SEMANTIC CONTENT OF CONCEPT HELP CATEGORIZED AS PROPERTY IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH

Abstract

The article deals with the analysis of the semantic structure of nominative units contributing to the establishment of deep patterns of interaction between the structures of human consciousness and linguistic forms. A person's interpretation of the surrounding reality is the result of cognitive activity and is represented in mental structures that are mediators between the real or imagined environment and the language that objectifies them. Nominative possibilities of the linguistic picture of the world are realized by lexical units, which undergo the conceptual analysis to achieve the goal of linguistic-cognitive research for the reconstruction of the content of the HELP concept in particular. The object of the study is the language means for marking help as a property and its components in the modern English language. Notional aspect with its cognitive features of the concept and categorical dimension of property are interrelated in the organization of knowledge about characteristics of help. Language has proved to be effective for accessing the structures of data about the surrounding world which is the area of human physical and mental activity, as well as for exchanging knowledge and experience. As a part of cognitive process, the nominative act presupposes indulgence into the semantic content of language units which involves the analysis of meaningful connections between the lexemes. Conceptual analysis of verbalized segments of knowledge about characteristics of help promotes restoring the notional conceptual content related to understanding of the helping process in terms of its properties. The semantic content of the concept HELP is constructed due to the meaning of attributes to denote properties of help which make up the lexical-semantic group with the integral seme ²helpful². The lexeme ‘helpful’ comprises two notional segments with differentiating semes ²useful² and ²beneficial². Lexical units to designate the property of help constitute semantic subgroups in relation to the kind of help differentiated from the definitions of the lexemes.