Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

Still one deficiency of concept is that although it is conceived as a textual phenomenon it discloses the features appertaining to code. In particular concepts were invented to build an alternative to semantic fields as taxonomic classes. Meanwhile it is out of question to imagine as if concepts would have nothing to do with taxonomy. Conceptualization produces a code supplementing that of categories as for instance the conventions laying over the direct meanings. Therefore a controversy comes into play: concepts arise within textual conditions but come to build their own particular code (distinct, say, from that of semantic fields). In practice concepts come to the same codification that semantic fields carry on with the only difference that the partition of the world is here given in another way. Meanwhile the basic idea remains the same, that of classification! Then the doubt as to the necessity of introducing such additional partition becomes reasonable. Despite all efforts of ascribing flexibility and other preferences to concepts the procedure of classificatory partition remains the same: taxonomy will become the terminal product whether it goes about concepts or categories.

It would be also appropriately to remind that there existed still the comprehension of the term concept perfectly different from that of current cognitive interpretations. It goes about the baroque poetics where concept (It. concetto as the designation of a witty thought) was identified with a fold of a narrative to be complemented and revealed in amplification, and in thus quality it functioned as a kind of riddle rather as an exact term. The concept so conceived was to be treated not as the signified contents but also as a device for further signification and description of derivative meaning and deeply concealed images still to be guessed behind the given outer partial features. This approach didn’t presuppose preponderant complication. The problematic and unsolved contents were inherent to the very notion rendered with concepts so that they contributed to the searches of solution with partial nomination. Besides, there existed Lat. term notio (or nota) that corresponded to contemporary impoverished meaning of the word concept.

Here concepts are regarded as blended notions (terms, categories) given beforehand as ready stuff or as the generalization of individual disparate impressions so that their generation in cognitive process and respectively their problematic core becomes absent. Essentially concepts are connected to communication and in this respect are opposed to notions similarly to actualities vs. potentialities⁴³¹. Meanwhile the very idea of communication gets a very peculiar outlook where the demand of adequate comprehension disappears⁴³². Therefore concepts are conceived as something impossible to be terminated and finished⁴³³ in accordance with their primary meaning of engendering creations. Meanwhile within the contemporary approach even all these concessions towards the problematic contents have been lost, so there are grounds for skeptical conclusion as to the perspective of concepts⁴³⁴. The involvement of concepts would be justified only under the condition of conceiving communication in the mediaeval mode as the communion irreducible to commerce as well as of prevailing problematic contents instead of its being identified as errors of anomalous deviation. Vice versa it is St. Augustine’s statement erro ergo sum (I err therefore I exist) that must be accepted as the semantic regularity. It presupposes the existence of self-renouncing instead of self-indulging personality. Such are the necessary premises to return to concepts.

Nevertheless whether notions or images, the concepts lie out of the reach of linguistics. Conceived in this manner concepts are generated with the means of language but beyond its borders. To build such concepts one demands additional mental efforts that only use a language’s opportunities. So actually concept designates the idiomatic contents determined with partitive details and their descriptions. Then there is no needs of saying about concepts as they fully coincide with idioms. It is idioms that oppose to categories and etymons. Vice versa concept is the result of eclectic compromise (namely between the sphere of language’s signification and mental categories or images) that leads to blending confusions. Thus at least two approaches to concept turn out to become blended: from one side concept vs. denotation substitutes the designations of sense and inner form; from another side concept combines the traits of notion and image becoming an eclectic compromise. In this respect V.Z. Demyankov has wittily called concepts “the ornamental version of the term notion”⁴³⁵. It is due to such diffuse contents that the chief difficulties of concepts’ use spring from.

It is to stress the problematic essence of trope as a puzzle to be explored. Trope is generated from the dialectics of the known and the unknown representing the existence of ignorance within experience. It is generated with the inner essence if things that always contain the unknown residuum⁴³⁶. Thus it doesn’t go about lexical meanings only that stand behind tropes’ contents. Terms designate in opposite to tropes the things that are supposed to be known. Meanwhile concepts are of overtly sensualistic origin where the very idea of the inexhaustible essence of things is rejected. Actually what is called concept covers synonymous rows (as in the cases of the “concepts” designating pain or swimming) and coincide with respective semantic fields.

