Cognitive Semantics: A cultural-historical perspective 9789027247278, 9027247277

Table of contents :
Cognitive Semantics
Editorial page
Title page
Copyright page
Table of contents
Preface
Part I The four-level theory of cognitive development and its applications to cognitive semantics
Chapter 1 An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Level A. Great apes
1.2 Level B. Prehistoric culture and hunter-gatherer cultures
1.3 Level C. Early theoretical cultures
1.4 Level D. Developed theoretical cultures (modernity in Europe, modern industrial and post-industrial cultures)
1.5 Conclusion
Chapter 2 Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Complex thinking and metonymy
2.2 The semantic evolution of the word ὕλη
2.3 Features of philosophical terminology at level C and level D of FLTCD
2.4 Conclusion
Chapter 3 Cognitive style of early theoretical culture
3.0 Introduction
3.1 The contrast between Eastern and Western types of reasoning and the concept of cognitive style
3.2 Peculiarities of cognitive operations in the first large-scale civilizations
3.3 The cognitive style of the ancient greek mathematics (on the example of Euclid’s elements)
3.4 The cognitive style of the ancient greek historiography (on the example of treatises of Herodotus and Thucydides)
3.5 Conclusion
Part II A cultural-historical analysis of the concept of machine
Chapter 4 A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor
4.0 Introduction
4.1 Conceptual structure of the words μηχανή and machina in classical and late antiquity
4.2 Conceptual structure of the word machina in the Middle Ages
4.3 Conclusion
Chapter 5 The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era
5.0 Introduction
5.1 The philosophical basis of the research programmes of Bacon and Descartes
5.2 The concept of machine in the texts of Bacon and Descartes
5.3 Conclusion
Part III The sociocultural theory of lexical complexes
Chapter 6 The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC
6.0 Introduction
6.1 The philosophical underpinnings of STLC
6.2 The framework of STLC
6.3 Summary
Chapter 7 The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC
7.0 Introduction
7.1 The verb otkryvat’ and its derivatives in the dictionaries
7.2 A sketch of the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’
7.2.0
7.2.1
7.2.2
7.2.3
7.2.4
7.2.5
7.2.6
7.2.7
7.2.8
7.2.9
7.2.10
7.3 A framework of the article otkryvat’ in an explanatory dictionary
Level A0126
Level A
Cluster 1
Examples:132
Cluster 2
Examples:
Cluster 3
Examples:
Cluster 4
Examples:
Cluster 5
Examples:
Cluster 6
Examples:
Cluster 7
Examples:
Cluster 8
Examples:
Cluster 9
Examples:
Cluster 10
Examples:
Cluster 11
Examples:
7.4 Conclusion
Chapter 8 The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC
8.0 Introduction
8.1 The noun kamen’ and its derivatives in the dictionaries
8.2 The conceptual structure of the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in modern Russian
8.3 The framework of the article kamen’ in an explanatory dictionary
Level A0
Cluster 1203
Examples:
Cluster 1.1
Examples:
Cluster 2
Examples:
Cluster 3
Examples:
Cluster 3.1
Examples:
Cluster 3.2
Examples:
Cluster 4
Examples:
Cluster 5
Examples:
Cluster 5.1
Examples:
Cluster 6
Examples:
Cluster 7
Examples:
Cluster 8
Examples:
Cluster 9
Examples:
Cluster 9.1
Examples:
Cluster 9.2
Examples:
Cluster 10
Examples:
Cluster 11
Examples:
8.4 Summary
Chapter 9 The conceptual structure the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC
9.0 Introduction
9.1 The noun intelligencija and its derivatives in dictionaries
9.2 The prehistory of the complex intelligencija (up to the 1860s)
9.3 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1860s and 1870s
9.3.1 The sociocultural context of emergence of the complex intelligencija (Level A0)
9.3.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.4 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1880s and 1890s
9.4.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B)
9.4.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.5 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija at the beginning of 20th century (before 1917)
9.5.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B)
9.5.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.6 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1920s to 1950s
9.6.1 The sociocultural context of the complex intelligencija (Level A0)
9.6.2 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B)
9.6.3 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.7 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1960s to 1980s
9.7.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B)
9.7.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.8 The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the post-Soviet era
9.8.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B)
9.8.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A)
9.9 The framework of the article intelligencija in an explanatory dictionary
Pre-complex meaning215
Level A0216
9.10 Summary
Chapter 10 Regularity in semantic change
10.0 Introduction
10.1 Basic approaches to the analysis of semantic change in cognitive linguistics and historical linguistics
10.2 The large-scale semantic changes and sociocognitive processes underpinning them
10.3 Sociocultural factors influencing semantic change in modern language
10.3.1 An interplay between an idiolect and general language as a trigger for semantic change
10.3.2 Unification-separation request as a motivation for semantic change
10.4 Final remarks
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

cognitive linguistic studies in cultural contexts

Cognitive Semantics Vladimir Glebkin

15

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Cognitive Semantics

Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts (CLSCC) issn 1879-8047

This book series aims at publishing high-quality research on the relationship between language, culture, and cognition from the theoretical perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. It especially welcomes studies that treat language as an integral part of culture and cognition, that enhance the understanding of culture and cognition through systematic analysis of language – qualitative and/or quantitative, synchronic and/or diachronic – and that demonstrate how language as a subsystem of culture transformatively interacts with cognition and how cognition at a cultural level is manifested in language. For an overview of all books published in this series, please see benjamins.com/catalog/clscc

Editors

Founding Editor

Hans-Georg Wolf and Ning Yu

University of Potsdam / Pennsylvania State University

Farzad Sharifian†

Monash University

Editorial Board Antonio Barcelona

Universidad de Córdoba

Erich A. Berendt

Assumption University, Bangkok

Alan Cienki

VU University Amsterdam & Moscow State Linguistic University

Alice Deignan

University of Leeds

Vyvyan Evans

Bangor University

Charles Forceville

University of Amsterdam

Fiona MacArthur

Roslyn M. Frank

Universidad de Extremadura

Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.

