1 The Chuvash state institute of the humanities Yu.N.Isayev PHYTONYMICAL CONCEPTUARY AS A DICTIONARY OF NEW TYPE (on the materials of the Chuvash and Russian languages) Reviewers: Doctor of Philology N.I.Egorov, Doctor of Philology, professor V.G.Rodionov Scientific editor: Doctor of Philology, professor V.I.Sergeev Isayev Yu.N. Phytonymical conceptuary as a dictionary of new type (on the materials of the Chuvash and Russian languages): monograph/ Yu.N.Isayev; scientific editor V.I.Sergeev. - Cheboxary: Chuvash book publishing house, 2013. - 191 pages The scientific edition is devoted to the description of the set of concepts of the vegetative cycle - trees, and bushes, which are most widespread in the territory of Chuvashia and in the midland of Russia. The universal and national concepts connected with flora, inherent in the Chuvash, Russian cultures and those of the Turkic people are scrutinized. 2 Kĕnekene kukka yvălne, Vaśśa šăllăma, halallatăp (I devote this book to my younger brother Vasily, a son of my uncle) PREFACE In recent years the term concept became the one actively used in the scientific lexicon. In linguistics, two directions - cognitive linguistics and linguoculturology are especially closely connected with it. In essence, the main object of research in these both areas is semantics - semantics of words, word-combinations, discourses, statements, sentences, texts, - which forms a concept kernel. Set of concepts - conceptosphere - reflects specifics of consciousness and outlook of ethnos, a speaker of this or that language. The world picture, i.e. world vision, attitude where the understanding of reality by man, its special “conceptual” drawing, on the basis of which man comprehends the world is reflected, is formed of separate concepts. The concept of a picture of the world (including language picture of the world) is under construction on studying of representations of man about the world. A world picture - real human consciousness. World vision of each ethnos is embodied in a world picture. Knowledge of the world - a picture of the world, which underlies individual and public consciousness. Thus, language carries out mission of informative process. Speaking different languages can have close conceptual pictures of the world, we are convinced of it on the examples the conceptosphere “flora” and “fauna”. Universal, national and personal are present at the conceptual picture of the world. It is considered to be wider and much richer, than the language picture of the world. Nevertheless, the conceptual picture of the world “is adhered” to language and refracts through language forms. Its formation influences not only language, but also traditions, religion, nature, enlightenment, training and some other social factors. The language picture of the world - a national picture of the world also comes to light in language levels of different degrees. Language picture of the world is the main link of a conceptual picture of 3 the world; this common cultural property of the nation (ethnos), it is multilevel, depends on its communicative behavior of people, understanding of the surrounding (external) world and internal state of man. Conceptosphere “flora” contains a high potential for studying of national culture. In this work, the universal and national concepts connected with flora, inherent in the Chuvash and Russian cultures, with the attraction of examples from others, related and unrelated, languages are scrutinized. In each national language there is a national image of a live being, which reflects lines of spirituality of the nation. We refer to live beings: 1) man (person); 2) animals (creature); 3) plants (plant). To unite these three groups in one subclass with the meaning of “live beings” existence in substantial structure of lexico-semantic alternants - the general components being dominants allows: 1) man - a live being having ability to speak and think, etc.; 2) animal - a live organism, a creature possessing ability to move, etc.; 3) plant - a growing live organism, etc. At the semantic structure of these words there is a sign (component) “live”, owing to this fact they are united in the subclass with the meaning “live beings”. The words people, animal should be considered plant as hyperonyms (i.e. words with wider meaning), and words with narrower meaning - hyponyms. Our research is connected with the hyperonym “flora”, which means the flora, all types of plants - herbs, flowers, trees, bushes and even mushrooms. At the hyperonym “plant”, hence, appears co-hyperonym “tree”. Here we face complicated hyponyms: flora (plant) tree: oak, maple, birch, guelder-rose, etc. A peculiar hierarchical organization of the structural elements stemmed on the generic-specific relations - look submission