The mentioned baroque roots of the term concept refer to one of the most essential deficiencies of this term that lies in the refusal from the searches of truth that subsequently results in the actual support for the falsifying opportunities of language. As far as concepts are taken for ready notions they don’t need further explorations containing no problematic core. In particular one should restrain from overestimating the baroque approach towards concepts. As well as in Jesuit allegories in “school dramas” it is the lack of real problems that are replaced with puzzles with ready and beforehand known answers (in the manner of catechism). Thus the problem of veracity as the key problem of language disappears here. The discussed controversies of conceptualism betray the intention of excusing and justifying the weakest side of verbal language – its capacity to serve to deception and demagogy. Actually such “concepts” as “heresy”, “the suspected”, “the subversive” etc. are too notorious to be scrutinized here.

Such widespread approach of putting the scheme “concept + verbalization” can’t endure serious objections. The weakest and most vulnerable point of this approach is the silently admitted conjecture that the very concepts do exist within the world map of language. Meanwhile the existence of concept as the object of language and the problem of linguistics needs special substantiation. For instance, the ideas that could be rendered with the contents of the words [sorrow / joy] are by no means understandable for all human beings. But it is still the question whether these universal human ideas belong to the language map of world in all their entire volume. In particular the contents of the sited English words mean and designate something different from Russ. [горе / радость], Fr. [douleur / joie], Germ. [Kummer / Freude] (not to mention synonyms). Universal notions obviously exist but they remain inexpressible with verbal means and need special devices of descriptors and scientific terms to be rendered. The universals lie beyond language’s borders and can’t be studied as a linguistic problem⁴³⁷. It is the immanent incompleteness of each language that prevents the possibility of representing universals with the means of a language. In reality one deals only with partial nomination of an indefinite object, of an ignotum contained in the universals. Thus there are no grounds to call them concepts (as the designation of word’s contents) and still more to identify them with their partial denotation in language, such as Fr. joie with Germ. Freude. What is used as the term concept designates actually the unknown and inexpressible thing it is something coinciding with the object of taboo (in epistemological aspect) as well as the immanent indefiniteness of this thing (in ontological aspect). Verbal signs represent only partial designations of the tabooed objects so that linguist can deal only with the substitutions for these objects without their genuine and complete descriptions. Of course the features of the tabooed and indefinite things are represented in the contents of these signs but they are by no means complete. That is why these contents can’t be qualified as concepts.

In this respect conceptualism means even a step backward in comparison to the semantic fields’ theory. Concept remains beyond the system that generates it as far as it is taken whether as the designation for linguistic meaning or for logical notion and artistic image. Concepts appear then as a kind of abstract descriptors of a metasystem that have nothing to deal with verbal phenomena. Actually concept designates the same thing as a key-word or vocabula. In reality it is problems that are ignored, and it must go about problematic contents.

As a consequence conceptualism isolates textual segments as separate signs and deals with such signs instead of textual entirety. Concepts are restricted to isolated signs only instead of textual tissue that these signs are torn out. Textual entirety with all its manifold reciprocal references lies out of the reach of conceptualism’s approach as well as the systemic entity of concepts that preclude their isolated use. It entails also the amorphous treatment of concepts void of their systemic references in contrast to inner form that presupposes entirety⁴³⁸. It means that concepts are conceived as the elements of potential contents while the actualities become ignored. Concepts are taken without actual messages and communicative conditions as abstract signs. Still worse is that concepts are actually conceived as the properties of separate signs taken separately from textual entity and respectively abstracted from the dynamic procedures of semantic transitions. Concepts are regarded irrespectively to the corpus of texts where they are to be found as self-sufficient signs. It is static superficiality that marks the conceptualism.

Thus one can assert that to include concepts in language’s map of world would mean to plead language guilty for all the stupidity of human cognition. Concepts lie overtly out of the realm of language as well as ideography with its semantic fields in opposite to grammar categories that are the proper language’s developmental product. It is the motives designated with idioms (instead of concepts) that designate the particulars and perform the mission ascribed to concepts.

To suggest a term that would be an alternative to concept in representing idiomatic contents it seems reasonable to refer still to the already mentioned V.Z. Demyankov’s idea of representing inner form as the condensation of interpretability. Such topic of interpretability seems to correlate with the well known and widely used term of motif. It is the proper linguistic contents that can be accumulated in motifs. In this respect the notion of motif much better meets the demands of corpus’ approach. It is in the motif that the development of textually conditioned semantic transitions in motu proprio finds its incarnation. The obvious advantage of motif is its aptness to remove the duality of randomness vs. redundancy (hapax vs. topos) as the circumstance distinguishing concept from notion. Motif is always actual phenomenon and is out of being thought without the conditions of a message. One of the preferences that motifs display is the condensation of collisions & transitions proper to narrative plots⁴³⁹. Therefore they are endowed with the same interpretative opportunities that the reconstruction of plot presupposes. In its turn the evolvement of plot becomes possible only within the opportunities that the motifs supply⁴⁴⁰. Accordingly one can trace the stratification of motifs and their correlation with speech registers.

