The work is devoted to the semantics, the structure of polysemy, the syntax of the word ideal. The word ideal at first glance does not seem complicated either from the point of view of the semantics and structure of polysemy, or from the point of view of the actant structure. X is the ideal of Y from the point of view of Z - means that the object X, either real or imaginary, belongs to class Y and fully corresponds to Z's idea of what an object of class Y should be. Moreover, this is such a complete correspondence that in the life of such practically does not happen. The paper considers some non-trivial features of this word. In particular, it turns out that the genitive form of the word ideal can occupy three positions: not only the ideal of Petya (=Petia’s ideal) and the ideal of wife (the idea of what a wife should be), but also the ideal of service (ideal sluzhenija) - in the sense that service is the content of the ideal. In addition, it turns out that the semantics and structure of the polysemy of the word ideal have changed during its existence in the Russian language. In Pushkin's expression Tatyany milyj ideal the sweet ideal does not imply that Tatyana has some kind of ideal, but that the ideal is Tatyana herself. More precisely, the ideal of Tatiana here is the same as the image of Tatiana. Different words with this root have various structure of polysemy.

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The modal particle uzh is perhaps the most difficult Russian discourse word to describe since its semantics is highly elusive. The existing descriptions are rather abstract and poorly correlate with various cases of usage of uzh. Besides, they do not take into consideration several crucial components of this particle's meaning. For instance, in phrases like Uzh ya-to znayu ('I do know') one can notice a hugely important component of meaning -the idea of a scale. One can say Ya-to etot sekret znayu, a vot drugim nevdomek ('I do know the secret, whereas others have no idea about it'), and in this example, uzh would be irrelevant. Uzh ya-to eto znayu presupposes that others probably know it too, but it's me who knows it for sure. This very idea of a scale and poles together with the idea of the exceedance of expectations (which is also important for the meaning of uzh) constitutes the semantic contribution that this particle makes. Moreover, uzh partly smooths the opposition between the central and other elements of a multitude, because it does not exclude them from consideration, it just gives emphasis to that one.The aim of this research is to examine those types of uzh usage, where the idea of a scale is most clearly actualized. Probably, if we understand how the significant components of this particle's meaning function, we will get closer to the development of a complete picture of its usage. For example, the idea of a scale within the meaning of uzh is expressed in the context of a special question (Zachem uzh tak zlo? 'Why so mean?'). In an argument uzh often implies that the speaker was almost ready to back down, but not to this extent -like in a famous poem by Daniil Kharms called «Liar» (1930). The idea of a scale is vividly realized in the context of an implicit (Gde uzh mne!, 'How can I…') or explicit negation. It is especially interesting to pay attention to the peculiar effects of the combination of uzh with comparative forms (luchshe uzh, 'it would be better...'). The usage of uzh in standard word combinations raz uzh, esli uzh, togda uzh has its restrictions, also connected with the idea of a scale. The development of a modal meaning in a temporal word, which brings the transformation of a timeline into a scale of expectations or possibilities, is quite typical.