Case Western Reserve University

University of Iowa University of California, Santa Cruz

Todd Oakley

Frank Polzenhagen

Masako K. Hiraga

RPTU Kaiserlautern - Landau

Zoltán Kövecses

Hunan University

Graham Low

University Amsterdam

Zouhair Maalej

Potsdam University

Rikkyo University

Eötvös Loránd University University of York King Saud University

Volume 15 Cognitive Semantics. A cultural-historical perspective by Vladimir Glebkin

Chris Sinha

Gerard J. Steen

Hans-Georg Wolf

Cognitive Semantics A cultural-historical perspective

Vladimir Glebkin Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

∞

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

doi 10.1075/clscc.15 Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress: lccn 2023050040 (print) / 2023050041 (e-book) isbn 978 90 272 1449 2 (Hb) isbn 978 90 272 4727 8 (e-book)

© 2024 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com

Table of contents Preface

1

part i. The four-level theory of cognitive development and its applications to cognitive semantics chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development 6 chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

21

chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture: The case of Ancient Greece

36

part ii. A cultural-historical analysis of the concept of machine chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

52

chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era: The case of Francis Bacon and René Descartes

66

part iii. The sociocultural theory of lexical complexes chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

82

chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

96

chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

136

chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC 164 chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change: A view from a sociocultural perspective

198

Conclusion

215

References

219

Index

241

Preface The title of this book needs some clarification. The term “cultural-historical” is not common in linguistics and is borrowed from psychology, where it has quite a long history and is used in a wide variety of contexts (Yasnitsky & van der Veer, 2014, pp. 1–2). In this book, it is taken in the meaning associated with the writings of Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria, and their Russian and Western followers. Culturalhistorical psychology, from this perspective, is firmly grounded in the belief that the structure and functions of cognitive systems and cognitive processes characterizing humans and other living beings change both in phylogeny and ontogeny, and that the most important factor influencing these changes is their interaction with the sociocultural environment. This belief is also relevant for language, which is one of the basic cognitive systems for humans. Such ideas underpin, in particular, the approach in cognitive sociolinguistics developed by Dirk Geeraerts and his colleagues (Geeraerts, 1997, 2006, 2018; Geeraerts et al., 2010) and a massive body of research in historical semantics and the history of concepts (Koselleck, 2002, 2004; Pocock, 1989, 2009; Skinner, 1998, 2018). Ultimately, the cultural-historical perspective in the exploration of some objects (processes, phenomena) involves their analysis in diachrony and in constant correlation with the socio-cultural environment influencing their appearance and change. The indicated limits are, indeed, extremely broad and need further clarification. In this book, they provide the room for two general theories and a few specific studies on phenomena at the interface between cognitive semantics and related disciplines. In addition, it is worth briefly addressing the other part of the title, that is, the concept of cognitive semantics. This concept is viewed here along the line of Dirk Geeraerts’s construal. He characterizes cognitive semantics as “the psychologically and cognitively oriented approach to semantics” (Geeraerts, 2010, p. 182) and identifies prototype theory, conceptual metaphor theory, and frame semantics as its conceptual pillars. Although the cultural-historical perspective has not been widely accepted in this field, some areas of cognitive semantics (e.g., semantic studies within the abovementioned cognitive sociolinguistics) are based on this perspective, even if it is not explicitly named. To provide a more detailed view of how the cultural-historical perspective is presented in this monograph, I will proceed to a brief description of it. The monograph includes three parts. The first part presents the Four-Level Theory

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Cognitive Semantics

of Cognitive Development (henceforth, FLTCD) and its applications to cognitive semantics. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the theory. FLTCD distinguishes four basic cognitive levels in phylogeny, which are associated with three basic cultural-historical types: Level A is characteristic of higher primates, Level B arises in primordial culture and also characterizes other types of pre-theoretical cultures (hunter-gatherer cultures and that of Ancient Egypt or Ancient Babylon), Level C occurs in early theoretical cultures, such as the culture of Ancient Greece, and Level D is an important feature of Western culture of the Modern era and modern industrial and post-industrial cultures of the East and West. Importantly, the above levels build on each other, but do not interchange with each other: Bearers of culture operating in some cases at Level D, in other cases may perform cognitive operations at Level A, Level B, and Level C, depending on a situation. It is also important to emphasize that FLTCD is not a linear model: the emergence of a new level leads to noticeable changes in the range of operations at previous levels. Chapter 2 examines some of the applications of FLTCD for cognitive semantics, exploring the cognitive underpinnings of conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor and their links to the cultural-historical taxonomy. This chapter argues that the specific type of thinking introduced by Lev Vygotsky and called by him “complex thinking” can be considered the cognitive basis of metonymy. Since complex thinking is the dominant form of thinking in pre-theoretical cultures, metonymic shifts can be viewed as the basic form of semantic changes for this cultural-historical type, while conceptual metaphors arise in early theoretical cultures along with the formation of abstract domains in language. Chapter 3 presents an analysis of general properties of cognitive operations at Level C with the example of Ancient Greek culture. The analysis is based on the concept of cognitive style and the contrast of “field dependent vs. field independent cognitive style.” The specifics of the cognitive style of Ancient Greek culture are explored on the basis of mathematics (Euclid’s “Elements”) and historiography (treatises of Herodotus and Thucydides). In the case of historiography, a correlation between the cognitive style and principles of constructing a historical narrative is also the subject of the research. The second part of the monograph demonstrates other facets of the culturalhistorical method, referring to semantic and cognitive properties of some phenomena attributed to Level С of FLTCD. It includes two case studies examining the concept of machine. In Chapter 4, various aspects of the emergence and semantic evolution of the machine metaphor are explored. It is evidenced that machine metaphors that represent the structure of the world, society, and man (world is machine, society is machine, man is machine) do not arise in the Early Modern era in the wake of the industrial revolution, as is usually considered,

