In epithet the emotive meaning of the word is foregrounded to suppress the denotational meaning of it.

Logical attributes and epithets.

Epithet usually is an attributive word, phrase or even sentence. We should distinguish epithet as a SD from logical attributes. Logical attributes are objective and non-evaluating, they indicate an inherent or prominent feature of a thing or phenomenon. Thus in green meadows, white snow, pale complexion, and the like the adjectives are more logical attributes than epithets. They indicate generally recognized qualities of an object.

But in such examples as wild wind, loud ocean, heart-burning smile the adjectives do not point to inherent qualities of the objects. They are subjectively evaluative.

Classification.

Epithets may be classified from different standpoints: semantic and structural.

Semantically epithets may be divided into two main groups:

1).Emotive epithets.

They convey the emotional evaluation of the object by the speaker. Most of the qualifying words from the dictionaries can be and are used as emotive epithets (gorgeous, nasty, magnificent…).

2)Figurative (transferred epithets) смещенный эпитет – Арнольд

In this case some features of people (and sometimes phenomena or events) are transferred onto inanimate objects, which are somehow connected with people.

E.g. a sleepless pillow”. You actually mean a man or a woman, who hasn’t been sleeping on this pillow. So “a sleepless pillow” is a transferred epithet, a pillow cannot have such a feature as sleepless, this feature is not inherent in it. A soft pillow will be all right, but not a sleepless pillow.

Transferred epithets are formed of metaphors, metonymies and similes expressed by adjectives. E.g. the smiling sun, voiceless sands, the tobacco-stained smile, the unbreakfasted morning…

Like metaphor, metonymy and simile, corresponding epithets are also based on similarity of characteristics of two objects in the first case, on nearness of the objects in the second case, and on their comparison in the third case.

In any combination of words there are various degrees of closeness. When the words are so closely linked that the components become inseparable, we are dealing with a set expression. When the link between the components is comparatively close, we say that there is a stable word combination. And when we can substitute the word for any other of the same grammatical category, we say that is a free combination of words.

With regards to epithets this division is very important. The aim of the epithet is to make the desired impact on the reader, and so the ties of the epithet with the noun are generally contextual.

But there are combinations, in which the ties between the attribute and the noun are very close, and such a combination is viewed as a linguistic entity. Combinations of this type are the result of the frequent use of certain definite epithets with certain definite nouns. They became stable word combinations: e.g. bright face, valuable connections, sweet smile, unearthly beauty. They are called fixed epithets. The predictability of such epithets is very great.

The function of these epithets is to show the evaluating, subjective attitude of the writer. For this purpose the author does not create his own , new, unexpected epithets. He uses so called “language epithets”, which belong to the language – as – a system. So epithets may be divided into language epithets and speech epithets. Examples of speech epithets are: slavish knees, sleepless bay.