It would be appropriate to remind here that each semantic unit always appears as substantiation (with pro et contra) and definition (genus proximus et differentia specifica). Respectively it is out of question to regard isolated concept as something self-sufficient. There are only triadic notions that are to be taken into consideration while each isolated concept results from artificial procedure. Motif bears the features of such triple relations already due to its being taken within contextual development. It is demonstrative that to overcome the dualistic approach towards motif as the main task has been underlined by its researchers. In particular motif as the element of textual corpus overcomes the duality of those conceived as its syntagmatic and paradigmatic revelations⁴⁴¹. Motif appears as the removal of dualistic confrontation of these axes. One has also to ass that the researches of motifs as the motivational forces in verbal stuff presuppose the cooperation of the observer with the observed⁴⁴². In particular it is the types of actions undertaken by a personality in a narrative work that generalize the motifs (as it has been assumed by V.Ya. Propp)⁴⁴³. Together with Propp’s function one should also mention the notion of the artistic device (introduced by V. Shklovski and developed by Yu. Shcheglov) resembling that of motif. Actually it goes here about the designation of typical actions (as well as in the case of V. Propp) as well as the ensuing semantic transition. One can say of motifs as the subject of the known work of E. Auerbach.

Artistic devices can be said to become the particulars of a motif without coinciding with them. Obviously it doesn’t go about the relationship in the manner of essentials vs. embellishments. Rather these devices disclose the stratification of textual representation of motifs. It is motifs that are to be reproduced in retelling a text while they represent textual inner form. Motif can coincide with an idiomatic locution within the borders of the chosen textual corpus. For instance such is the case with proverbial locutions or quotations with allusions to plot. Motif has textual and not propositional structure that’s it can’t be reduced to propositional statement and represents a kind of syllogistic structure describing some transition between different states. Motif does motivate and bears the vestiges of motivational relations in the sense of manifesting the actual textual structure with actual predicates (rhemes). In this respect motif serves as the mediation for the transition from potentialities to actualities as well as between propositional and appositive structures. Actual taxis can be said to be built of motifs as actual predicates though motifs can’t be reduced to taxis.

Motif as the link of motivational chain presupposes the existence of its antecedent and consequent and remains open for completion. Respectively it can’t be closed within the initial – medial – terminal phases. Each motif presumes inferences and therefore it has idiomatic contents. It is not to be blended with the details as far as idiom can be manifested with pure pronouns or with abstractions of the “(s)he-does-it” kind. A locution becoming an idiom designates a motif within a respective context. It is inferential nature of motifs’ contents that enables to discern them from frames and other kinds of “declinational grammar” due to the lack of foretold closed schemes. The presence of motif as an element stirring inferential procedures implies problems for further interpretation. Therefore there can be texts without motifs being void of problematic contents (as pure assertions of a bookkeepers’ style). The very presence of a motif makes the text irretrievable (as the discovery radically changing the situation) so that temporality comes inevitably into play.
1.4.2. Idiomatic Taxonomy as the Problem of Synonymy and Homonymy
The tasks of idiomatic classification give grounds to regard synonymous & homonymous relations as those comprising derivative meanings in opposite to paradigmatic synonymous rows and homonymous couples concerning direct meanings. Meanwhile derivation presupposes partiality so that the stress is to be made upon occasional synonyms & homonyms as they appear in textual environment in collocations thus disclosing inner lexical attraction (valence) as well as repulsion (as far as it goes about homonymous dissociation). That lexical compatibility can easily pass to taxonomic units as well as elements of thesaurus reciprocally can betray lexical attraction thus becoming textual units can be obviously demonstrated with the phenomena of synonymy and homonymy – in particular, with such peculiar cases as respectively partitive synonymy of the rhetorical figure of hendiadys (bifurcation) and partitive homonymy of rhyme. Synonymous rows and homonymous couples as the elements of thesaurus can by no means be regarded as something static and autonomous. They always represent semantic transitions detecting equivalence of synonyms or difference of homonyms and respectively convergent or divergent derivative processes.

