed than open. So: in this whole group, there is a bias towards "closeness". Among the frequent adjectives of this group are closed (108), squinted (37), half-closed (14), squinted (10), squinted (5), squinted (5), closed (2). Moreover, the eyes can also be unopened ("I see those two people with unopened eyes all the time... "- E. Zamyatin. "We"). The group of antonyms is much less well represented: open (57), open (14), unclosed (2).

Often, writers look for comparisons from the world around them for the eyes of their characters. The plant world is represented by seven different metaphors. The most frequent definitions are nut (4) and cornflower (3). And of the unusual ones-the already mentioned cabbage and honey ("Your honey-bearing eyes told me everything..." Iskander. "Sandro of Chegem"). Interestingly, the seemingly quite literary almond met only once ("...they have thin hands and almond eyes " - Yu. Dombrovsky. "Faculty of unnecessary things").

But in general, in search of expressiveness, writers like to turn not to the flora, but to the fauna. There are 27 different definitions associated with the animal world (87 uses). The most favorite animals, apparently, are a cat and a wolf, respectively, and the eyes of a cat (9) or wolf (11). Among birds, the preference is given to hawk (10) eyes over owl (5). Characters with the eyes of domestic animals - cow, bull, ox, horse, dog-usually do not too attractive ("...I'm tired of her with her cow eyes." Iskander. "Human parking lot"). In this type of value transfer, the associations associated with the given animal play an important role. So, ungulates are usually associated with low intelligence and harmlessness. Comparing human eyes with the eyes of predators-wolves, tigers-suggests strength, cruelty and uncontrollability. The most exotic are trout and snake eyes ("...I can clearly imagine the expression of perfect satisfaction and relief (...) in his bright trout eyes... " - V. Nabokov. "Other shores"; "... a huge prickly ugly woman with green snake eyes " - Yu. Dombrovsky. "Faculty of unnecessary things"),

One of the most popular techniques in fiction is to compare the eyes with some material: metal, precious metal, etc.

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stone, cloth, etc. The most common substance was, as expected, glass. The turnover of glass eyes met 11 times ("The Professor tore off his tie with one wave ( ... ) and, staggering, with completely stupid glass eyes, rushed somewhere out" - M. Bulgakov. "Fatal Eggs"). Another common comparison is pewter eyes (6 uses). For example: "Khripushin turned his terrible face to him and looked at him with pewter eyes" - Yu. Dombrovsky. "Faculty of unnecessary things". Although gems are beautiful, the eyes that look like them do not have to be beautiful ("He walked with a measured soldier's step, looking only ahead of himself with hard diamond eyes and leaning on a high stick with a curved end, like the biblical high priest" - I. Ilf, E. Petrov. "Twelve Chairs";" ... a younger thief with turquoise eyes and a moody, upturned nose " - Yu. German. "I'm responsible for everything").

So, in general terms, the compatibility potencies for the word eyes were shown. The incredible variety of metaphors exceeded all expectations. It's like writers are competing to see who can come up with a more unexpected story. But this article was prepared only on the material of prose of the XX century, the XIX century remained outside the threshold of research-Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Chekhov, as well as all Russian poetry.

It's a shame that such richness lurks in the depths of literary works, remaining unknown not only to ordinary native speakers, but also to the writers themselves. Explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language reflect the most standard word compatibility features, and even then usually as examples. Compatibility dictionaries provide only the most well-established and standard definitions. But dictionaries that would contain, in addition to the well-known, "worn-out" combinations, at least a fraction of the riches of our literature, would be extremely useful...

Tampere

Finland

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