Сategorization of the linguistic conceptual sphere: gender of nouns

Abstract

The article reveals the nature of such fundamental problems of cognitive linguistics as linguistic categorization. The connection between the conceptualization and categorization processes as mental procedures of obtaining, processing, storing and reproducing information is shown. It is emphasized that hierarchical relations are objectified, particularly in dictionaries of linguistic terms. The formation of grammatical categories is qualified as secondary categorization. The development of nominations for the designation of the grammatical gender category in the Ukrainian language and, accordingly, the peculiarities of categorization of this class of words has been reproduced. It is noted that a linguistic term can be represented as an element of a system in which hierarchical relations are fixed. The main types of hierarchical relations between linguistic concepts are generic (hyper-hyponymous) and partitive (part and whole) relations. These relations are quite stable and independent of the context. It is proved that the study of the evolution of the grammatical categories of the Ukrainian language, which is based on the fixation and analysis of terminological nominations from different times, makes it possible to highlight the peculiarities of the mental processes that accompany their formation and modern functioning. Keywords: cognitive linguistics, categorization, linguistic term, grammatical gender category, historical terminology