SENSORY METAPHOR AND SYNESTHESIA AS A LANGUAGE PHENOMENON: LINGUOCOGNITIVE ASPECT. Part 1

Abstract

The first part of the article deals with the problem of the relationship between the signals of the first and second signal systems of a person: how sensory modalities of human sensations (in this case, visual and gustatory ones) are denoted by verbal units of the English, Ukrainian and Russian languages. The linguistic-cognitive aspect of the study consists, firstly, in highlighting a sensory prototype-image, explicated in the lexicographical definitions of language lexemes, which (lexemes) in their first, basic meaning; denote units of the colouristic and gustatory codes. English, Ukrainian and Russian colour terms verbalize sensory information on 8 parts of the colour spectrum (6 chromatic and 2 achromatic), sensory information on 4 basic tastes is verbalized by units of a gustatory code. In each of the analyzed lexemes, prototype-images, defined in the dictionary entries, are highlighted – they are perceptually perceived objects, the carriers of corresponding qualitative (taste, colour) characteristics. It is stated that the choice of prototype-images is phylogenetically determined. Among them (depending on their representation in all three, in two or in one of the languages) absolute, frequent and unique prototype images are differentiated. The cases of the “blurred” character of colour nominations are considered as a manifestation of the uncertainty of the boundaries of their colouristic values. The former is treated as the fundamental characteristics of part-of-speech (namely, adjectival) semantics. Attention is paid to the detailed analysis of synesthesia as a variant of the sensory metaphor in the microgroups of coloristic and gustatory code nominations.