Preface

but much earlier, at the turn of the early Middle Ages, as a result of the radical transformation of the image of the world from a self-contained cosmos into the creation of God. Chapter 5 illustrates a way semantic analysis can help to work out fundamental problems that researchers in other domains of humanities (in this case, philosophers and historians of science) encounter in their studies. It presents the case study of the use of the word machina and its derivatives (as well as its English and French equivalents) in the texts of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, which provides clear evidence that Bacon’s research program correlates with sociocultural models of Antiquity, while that of Descartes is premised on medieval models. The third part of the monograph presents the Sociocultural Theory of Lexical Complexes (hereinafter, STLC). While FLTCD explores the long-term cognitive changes and semantic changes they affect, STLC does not address global cognitive processes but instead focuses on a diachronic analysis of the conceptual structure of groups of lexical units (words and word families) in a shorter time perspective and sociocultural factors that influence its change. In the purview of STLC, a model of description of words and word families includes three levels: Level А0 corresponds to a local sociocultural context that has an impact on the emergence and conceptual change of a word family (word); Level A (the level of “everyday use of language”) comprises a conceptual content actualized by language users in the course of an involuntary use of the words attributed to a particular word family; Level B contains the interpretations, that is, the cases in which some words (usually, basic words of a word family) morph into elements of a theoretical construct and obtain a special definition within this construct. The model of representation developed within the scope of STLC provides a diachronic description of the conceptual structure of a word family (word) at Level A and Level B that includes their interaction and a representation of Level A0 if it is significant for the understanding of the conceptual change. In Chapter 6, the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual framework of STLC are presented. The basic tenets of STLC are implemented in the model of description that is illustrated with various types of word families in the following chapters: Chapter 7 examines the word family otkryvat’ ‘open’; Chapter 8 refers to the word family kamen’ ‘stone’; Chapter 9 presents an analysis of the complex intelligencija ‘intelligentsia.’ Chapter 10 presents a study that combines approaches developed in FLTCD and STLC. It addresses the problem of semantic change and focuses on sociocultural factors bringing about such change. It is argued in this chapter that long-term semantic changes correlate with cognitive and sociocultural processes described in FLTCD, while STLC is well-suited to analyzing short-term changes.

3

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Cognitive Semantics

Dirk Geeraerts has provided kind and motivating comments on some studies included in this book. My anonymous reviewers have done a great job of reading the pre-release versions of this book, providing numerous substantial suggestions and corrections. Zoya Kudryavtseva created the illustrations for the lexical complexes presented in Chapters 7 and 8. Ekaterina Vizirova checked and made significant corrections to the “Sumerian part” of Chapter 10. Needless to say, I am indebted to all these contributors, and also, needless to say, that any deficiencies or imperfections present in the final version rest solely on my shoulders. This book would not have been written without my family’s constant support and help. The ideas that underpin it were influenced by a long-term communication with Vladimir Romanov and Gregory Tkachenko. I dedicate this book to the memory of these two scholars.

part i

The four-level theory of cognitive development and its applications to cognitive semantics

chapter 1

An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development 1.0

Introduction

FLTCD has been developed at the interface of cultural anthropology and cognitive psychology.1 The area in which it is located may not be familiar to linguists; therefore, a few preliminary methodological remarks are needed. Cultural anthropology has had a notable influence on the methodology of the human sciences over the last decades. In particular, a number of studies in the anthropological field have recently appeared which have cast doubt on the methodological underpinnings and experimental database of psychology and other humanities. Heinrich et al. (2010) could be mentioned in this context as a notable example (see also Levinson, 2012; Heinrich, 2020). These authors refer to a wide range of data to demonstrate that the referent group for the vast majority of psychological experiments is not representative for studying human beings: subjects in 96% of the studies are people from communities comprising only 12% of the world’s population (Henrich et al., 2010, p. 63; Arnett, 2008). The results of various comparative studies show graphically that WEIRD (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) people turn out to be ‘weird’ in the literal sense, because their data occupy an extreme limit of the experimental spectrum. Although this criticism is very important, I would like to focus on the positive programme of Henrich et al. (2010, p. 123). As an alternative to weird people, they point to people of small-scale societies, defined as: Social groups living in small, geographically distinct populations (e.g., villages) that range in size from a handful to a few thousand. Prototypically, the social organization of these groups is local, and often kin-based. The division of labour is not extensive, and households typically produce a substantial fraction of their own food. Interactions are mostly face-to-face.

The major intention of Henrich et al.’ (2010, p. 68) paper is expressed in the question of which of the groups – small-scale societies or educated Western people – is more representative of human beings in general. 1. This chapter is a revised version of Glebkin (2015).

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

In other words, Henrich et al. (2010) pose a binary model based on the contrast “savagery vs. civilization,” which originated during the Enlightenment (e.g., in the texts of Rousseau) in the 18th century, as an alternative to the universalists approach, which, in Henrich et al’s. opinion, dominates modern psychology. The contrast “primitive or small-scale society vs. industrial or large-scale society” is the core of their frame of reference – even though they acknowledge its limitations and its palliative nature.2 However, when trying to interpret this contrast, we encounter another problem that does not seem properly acknowledged, not only in Henrich et al. (2010) but also in many other studies in cultural anthropology and social psychology: the interchangeable use of the concepts of society and culture. A seminal volume edited by Peter Richerson & Morten Christiansen (2013) provides a clear illustration of this state of affairs. According to the title, the main focus of this book is the process of cultural evolution; but in fact, the modelling of social shifts (in particular, the shift from small-scale to large-scale societies) turns out to be its bottom line. To a considerable extent, such interchangeability correlates with the definition of culture as “the ideas, skills, attitudes, and norms that people acquire by teaching, imitation, and/or other kinds of learning from other people” (Richerson & Christiansen, 2013a, p. 3; cf., e.g., Cole & Packer, 2011, p. 135; Cole & Scribner, 1974, pp. 5–8). In this chapter, we will not discuss this definition in detail (nor the wide spectrum of other definitions of the concept of ‘culture’; for an overview see, e.g., Kroeber & Kluckohn, 1952; Kuper, 1999; Muller, 2005), but one remark is necessary for further analysis: in theoretical culture,3 alongside the level that provides direct regulation of social life and, by and large, is consistent with the quoted definition of culture, there is also a “theoretical” (or “hypersocial”) level. This level is not connected directly with day-to-day social practices and develops according to its own logic. Euclid’s geometry is both one of the earliest and one of the most influential examples of theoretical constructions on a “theoretical” level, but not the only one. The “theoretical” level is also the basis for Newton’s physics, the philosophical systems of Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and so on. Such systems have an independent structure, the acquisition of which is not directly related to the social background of a subject (for example, Euclid’s geometry is

2. Other contrasts outlined by the authors (Western vs. non-Western societies; contemporary Americans vs. the rest of the West; typical contemporary American subjects vs. other Americans) appear as secondary. 3. Theoretical culture is understood here as a culture with developed forms of theoretical activity, that is, forms (including special practices of their acquisition, transfer, and development) that are set apart from everyday life (see, e.g., Romanov, 2014, p. 189–196; Glebkin, 2012a, p. 1603; cf. Mailloux, 1998, p. 13).