As far as synonymous and homonymous relations can’t be restricted with direct meanings, it must go about derivative meanings that necessarily come into play with the rise of such relations as far as textual references generate derivation that can’t retain the initial contents in the state of repose. It is also to stress that the inner properties of lexical units (that of valence) evolve here so that the abstractions of attributive space become concrete. Synonymous and homonymous relations aren’t to be conceived as something extraneous as far as they are extracted from textual inner form due to textual conditions within collocations. In its turn the very presence of derivation attests the attachment towards periphrastic transformations.

The already discussed notion of textual horizon as the threshold of discernibleness gives grounds to identify synonymous and homonymous devices of language as such threshold. It is actually the partial negation (and contrariness in opposite to general contradiction) that is peculiar for these verbal means. Synonymy and homonymy serve as the differentiating means of particulars and as such they presuppose reciprocal negations of separate attributive features imparting thus diversity to the described reality’s map. Being the limit of differentiation they demonstrate the quality of its threshold so that there are grounds to conceive them as the attributes of textual horizon. As the foundation of verbal capacities of discerning the Signified these relations cover up the whole lexical stuff so that their rows coincide with the whole dictionary so that their learning becomes the main instructive device⁴⁴⁴.

Idioms can be conceived as the phrasal synonyms of respective colloquial designations as well as the homonyms of their components literally read. In opposite to idioms etymons presuppose the opportunity of being split into a bunch of homonyms that generate derivatives allocated in the etymological nest, such derivation being programmed and realized in the diachronic development. Synonymous etymons are normally to be removed, and respective derivatives generate the so called etymological doublets. Idioms reveal both the synonymous and the homonymous properties: an idiom becomes synonym because it can substitute another locution as its periphrastic description; at the same time each idiom presupposes the split of homonyms because it can be also read and conceived with its literary meaning that creates the constantly existing latent, shaded homonym to the idiom in question. An idiom becomes the synonym to external locutions that it substitutes and the homonym to internal literary meaning as the bearer of derivative meaning. In particular the very coexistence of literary & derivative meanings gives impetus for the homonymous split as is the case with <отрезать> in its literary meaning and as the designation of an answer. Moreover it often becomes the device for idiomatic play as in the passage by N. Leskov: «Пока мельничные жернова мололи привезенные ими хлебные зерна, уста помольцев еще усерднее мололи всяческий вздор» (while the mill’s grindstones were grinding grains of the corn brought by them the lips of the guests of the mill chattered with all kinds of rubbish)⁴⁴⁵ [quoted by Ковалев, 1971]. In this respect idioms being both synonyms and homonyms together ensue from the homological nature of the language as opposed to isomorphism⁴⁴⁶. It is here to put a stress that the very existence of synonyms and homonyms is the consequence of the homological nature of language mappings that generate supplementing phenomena, and in this respect they can be regarded as a kind of suppletivism.

In difference to a widely spread opinion both synonyms and homonyms have very little to do with the variability of lexical units. In fact it is only the superficial outer outlook that makes an observer conclude about the diversification as the foundation of these phenomena. Still more erroneous would be the comparison of the both lexical means in the dualistic manner as those belonging to the planes of signified (homonyms) and signifier (synonyms)⁴⁴⁷. In particular homonyms can not be reduced to one plane because the signified becomes here the signifying device for derivative meanings: for example <описывать> serves as the signifying device for the homonym in the locution <описывать круги>. Homonyms lie chiefly in the plane of the signified as well as synonyms that, in its turn, do not arise as the variation of something constant already found and known beforehand. Vice versa they appear as the results of equalizing very different significations and of detecting some common points between them. All differences arising from the primary heterogeneity of a language presuppose also the conservation of something constant and equivalent. This constancy determines the measure of comparison for the definition of differences. The existence of such measure permits to judge about the self-identity of an object within the mutability of its attributes. The mission of making different locutions synonymous is just to detect such constant measure and to remove diversification with lessening the degree of the primary heterogeneity of a language. It is these processes of the searches of commonplaces and tangent points that provide in particular the formation of the occasional synonyms, the bifurcations (hendiadoi) where two words converge to describe the properties of the same object. Then the commonly used normative synonyms can be regarded as the results of the ultimate approximation of such mutually approached heterogeneous lexical units. Synonyms reveal homogeneity and convergence that remove the variability. It gives also grounds to regard synonyms as “supplemented derivatives” [Апресян, 1974, 223] bearing in mind that it is not only literal contents of diverse words that undergoes the procedure of equalizing their semantic load.

