COGNITIVE-SEMANTIC FORMAT OF ENGLISH THYMIC LEXICAL ITEMS

Abstract

The present article aims to give a comprehensive account of conceptual triad SENSE : FEELING : EMOTION as a unit of the basic level of thymic category in modern English in cognitive and semantic terms. Thymic category is viewed as verbal form of cognitive activity of a language personality that classifies conceptual structures denoting physical, cognitive and emotional facets of world perception. Quite recently, considerable attention has been paid to cognitive-discoursive paradigm, however, studies on cognitive, semantic, morphological and derivational features of the concepts belonging with the basic categorization level are still lacking. The given research demonstrates the feasibility of formal method of language studies to yield the cognitive model of the conceptual triad under study. Two principles of elements’ grouping are typical of this model: the invariant one is based on semantic features shared by the model’s components and the functional one is based on their common functions. Our observations that the elements with comprehensive features might maintain unified functions are not new, however our findings have demonstrated that polysemy is characteristic of thymic lexical items. When the speaker is selecting from among the three of them, they are shaping the situation to structure the content of the image.