Семантические универсалии в эволюции цветообозначений общеславянского и пратюркского языков

Abstract

The aim of the research is to identify semantic universals in the evolution of colour terms in the Proto-Slavic and Proto-Turkic languages. The paper analyses the semantics of the Indo-European proto-forms of Proto-Slavic colour terms and the Altaic proto-forms of Proto-Turkic colour terms. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that a comparative analysis of the semantics of the oldest proto-forms of colour terms belonging to two different language families is carried out. Traditionally, these names are considered an example illustrating the national specifics of the reflection of the surrounding reality in the language of a particular people, however, a systematic study of the semantics of colour terms in the diachronic aspect reveals similar features indicating the presence of fundamental differences between modern and ancient perception characteristic of different languages. To identify such semantic universals, the researchers carried out a component analysis of the semantics of the ancient proto-forms that had developed the meaning of the colours white, black, red, blue, green and yellow and their shades in the Proto-Slavic and Proto-Turkic languages. As a result, the following semantic universals have been identified: the absence of an initial semantic connection with the reference object, the presence of a semantic connection with light, the syncretism of the denoted colour tone.