Intersection of the lexical-semantic fields “Mentality” and “Physiology” in the poetic language of Igor-Severyanin

Abstract

The intersection of two lexical-semantic fields “mentality” and “physiology” in the poetic texts of Igor-Severyanin is studied. The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that within the framework of modern anthropocentric approach and increased attention to the mental sphere lexical semantics is investigated, lexical-semantic fields, their intersections, semantic shifts are considered, actual problems of linguistic poetics are touched upon. The aim of the work is to explore the intersection of lexical-semantic fields “mentality” and “physiology” in the language of Severyanin's poems. The material includes lexemes of the mental sphere from Igor-Severyanin's poetic texts. While determining the usual meaning of these lexemes, the authors used the materials of “Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language” by S.I. Ozhegov. The methods of description, comparison, contrast, lexical-semantic and contextual analysis, and continuous sampling were applied; the lexical-semantic field - a generally accepted form of representing lexical units by their meaning - was used to structure the vocabulary. The intersections of the lexical-semantic fields “mentality” and “physiology” in Igor-Severyanin's texts, revealed in the research, are primarily due to the inseparable connection between the inner world of man and his bodily organs of sense. The language fixes stable expressions indicating the possibility of comprehending the human consciousness through analyzing the signals of his body. Words used to denote phenomena and processes related to the body, health, gestures, etc., are reinterpreted in poetic language and receive new semantics, which allows to refer these new lexical-semantic units to the lexical-semantic field of mentality. In Igor-Severyanin's poems the inner world of the lyrical subject dominates, which is reflected in the author's word usage. Even words and expressions with the semantics of physiology shift in their meanings, acquiring the semantics of mentality, at the same time thoughts and feelings are endowed with the author's positive evaluation. The prospects of the research are connected primarily with further study of the mental sphere in the Russian linguistic lexical-semantic system, its dynamics, as well as with the analysis of semantic shifts in the poetic language vocabulary.