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Cognitive Semantics

more or less equally accessible to modern industrial European, Indian, and Chinese people).4 Ultimately, the interchangeable use of the concepts of ‘society’ and ‘culture’ generates additional difficulties when using the binary model “small-scale society versus industrial society” as the basis of a cultural-historical typology.5 In particular, as will be illustrated below, the first theoretical cultures emerged later than large-scale civilizations, which leads to a notable gap between social-historical and cultural-historical typology. The above remarks set out the methodological background of FLTCD. The theory attempts to overcome the difficulties that the binary approach encounters, by introducing a model of cultural-historical typology that distinguishes four basic cognitive levels: Level A characterizes great apes, whereas Level B, Level C, and Level D refer to various cognitive operations performed by humans, the cultural practices of which they are part, and the cultural institutions that frame these practices. It is worth noting that the above levels build on each other, but do not interchange with each other: Bearers of culture operating in some cases on Level D, in other cases may perform cognitive operations on levels A, B, C, and so on.

1.1

Level A. Great apes

Let me begin the presentaton of Level A with another methodological remark: Researchers investigating cognitive skills of animals (in particular, primates) often emphasize the capacity of some animals to perform high-level cognitive operations, right up to discovering the ‘theory of mind’ (e.g., Byrne, 1995; Heyes, 1998). More precise analysis, however, establishes that such notions are based on an incorrect use of the concept of ‘mind,’ in which a “psychological” approach is confused with a “philosophical” one (for criticisms of such research, see Glebkin, 2010, pp. 75–84; Hare et al., 2001; Tomasello et al., 2003; Tomasello & Call, 2011; Tomasello, 2019, pp. 3–9). Therefore, to avoid incorrect interpretation, a researcher has to choose studies in this field with great care, focusing on those in which the results are repre4. This point does not contradict the considerable influence of cultural context on Euclid’s geometry, as well as on Newton’s physics, philosophical systems of Plato, Descartes and so on (an analysis of this influence on Euclid’s geometry is provided in Glebkin, 2012a, pp. 1603–1604, and on Newton’s physics in Webster, 1982; Popkin, 1990 among others). However, this context is not crucial to understanding these theories; they are usually taken as autonomous structures beyond any cultural context. 5. It worth noting, however, that the same problem is also relevant for more complex models, for which it seems even more difficult because of the use of such categories as “civilization,” “state,” and so on (see, for example, Mann, 1986; Sanderson, 1995).

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

sented as detailed as possible and without short-hand generalizations. The works of Michael Tomasello and colleagues seem to meet these requirements. The cognitive skills of great apes (i.e., capacities providing for cognitive operations at Level A) can be described as follows:6 1.

Skills in the physical domain. 1.1 The skills to remember an object’s location and to choose a shortcut to an object of interest in a nearby space; in other words, the skills of cognitive mapping of the region of everyday activity (for a review of experimental research, see Tomasello & Call, 1997, pp. 27–28, 34), and also other skills of spatial cognition (e.g., of searching for hidden objects or food in small spaces, based on the understanding that the object of interest does not disappear behind an opaque obstacle, and furthermore that it can change its location while hidden, performing both rotational and forward motion (pp. 36–46). 1.2 The skills to estimate number and size of objects and to compare different quantities (pp. 136–161). 1.3 In a number of situations, the skills to exploit tools “deliberately” (e.g., exchanging a thick stick for a thin one, a short stick for a long one, and so on, in order to grasp an object); the understanding of simple causal links between objects (pp. 57–99). 2. Skills in the social domain. 2.1 The capacity to understand and to take into account in actions peculiarities of perception of conspecifics during direct communication (e.g., understanding what conspecifics can and cannot see, what is for them a physical obstacle to obtain the object of interest, and so on (Hare er al., 2000; Tomasello et al., 2003; Tomasello, 2008, pp. 47–48)). 2.2 The capacity to understand and to take into account in actions peculiarities of perceptive information, which conspecifics obtained in the recent past (Hare et al., 2001; Tomasello et al., 2003). 2.3 The capacity to understand and to take into account in actions whether conspecifics perform consciously or not, to allow for a direction of their attention (Tomasello et al., 2005, pp. 92–106; Tomasello, 2008, pp. 45–46). 2.4 The capacity to hide from conspecifics intentions and obtained information (Tomasello, 2008, pp. 45–46).

6. Studies conducted in recent decades (Kirsch et al., 2008; Clayton & Emery, 2015; Güntürkün & Bugnyar, 2016; Kabadayi & Osvath, 2017; Pica et al., 2020 among others) have evidenced that similar cognitive and behavioral skills are shared by corvids and some other bird species.

