The semantics of landscape vocabulary in the Lives of the Assumption Collection

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to describe the semantics of words nominating parts of the landscape in hagiographic texts that existed in Ancient Russia. The object of the study is words with spatial semantics denoting objects of nature. The subject of the study is the semantics of these lexical units. The material chosen for the analysis is the hagiographic texts included in the Assumption collection. To systematize the material, a classification of landscape vocabulary by semantic groups is proposed. The theoretical part of the work is an analysis of the already available methods of thematic ideography of landscape vocabulary, on the basis of which a classification of landscape vocabulary for the considered language material is proposed. The practical part of the article is devoted to the description of the meanings of words that represent a group of landscape vocabulary. Attention is drawn to the meaning of the word, the frequency of its use, and the connection with the event semantics of texts. The lexical material was obtained by the continuous sampling method. Lexicographic, contextual, and quantitative analyses were used to identify semantics. The article describes the words with their basic meanings that characterize the landscape in the lives of the Assumption collection: elevations: mountain, hill; flat spaces — coincide with open spaces; depressions: deep, ditch, pit, cave (pechera); overgrown areas: boron, lѣs, squabble; open areas: field, deserts; water spaces and land areas next to it: source, rѣka, sea, mouth, brѣg, island. It is noted that the group of landscape vocabulary is few and infrequent in use. The author comes to the conclusion that the semantics of landscape naming in the considered hagiographies includes elements of various linguistic Slavic systems. It is emphasized that the formation of metaphorical meanings in landscape vocabulary occurs under the influence of biblical contexts. The novelty of the research lies in the chosen source of linguistic facts: the hagiographic texts of the Assumption Collection did not become the subject of systematic lexical and semantic analysis. It can also be noted that the analysis of spatial vocabulary based on the material of texts that existed in Ancient Russia was not carried out. The work can be useful in studies of the category of locativity in the Old Russian language, as well as in the study of images of space in Slavic hagiographic texts.