At the same time the constancy to be attained is only one side of synonymous construction. Another side appears in their comparison to antonyms. Synonyms become in this respect the repletion of semantic space between antonyms. It is the negation (as the consequence of primary taboo) that generates antonyms, and synonyms presuppose antonyms as the terminal points of their sets. Synonyms designate differences in opposite to contrast of antonyms. If antonyms refer to general negation, it is synonyms that presume only partial, specialized negation. There are degrees of transition between tautological identity and general negation, and these gradual and partial negations determine differences (as opposed to general contrast) revealed and represented with synonyms. Then the zero degree of synonyms can be found in tautology (in contrast to paradoxes and absurdities as the utterances violating taboo and thus representing full negation) in the sense of the absence of any semantic shift. A shift takes place first when different designations referring to different attributes of an object and revealing common points appear as the synonyms that combine together difference and equivalence.

A synonymous row does simultaneously act as a set of hyponyms – of species as the components of a genus; thus all denotations of colours are synonyms in the sense that they are hyponyms of this semantic field, and they often function as real synonyms as it was the case with the denotations of “green” and “blue” that weren’t often differed as etymology bears witness. Respectively, vice versa, in a broad sense all hyponyms may be regarded as synonyms inasmuch as they belong to the same semantic field – for instance, both “hand” and “leg” can be regarded as synonymous designations of the ideas of “limb”. In its turn antonyms are to be treated as the extremes, as the polar points of the same synonymous row, as a special case of synonymy in the sense that they belong to the same genus as its hyponyms: thus “slow” and “quick” denote the very extremes of the only semantic field of speed that define the scale of synonymous gradations – “unhurried”, “moderate”, “rapid”, “alert” etc. In particular there has been suggested the concept of “bidominant” lexical group which “is united with a pair of antonyms and consists of two opposite synonymous rows” [Левицкий, 1989, 92] so that the notion of antonyms be included in a broader sense of synonymy. The concept of semantic field is in such a case to be regarded as a certain generalisation of synonymous row (and, to add, of the respective listing procedure), because another criterion (that of the possibilities of being combined with other lexical units in a text and thus of being “distributed” therein) is of a “weaker” force, as “the very concept of distribution includes the feature that contradicts to linear text, the set of combinations being obtained due to the abstraction from linear relations” [Левицкий, 1989, 40]. Thus a widened concept of synonymous rows (especially of partitive synonyms and of antonymous combinations) may be assumed. Ultimately all lexical funds can be regarded as an enormous list of synonyms that describe the attributes of “the All”, that is to say the entirety of the World. Only then synonyms become the initial point and the limit of equalizing procedures. Actually each logical definition may be regarded as a kind of phrasal synonym. It enables synonymous substitution as the aim of making locutions comparable and equivalent. To find out a definition is the primary task of the comparison of meanings.

In the same way as the invented definition each translation can also be regarded as a synonymous substitution. Each dictionary for translation represents a kind of synonymous dictionary continuing the synonymous series of one language into the realm of another one. Be the bilingual dictionaries conceived as the sets of synonyms continued across the borders of language, so they also can be included in the class of suppletive phenomena of heterogeneities. Translation as synonymous substitution becomes then comparable to isoglosses that reveal partial kinship between separate lexical components of different languages and to assimilation of the borrowed elements. In this respect the translations, assimilations, isoglosses represent the points of intersection of the lexical terrains of the languages, and synonyms reveal the features of intersection with the detection of common semantic “substance”. At the same time it ensues from the very essence of synonymous substitution that semantic equivalence can here by no means become identity, so that it goes about homomorphism and not about isomorphism. Synonymous substitution is the initial point of the partition of semantic space with the means of partial negation retaining the equivalent attributes that unite such substitutes in the synonymous series. It is of an importance that such differentiation presents also the transition from the potential to the actual⁴⁴⁸ so that the textual conditions create the chief prerequisite for them being observable.

In its turn semantic differentials delineated with synonyms find their diffuse counterparts in homonymous representation of polysemantic meanings. It is the question of the motivation of semantic transitions that differs polysemy from homonymy. For polysemy the existence of intermediary links is of primordial importance so that there is mediation between different meanings whereas in homonymy such mediation is negated and the meanings are regarded as being isolated. Homonyms appear as the results of derivative process’s transformation into a bunch of newly formed lexical units. If synonyms are the results of convergence attaining homogeneity it is the divergence of the separation of different meanings of a multivalent word and the refusal of motivational links between them that determines the formation of homonyms⁴⁴⁹. As the result of derivative processes each word’s contents may be divided in a set of potentially infinite number of homonyms. Such is for instance the full bulk of the use of an auxiliary verb . Especially demonstrative in English are the homonyms between noun and verb as in , ,