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Cognitive Semantics

Data from comparative experiments show that scores for physical-domain skills among great apes are around the same level as those for 2.5-year-old children from industrial-nation families (Herrmann et al., 2007). That said, skills in the social domain for great apes are limited by the context of rivalry, and a change of a task for social cooperation blocks an actualization of these skills (Tomasello et al., 2005, pp. 111–113; Tomasello, 2008, pp. 39–41, 52–53, 2009a, pp. 16–17, 31–33). In addition, the capacities to estimate a location and interpret intentions of conspecifics as well as situational competences are positioned in apes at a superficial level of perception, which ignores, for example, reasons for intentions or possible alternatives. In other words, great apes see and act from the ego-perspective, perceiving the intentions of their conspecifics similar, by and large, to the solidity of stone or the elasticity of certain kinds of wood, i.e., a characteristic of the environment that can be used in one’s interests. If this is the case, the claims of some researchers that great apes can change the ego-perspective to you-perspective or even he- or she-perspective seem far-fetched (Tomasello et al., 2005, p. 112; Tomasello, 2009a, pp. 31–33, 67–68). The unique feature of human beings that distinguishes them from other primates is, for Tomasello and his colleagues, their capacity for cooperation and sharing interests in a wide range of situations (common activity, learning, etc.), correlated with the emergence of special milieu, designated by the word culture. Cooperation for human beings as a biological species turned out to be the most effective means to respond to the challenge of the environment and developed intensively in evolution, supported by a positive feedback system (Tomasello, 1999, 2009, 2009a, pp. X–XV, 2014; Tomasello et al., 1993, 2005, pp. 114–117; cf. Rogoff 2003, pp. 32–101; Sterelny, 2012; Heyes, 2014). It is worth noting that Tomasello with colleagues look at mankind as a single biological species with a set of specific features, and they do not address the problem of the development of human cognitive capacities in the wake of cultural evolution, despite the fact that a majority of their experiments has been provided with children from WEIRD people families. Meanwhile, a few comparative studies in this area support the thesis of the universality of human beings, at least in relation to basic communicative and cognitive skills (understanding the intentions and attentional focus of others; sharing intentions and attentional focus with others; using symbols in communication with others). All these skills emerge in a wide range of cultures, with some discrepancies in the time of their emergence (e.g., Callaghan et al., 2011). Without dwelling here on the limits of applicability of the thesis of human universality, it is worth noting that certain levels of cognitive operations can be distinguished in human reasoning and decision-making, which provides the ground for constructing a cultural-historical typology. Let us move on to their description.

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

1.2

Level B. Prehistoric culture and hunter-gatherer cultures

Given the lack of written sources and the extreme scarcity of archaeological data, any hypothesis on the structure of prehistoric culture is doomed to speculation. Theories of prehistoric culture based on markedly different underpinnings confirm this point (e.g., Eliade, 1959, 1959a; Bradley, 2002; Renfrew, 2008; Rossano, 2010). At the same time, the problem of establishing basic characteristics of prehistoric culture is too important not to attempt to develop a theoretical model while recognizing its hypothetical nature. Some assumptions then are needed. In recent decades, a number of articles have been published that tackle this issue. They are premised on quite sophisticated assumptions: working-memory capacity (Haidle, 2009, 2010), analogical thinking (de Beaune, 2009), and so on. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate a long-term approach, which seems both more transparent and more convincing. This approach focuses on the cognitive similarity between prehistoric culture and hunter-gatherer cultures (or foraging cultures) based on a similarity in daily activities (e.g., Romanov, 1991, pp. 6–10).7 To some extent, indirect evidence for this can also be found in the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Ancient Babylonia (Glebkin, 2011). The analysis of cognitive skills in hunter-gatherer (or foraging) cultures gives, therefore, an “upper level” for a description of prehistoric culture: people belonging to prehistoric culture perform cognitive operations at Level A, at the same time, gradually elaborating Level B. A traditional argument against the typological resemblance between prehistoric culture and hunter-gatherer cultures is premised on the impossibility of discovering a “clear case,” that is, on the point that almost all existing examples of hunter-gatherer cultures have had more or less intense contact with modern industrial culture, which significantly decreases the reliability of the experiment. However, this argument hardly holds water. First, there are some hunter-gatherer cultures left in the modern world that have not had any significant contact with modernity (see, e.g., Abbasi, 2001); second, a considerable number of such cultures was described quite thoroughly by researchers at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. We mainly address these ethnographical data. The major cognitive skills at Level B can be described as follows: 1.

Skills in the physical domain. 1.1 The use of language to conceptualize the environment; the emergence of fine-grained classification schemas (e.g., in the area of ‘folk biology’; see Bailenson et al., 2002, pp. 37–41) based on language.

7. Such a similarity is assumed by default in the concept of “primitive culture,” which may mean both “prehistoric culture” and “hunter-gatherer culture.”

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1.2 The design and systematic use of special tools made from environmental objects. 1.3 The planning of everyday activity within a production cycle over a long time, taking into account specificity of season work. 2. Skills in the social domain. 2.1 The understanding and the conscious adherence to the norms of social stratification, rules regulating kinship relations, and so on, formed in the social domain. 2.2 The participation in various forms of social communication, such as joint production activities, ‘rites of passage’, and so on. 2.3 The production of various (mythological, ritual, folk) oral texts based on day-to-day experience. Having said that, it is equally important to specify what actions cannot be performed at Level B. Cognitive skills at this level are characterized by strict links with the domain of day-to-day activity, and do not involve operations in ‘theoretical’ domains, nor a look at this activity from a “theoretical” perspective. This leads to the following implications: (a) a lack of capacity to apply an abstract criterion to single out an excess object in a group of objects, to determine the boundaries of a concept (‘complex thinking’; see Chapter 2); (b) an inability to understand the structure of syllogisms (or to repeat them correctly); a failure to solve syllogisms (Luria, 1976, pp. 101–135; Cole et al., 1971, pp. 184–197; Cole & Scribner, 1974, pp. 160–168; Tulviste, 1991, pp. 176–195; cf. Johnson-Laird, 1983, pp. 71–72; Johnson-Laird 1983a); (c) an inability to solve “counterfactual” problems (i.e., problems that contradict everyday experience), despite solving similar problems that are consistent with everyday experience (Luria, 1976, pp. 101–134); (d) a lack of capacity to characterize one’s merits and demerits, to “tell one’s autobiography,” that is, a lack of any “introspective level” of consciousness (Luria, 1976, pp. 144–160; Romanov, 2014, pp. 176–183; Röttger-Rössler, 1993; Glebkin, 2013a); (e) a lack of “curiosity”, that is, a lack of interest in things and events beyond everyday experience (Luria, 1976, pp. 135–143; Vasilevich, 1936, p. 236). There have been many objections to these points, but they have been based largely on misunderstandings (e.g., Cole, 1996, pp. 146–177). To avoid such misunderstandings, at least three clarifications are necessary. First, it is not that people in hunter-gatherer cultures basically fail to solve syllogisms and perform abstract operations; rather, their lifestyle does not lead to the need to perform such operations. As Luria’s data clearly evidence, if such people live in a context in which skills of abstract reasoning are demanded (e.g., studying in boarding schools), they acquire them quite successfully.

