Формирование семантической парадигмы лексемы Tugend в современном немецком языке

Abstract

The study aims to identify semantic changes in abstract vocabulary using the example of the word ‘Tugend’. Attaining this aim will help, on the one hand, clarify the most relevant meaning of the lexeme from the perspective of lexicography and, on the other hand, use the resulting meaning to translate sources of a wide range of discourses. In this regard, it is necessary to use not only the methods of certain areas of linguistics, but also to conduct a semantic analysis of the lexeme in diachrony, which accounts for the scientific novelty of the study. Thus, the analysis of the semantic paradigm of ‘Tugend’ in the corpus of sources of two periods of German language history (namely, Middle High German and New High German) makes it possible to shed light on the features of the expansion of the meaning of the word. As a result of the conducted research, the differences between the existing dictionary definitions and the meanings of the lexeme in the corpus have been revealed. In addition, it is the first time that the semantic processes occurring at the present stage of word development have been described. The paper carries out semantic analysis, compiles lists of current discourses and the statistics on the frequency of use of the lexeme for each topical section.