to a sort, private - to the general, the highest - to the lowest turns out. On the example of concepts “oak”, “birch”, “fir-tree” and others we will try to show in a condensed form that each language reflects a certain way of perception of the organization of the world, the meanings expressed in it, which develop in a certain uniform frame of reference, the so-called collective philosophy, which is imposed by language to all its speakers; 4 that the conceptualization is partly universal, is partly national specific. Before starting the description of sets of concepts under the names “trees” and “bushes”, we think it necessary to consider briefly the content of the main concepts used within the subject studied. The issued edition marks a certain stage of my research activity, hence its emergence is very important and significant for me. Sincere appreciation and deep respect I want to express to those, who at all stages of the work on the book - idea formation, collecting the actual material, registration, editing – rendered assistance and help. Special words of gratitude - to professor V.I.Sergeev. He took part in definition of the directions of my scientific research, became the research supervisor of mny doctoral dissertation, though being busy, at once finds time for interesting and informative consultations. I express gratitude to N.I.Egorov for axiological recommendations and kindly provided ethnographic materials, which have considerably enriched the contents of the monograph. I am very grateful to M.G.Kondratyev, G.B.Matveev, V.G.Rodionov for the practical advice and help in search of additional information. Young and perspective scientists A.V.Kuznetsov and E.E.Lebedev are real workers of science. They willingly shared their opinions and supervision on these or those questions of this area of knowledge. Thanks. Useful comments and remarks of colleagues L.P.Petrov, G.A.Degtyarev, A.R.Gubanova, N.V.Dobrova, undoubtedly, found reflection in the work and essentially improved it. For preparation of the book for the edition I express gratitude to T.N.Taimasova, G.I.Alimasova, N.I.Nikiforova. I am very grateful to A.A.Trofimov for original typography of the cover. I warmly thank V.P.Komissarov, the director of the publishing house, for understanding, support and opportunity to realize scientific projects in life. 5 CONCEPT AS A LINGUOCULTURAL PHENOMENON The term concept, which has become the last two decades a key one in linguistics, was borrowed from mathematical logic, where it serves as designation of the content of concept, its sense. In cognitive linguistics and linguoculturology this term bearing high heuristic potential, and discussions about its nature is often used, despite large quantity of scientific production, still proceed. Concept (Lat. conceptus “thought, notion”) - a fancy of the material and ideal world, object, directly connected in consciousness with the corresponding language signs. In linguistic literature there is an uniform approach to term definition concept, as well as in linguoculturology, linguoconceptology, cognitology. The concept is understood by us as numerous, integrative education having logically calculated kernel and various layers, caused by the linguocultural and sociocultural background. It is a bunch of representations, concepts, knowledge, associations, experiences, which accompanies a word. Concepts arise “as a result of interaction of such factors, as national tradition and folklore, religion and ideology, life experience and images of art, feeling and system of the meanings” [Arutyunov, 1993, p.3]. Though the science dealing with concept develops promptly, some questions of conceptual linguistics still remain debatable. Among scientists there is no consensus even concerning the terminological nomination of key concept of this direction of science. So, some linguoculturologists suggest to use concept logoepisteme, and others - linguocultureme. In this research the term concept, used by the majority of experts, is utlized. According to S.G.Vorkachev, this term appears the most viable, as on frequency of the use it considerably outstripped all other terminological new growths [Vorkachev, 2003, p.5]. Other issues of the theory of concept: concept nature, its structure, difference of concept from notion, typology, etc. - also have no unequivocal 6 decision. Here, it is necessary to define the content of such main concepts of the theory of conceptual linguistics, as conceptosphere and mental space. The problem of definition nature of concept, i.e. the sources of information participating in the formation of conceptual structures, at the end of the 20th century was the subject of discussion by many scientists. Some researchers expressed the opinion that units and learning tool