Lexical Semantic Modelling in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

The paper focuses on model of situation concept – a representation that is thought to constitute the basis for comparison (tertium comparationis) of lexical semantics in related and non-related languages. The model is considered to represent the content of a lexical item through a sampling of a multidimensional concept. The relevance of the model being a representation of multidimensional semantic space is verified based on the results of the subjective scaling experiment. The concept of situation is considered as a configuration of semantic linguistic dimensions – the characteristics that encode information on how a situation is construed by the semantics of a lexical item. It has been ascertained that the lexical items’ semantics of contrasted languages (English, German, Polish, and Ukrainian) encode and distribute information within four semantic linguistic dimensions: representational, sentential, constructional, and epidigmatic. It is posited that the representational semantic dimension encodes information on the gnoseological values of situation participants, the sentential one – on a set and relations of situation participants, the constructional one – on the degree of positional activities or salience of situation participants, the epidigmatic one – on the semantic associations of situation participants. In order to ascertain the content of a situation concept and to establish the ways the information is encoded and distributed in the semantics of lexical items, a directed associative experiment has been used. In reproducing the specificity of the worldview, the expediency of further psycholinguistic research of lexical semantic models is claimed.