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

Second, researchers based on the principles of cultural-historical psychology are often criticized for the unnatural conditions of their experiments. However, similar conclusions can be made from an analysis of oral texts created by huntergatherer peoples on their own. In particular, when people of a hunter-gatherer culture try to retell a story from a theoretical culture, they often lose in their exposition logical links between particular parts, which correlates with their failure to repeat a syllogism correctly. To give only one illustration: the Nganasan people of Siberia give an exposition of the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve that combines some fragments of the biblical plot in a very strange narrative (Dolgih, 1976, pp. 161–162): Bog sdelal dvuh ljudej. Byli jeto samodi ili russkie, ne znaju. Odezhdy nikakoj ne bylo u nih. Teper’ bog skazal im: (God made two people. I do not know whether they were the Samoyeds or Russians. They had no clothes. Now God said to them:) – Travu ne esh’te. (Do not eat grass.) Bog ushel. Dva cheloveka sideli. Potom prishel eshhe odin chelovek. Oni ego sprosili: (God went away. Two people were sitting. Then another man came. They asked him:) – Ty kakoj chelovek? (What man are you?) – Ja chelovek. (I am a man.) – Chto esh’? (What are you eating?) – Travu em. (I am eating grass.) Dvoe ljudej travy poeli. Verno – sladko. No posmotreli oni drug na druga, stalo im stydno, i zakryli oni sebja travoj. Prishel bog i govorit: [Two people ate grass. That’s right, it is sweet. But they looked at each other, felt shame and covered each other with grass. God came and said:] – Nu, travu eli? (Well, have you eaten grass?) – Ne eli. (No, we have not.) Bog posmotrel. (God looked.) – Nu, ty muzhchina, a ty zhenshhina. (Well, you are a man, and you are a woman.) Uvidev jeto, bog pokinul ih. Posle jetogo stali oni zhit’. (After having seen this, God left them. After that they got living.).

Third, some of the above notions correlate, at first sight, with the studies that introduce a difference between “Western” and “Eastern” models of reasoning. Thus, these studies (e.g., Norenzayan, 1999; Norenzayan et al., 2002; Kitayama et al., 2007) provide some evidence that educated people from China, Japan, and South Korea, in comparison with similarly educated people from the United States and Western Europe, are more oriented to context and less focused on formal schemas when performing various intellectual operations (in particular, solving syllogisms). This seems consistent with results for the people in hunter-

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gatherer cultures. However, there is a crucial difference between the variation in percentage scores when performing a cognitive operation and the complete rejection to perform it. No less important is the difference in the perception of experimental procedures by people of modern “Eastern” cultures and, say, Luria’s dehkans (peasants living in remote villages of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). In Luria’s experiments, the dehkans understood the experiment as a part of their daily life, something like a table-talk. Importantly, they did not see it as a special procedure, distanced from their daily experience (cf. Romanov, 2014, pp. 157–163). On the contrary, the modern Chinese, Japanese and South Korean participants have clearly recognized limits of the experimental situation. To generalize this point, there is a radical difference in cognitive skills between hunter-gatherer people and “Eastern” people. We will return to the contrast of “Eastern cultures vs. Western cultures” in the following sections.

1.3

Level C. Early theoretical cultures

It is worth noting as a preliminary remark that the emergence of the first largescale civilizations (Ancient Egypt, Ancient Babylon, etc.) did not bring about the complete acquisition of cognitive Level C by their bearers. Evidence for this can be found both in a general examination of the “scientific” views that characterize these cultural traditions (see, e.g., Diakonoff, 1982, pp. 61–62, 68, 81–83) and in the analysis of particular texts. Thus, mathematical problems in the Babylonian tradition are strictly connected with everyday demands; Babylonian mathematics has no special terminology or abstract domains to which such terminology might correspond (e.g., Neugebauer et al., 1945; Waerden, 1954, pp. 15–81; Friberg, 2007, pp. 1–11).8 Another piece of evidence from a different area is provided by the Babylonian legislative text “The Code of Hammurabi.” According to its social function, it is expected to have a robust, formal structure, but in fact implements a model of “complex thinking” that is characteristic of people of hunter-gatherer cultures (see Chapter 3 for a more detailed analysis). As it is posited in FLTCD, Level C first emerges in early theoretical cultures, such as those of Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and Ancient India. This level is featured by a developed written language, and a literature that is based on this language and has no direct links with practical (magical, etc.) tasks. It can also be characterized by the emergence of special theoretical domains, some of them providing theoretical analyses of social processes (e.g., historiography – Herodotus, 8. This correlates with the absence of, in a cognitive sense, abstract concepts in these cultures, which is discussed in Chapter 10.

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

Thucydides, Sima Qian, etc.; social theory – Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Laozi, etc.), and others distant from everyday life, existing as self-contained theoretical systems (e.g., mathematics – Euclid’s “Elements,” “Jiuzhang suanshu,” etc.; linguistics – Pāṇini’s “Ashtadhyayi,” etc.; philosophy – Plato, Aristotle, “Lüshi Chunqiu,” Vedanta, etc.; literary theory – Aristotle’s “Poetics,” etc.). These domains give rise to special institutions that systematize and transmit theoretical knowledge, as well as complex forms of social behavior that ensure the application of this knowledge in everyday experience. Given this, some researchers take for granted the lack of a qualitative difference between early theoretical cultures (e.g., that of Ancient Greece) and modern ones, and refer to them as the same (e.g., Nisbett et. al., 2001). However, there are serious objections to this. For example, the analysis of Ancient Greek mathematical texts (e.g., Euclid’s “Elements”) and Ancient Greek historiography (e.g., treatises of Herodotus and Thucydides) reveals the decisive role of visual experience in the system of argument on which these texts are based. In mathematics, this manifests itself, in particular, in visual (“geometric”) images of numbers and in the absence of abstract symbols as signs of mathematical objects, entailing a certain “bulkiness” of proofs and significantly limiting the potential for the development of Ancient Greek mathematics (see, e.g., Klein, 1992, pp. 37–126; Waerden, 1954, pp. 82–202). In historiography, the analysis of Herodotus’s and Thucydides’s narrative styles provides similar evidence. The bulk of Herodotus’s “Histories” is made up of “cinematic” scenes based on visual perception; and Thucydides presents key ideas in the form of imaginary speeches of characters, which markedly resemble Euripides’ tragedies. We will discuss these issues in more detail in Chapter 3. These features are consistent with the lack of the conception of the person, as modern people are accustomed to understand it, that is, as an individual capable of deep introspection. The ancient Greek person contemplates intently the world around him, rather than his own soul (e.g., Jarcho, 1983; Vernant, 1991, pp. 56–59; Gill, 1995). The outlined discrepancies between cognitive operations characteristic of people of early theoretical cultures and those that people of modern industrial and post-industrial cultures can perform in certain cases provide the ground for introducing cognitive level D in the model of cognitive development.

