How One Can be Wildly Jealous and Wildly Interested: the Polysemy of Adjectives Denoting Wild Animals in the Field of Human Life

Abstract

Based on the data of various European languages, the article considers the polysemy of adjectives initially meaning WILD, UNTAMED (animal) when used to characterize human character and behavior. In such contexts, these adjectives develop four major meanings, so that the result of the semantic derivation can be described with semantic labels 1) SHY; 2) RUDE, IMPOLITE; 3) AGGRESSIVE; 4) IMPULSIVE. The cognitive mechanism of the semantic shifts WILD, UNTAMED  RUDE, IMPOLITE and especially WILD, UNTAMED  AGGRESSIVE; WILD, UNTAMED  IMPULSIVE, is apparently based upon the perception of a prototypical wild animal as predatory and dangerous to humans, whereas the meaning SHY emerged on the basis of a more general opposition between human and animal life. In addition, the semantic development of adjectives denoting WILD, UNTAMED can go further due to their compatibility with names of emotions, so that the adjective (or the adverb derived therefrom) can be used in a wider range of contexts, realizing the lexical function “Magn”, i.e. labelling a high degree of a given feature (semantic label VERY). All the semantic shifts cited in the article are common in European languages, demonstrating importance of these instances of polysemy for the conceptualization of reality encoded therein.