Evolution of synonymy via the guman mind
Authors:   Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University, Odinokaya Мaria A. , Sheredekina Оksana A. ,   Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University, Pyatnitsky Аleksey N. ,   Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University
Published: December 2024

The study of the language system at the present stage is carried out in close connection with related sciences such as psychology, history, anthropology, etc. The interdisciplinarity of research makes it possible to identify the cause-and-effect
relationships of modern language formation, restore the historical chronology of a certain linguistic phenomenon, establish trends that influence the language system, and design a linguistic picture of the future.
The work was carried out in line with cognitive linguistics within the framework of an anthropolinguistic approach, which allows both a synchronous analysis of the linguistic phenomenon on separate historical stages and a diachronic one, which allows to restore a historical picture. At the same time, the study of linguistic material, namely semantics, is carried out in comparison with human mind, which determines the mechanisms of the objective world cognition, significant in various historical periods. In the anthropolinguistic approach, the vector of interaction between mind and language is characterized by reversibility. The vocabulary formed in the process of evolution of a person's mental potential is a fundamental factor in the formation of world perception. The reversibility of the semantic picture of the world creation is manifested in the use of the vocabulary as a reflexion of morphological and semantic models fixed in consciousness. Consequently, the knowledge of the mind evolution makes it possible to restore the historical semantic picture of the world.
The research is focused on the formation of the synonymic line bucket, which reflects the evolution of the human mind and, consequently, the mental abilities of a person to perceive the material world, actualizing certain features of objects and creating a conceptual vision of it, relevant to the definite specific historical periods. The choice of the research object is determined by the early period of the formation of the synonymic line bucket, which represents one of the most ancient lexical layers, and allows to demonstrate the evolution of the semantic plan from a syncretic notion to a term, and the openness of the synonymic system, capable of being modified historically.
As part of the anthropolinguistic research, semantic analysis of the elements of the synonymic line united by the concept bucket as a semantically neutral component was carried out, semantic maps of the synonymic line bucket of four historical sections (Old
English, Middle English, Early New English and Late New English periods) were compiled, the data obtained were compared, the semantic picture of the synonymic line bucket from 1000 to the end of the 19th century was reconstructed and described. The main sources of the semantic material are lexicographic sources, including The Oxford English Dictionary, which includes historical data on the first references of lexeme meanings in the English-language literature. In parallel with the identification of the semantic core of the synonymic line, which unites the lexemes, special attention is paid to specific features that differ the subjects of objective reality, such as the functional feature as the reflection of an ancient man’s needs.
The article also substantiates the thesis that associative mind causes semantic transformations such as metaphorization and metonymization, which lead to the expansion of the conceptual synonymic line. The specialization of concepts within the synonymic
line is defined as a stable historical process from the first primitive ideas of an ancient man to scientific terms that differentiate everyday vocabulary and concepts of the professional sphere. Ultimately, the subjectivity of the final product leads to both quantitative and qualitative transformations of the analyzed synonymic line. It has been established that the most productive period of the synonymic line bucket expansion is the Middle English period, characterized by pseudoscientific knowledge, and hence the desire to distinguish objects of objective reality on the basis of differential features clarifying the scope of all existing buckets, whereas in the Early New English period there was a sharp decline in the quantitative growth of the synonymic line, which is explained by the entrenched association of its components with the household sphere.
It is established that in the light of cognitive linguistics, a detailed anthropolinguistic analysis of synonymic lines allows us to reconstruct the semantic picture of the world, starting with syncretism and ending with terminology. It is proved by the fact
that over time, the ambiguity of a lexemes united by synonymic relations is realized both in new representations of the household sphere of activity, and special concepts. The proposed methodological approach can be further used to put forward hypotheses related to the evolution of human thinking and semantics, and to predict their further development.