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1.4

Level D. Developed theoretical cultures (modernity in Europe, modern industrial and post-industrial cultures)

To characterize Level D, one can use the model developed by Jean Piaget and Rolando Garcia in another context: conceptual structures at Level С are forms (in the Aristotelian sense) of objects from the natural or social world, whereas conceptual structures at Level D are forms of forms (Piaget & Garcia, 1976, pp. 270–271). This difference is clear, if we compare objects of Euclidean geometry (a line, a triangle, a square, etc.) with concepts of modern mathematics, such as an infinite-dimensional space, a tensor, and an abelian group. In other words, concepts at Level D are decidedly more abstract than those at Level C, and they have no direct links with physical and social experience of human beings. Such structures are attributed not only to modern mathematics, but also to theoretical models that emerged much earlier. Theoretical mechanics, originated by Lagrange, Laplace, and others in the 17th and 18th centuries, can be seen as an important sample of this type.9 A new level of abstraction in cognitive operations arises in the wake of the emergence of the world religions. The idea of a transcendental God, the creator of the universe, which is basic for Islam and important for Christianity (implemented, in particular, in the concept of apophatic theology), paves the way for much more abstract systems of theoretical knowledge. Let me illustrate this point with the example of the ontological argument for the existence of God formulated by the Benedictine monk Anselm of Canterbury in his Proslogion (1177–1178) (tr. by M. J. Charlesworth; Anselm of Canterbury, 1998, pp. 87–88): Well then, Lord, You who give understanding to faith, grant me that I may understand, as much as You see fit, that You exist as we believe You to exist, and that You are what we believe You to be. Now we believe that You are something than which nothing greater can be thought. Or can it be that a thing of such a nature does not exist, since "the Fool has said in his heart, there is no God" (Ps. 13: I, 52: 1)? But surely, when this same Fool hears what I am speaking about, namely, "something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought", he understands what he hears, and what he understands is in his mind, even if he does not understand that it actually exists. For it is one thing for an object to 9. There is also some neurological evidence for introducing Level D as an element of cognitive architecture of human mind. Vinod Goel (2005, pp. 483–488) and colleagues, when exploring a neural activity in the process of solving such syllogisms as “All dogs are pets; All poodles are dogs; All poodles are pets”, on one hand, and “All P are B; All C are P; All C are B”, on the other hand, found that these tasks activate different domains of human cortex, and this difference is significant.

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that an object actually exists. Thus, when a painter plans beforehand what he is going to execute, he has [the picture] in his mind, but he does not yet think that it actually exists because he has not yet executed it. However, when he has actually painted it, then he both has it in his mind and understands that it exists because he has now made it. Even the Fool, then, is forced to agree that something-than-which-nothinggreater-can-be-thought exists in the mind, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood is in the mind. And surely that-than-whicha-greater-cannot-be-thought cannot exist in the mind alone. For if it exists solely in the mind even, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is greater. If then that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists in the mind alone, this same that-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought is that-than-which-a-greatercan-be-thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that something-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists both in the mind and in reality.

Some aspects of this text should be highlighted. We can see that it is structured as a theorem of geometry. Anselm gives a definition of God as “something than which nothing greater can be thought,” then uses proof by contradiction to argue for the existence of God in the mind, and then for the existence of God in reality. Having said that, unlike Euclid and Aristotle, he refers to the entity without any visual or other perceptual images, and without any human-like representations. In other words, he explores some abstract object using the methods similar to those used in modern mathematics (see Chapter 3 for more detailed analysis). There is clear evidence of such way of reasoning in mediaeval Islamic culture, in which one can find proofs of the existence of God similar to those of Anselm (e.g., Morewedge, 1979; Yaran, 2003, pp. 189–194) as well as other rather abstract theological models (e.g., Abrahamov, 1998; Arnaldes, 2000). Moreover, medieval Arabian mathematicians interpreted numbers in a more abstract way than their counterparts in Greece; in particular, they almost eliminated the distinction between magnitude and number, which was one of the cornerstones of Euclid’s Elements. This enabled great strides in mathematics and opened up new opportunities for the science of Early Modernity (e.g., Berggren, 1986; Rāshid, 1994). Being restricted by the domain of theology in medieval culture, cognitive skills at Level D were actualized in a wide range of other domains in the Modern era. Such a sign of more complex conceptual structures and the loss of direct links with physical and social environments is, in particular, a high level of introspection, which is an important feature of the Modern era in Europe, and, to a greater or lesser extent, of modern industrial and post-industrial cultures of the East. This property is represented, in particular, in the deep psychologism of the world literature of the Modern era, as well as in the emergence of various

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psychological theories that focus on a scrupulous description of inner states of human beings. An important part of the life of modern people is the construction of possible worlds, in particular the development of various games based on a system of abstract rules.10 To avoid misunderstanding, it should be noted that cognitive operations at Level D are performed by only a limited part of the representatives of modern cultures. However, it is hard to deny that very specific theoretical models such as functional analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and quantum field theory are an important part of modern science, and, hence, of modern culture. It would be a mistake, therefore, to ignore them and focus exclusively on more common cultural practices. The emergence of such theoretical structures is a clear sign of a qualitative difference between modern industrial and post-industrial cultures and early theoretical cultures. Finally, discrepancies between Eastern and Western types of reasoning should be touched upon. There is a strong piece of evidence that the contrast between Eastern and Western cultures is not only a result of theoretical speculations, but is also based on empirical data. Some of these data will be reported in Chapter 3. That said, it is worth emphasizing that both Western and Eastern people are able to perform all cognitive operations at Level D, so it seems appropriate to consider Western and Eastern cultures to be two versions of the developed theoretical culture; people from both cultural groups can utilize all cognitive levels (A, B, C, and D) in their reasoning.

