On the selection of concept nominator in cases of semantic parallelism

Abstract

Analysis of a concept starts from the concept nominator - a word that best represents the idea behind the concept. In cases of semantic parallelism (i.e. existence of two or more often polysemous words that nominate the same object or idea) it is necessary to establish the procedure for the selection of the concept nominator. It is often the case that the many meanings of such words are identical, in certain, but they are not interchangeable in all contexts, which makes it difficult to determine the number of concepts they represent. Therefore, it is necessary to establish whether a word is the nominator of a concept, or it is only one of the possible elements in the concept’s nominative field. The associative fields contain information on the concept that an average person has, and that knowledge is context-free, so the analysis of associative fields shows the ways of conceptualization for the analyzed lexemes and it shows their relation in the lexical and semantic systems. Analysis of the associative fields trud and rabota in the Russian language has shown that the concept trud is included in the concept rabota, because all aspects of their conceptualization coincide, but the lexeme trud is perceived as more related to the political, economic and moral spheres, so it is shifting towards the periphery of the lexical system. The lexeme rabota should be considered the nominator of the concept related to purposeful human activity in the Russian conceptosphere. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 178002: Jezici i kulture u vremenu i prostoru]

Keywords

• associative method
• polysemy
• concept trud (Russian)
• concept rabota(Russian)