1.5

Conclusion

Summing up, I would like to address four aspects of this presentation of FLTCD. A. It is worth highlighting once again that the above cognitive levels build on each other, but do not interchange with each other; guided by circumstances the representatives of a developed theoretical culture can perform cognitive operations at levels A, B, C, and D, the representatives of an early theoretical culture at levels A, B, and C; and so on. Figure 1 gives a visual representation of this point.

10. As is well known, some intellectual games were created in Antiquity; however, the cognitive distance between these games and modern games is comparable with the distance between Euclid’s geometry and modern mathematics.

Chapter 1. An overview of the four-level theory of cognitive development

Figure 1. The correlation between cognitive levels and cultural types

B. In this chapter, only a preliminary version of FLTCD was outlined, and a number of issues left out. First, a thorough specification of cognitive skills at Level C and Level D in different cultural domains is needed. Second, the problem of emergence of cognitive skills at level D in Eastern cultures (India, China, Japan, etc.) is of great importance. In particular, are there any operations at level D in medieval Indian philosophy (Vedanta, Samkhya, Nyaya), in Indian and Chinese Buddhist philosophy, or in treatises of exponents of Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, etc.)? Third, it is necessary to specify different versions of sociocultural processes that cause the emergence of cognitive operations at Level C and Level D. I hope that the above analysis could be a pivot point for further fruitful discussion in this direction. C. To avoid misunderstanding, it should be stressed that the approach outlined in this chapter is not linear and far away from the ideas of more perfect and less perfect cultures. The emergence of new cognitive levels is a response to sociocultural requests, which brings both new opportunities and new risks. In particular, the excessive development of Level D leads to a decrease in cognitive activity at Level B and Level C, which results in a weakening of the connection between a person and his/her natural and sociocultural environments and engenders a host of problems that modern industrial and postindustrial cultures face: ecological crisis, “atomization” of self, “virtualization” of life, and so on. D. Finally, implications of FLTCD for cognitive semantics should be mentioned. The emergence of Level C entails the occurrence of a large number of abstract concepts and lexical means of designating new conceptual areas. This issue is discussed in Chapter 10 using the examples of Sumerian and ancient Greek. An important semantic characteristic of Level C is the occurrence of conceptual metaphors. This feature is examined in more detail in the next chapter.

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The emergence of Level D has less of an impact on general language, leading mainly to the occurrence of new terms associated with professional languages. Some properties of these terms will also be touched upon in the next chapter with the example of philosophical terminology.

chapter 2

Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor 2.0

Introduction

The problem of the cognitive basis of metonymy and the correct cognitive demarcation between metonymy and metaphor is one of the most intriguing issues in contemporary cognitive linguistics.11 Unlike the conceptual theory of metaphor, where a significant number of researchers agree on the main postulates, not only the foundations of the conceptual theory of metonymy, but also the exact definition of conceptual metonymy have been the subject of heated debate (see, e.g., Kövecses & Radden, 1998; Croft, 2002, 2006; Peirsman & Geeraerts, 2006, 2006a; Barcelona 2011). I would therefore like to start with a cursory examination of the problem of definition. First of all, the obvious: metonymy is neither a real object, like a tree or a house, nor a fact of language, such as the word apple; it is a tool to describe a number of language facts. In other words, it is a matter for linguists, rather than ordinary speakers. A definition of metonymy should therefore satisfy the following conditions: It should be based on the prototypical language facts by which metonymy has been defined during a long linguistic tradition dating back to antiquity, and it should not extend too far from these prototypes. Assuming this is correct, the following argument (Kövecses & Radden, 1998, p. 42) is hardly justified: The very nature of language is based on this metonymic principle, which Lakoff and Turner describe as “words stand for the concepts they express”. Since we have no other means expressing and communicating our concepts than by using forms, language as well as other communication systems are of necessity metonymic.

Do we really have sufficient grounds to speak of metonymy in this case? To illustrate the doubtfulness of this, I will take a very simple example. Let us compare the correlation between a numeral (e.g., 5) and its corresponding number, and between Hephaestus and fire. The latter is taken from the classic extract from Homer (Il., 2, 425−426, tr. by A.T. Murray), considered the model for metonymy in the ancient Greek rhetorical manuals (Arata, 2005, p. 59): 11. This chapter is a revised version of Glebkin (2014).

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These they burned on billets of wood stripped of leaves, and the inner parts they pierced with spits, and held them over the flame of Hephaestus (σπλάγχνα δ’ ἄρ’ ἀμείραντες ὑπείρεχον Ἡφαίστοιο).

We can also include in the analysis the correlation between a ham sandwich and a customer from Lakoff ’s classic example: “The ham sandwich is waiting for his check” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 35). It seems that the numeral “5” represents the number “five,” just as fire represents Hephaestus or the ham sandwich represents the ordering person. However, unlike the numeral, the ham sandwich not only has a particular shape, but also its own cultural meaning: we know that it is food, which can be bought in particular places, that it can be bad for our health, and so on. In other words, unlike the numeral, the ham sandwich has its own part in the scenario; it is not only a means to get to another entity. The same applies to Hephaestus in the above quotation from Homer. In other words, Kövecses and Radden’s construal seems to be an incorrect extension of the term. In this chapter, we will refer to common examples of metonymy, such as “The ham sandwich is waiting for his check” or “He likes to read Dickens,” in order to explore the cognitive function of these and similar expressions. A common view of this problem is as follows: in metonymy one conceptual entity (or subdomain) provides mental access to another conceptual entity (or subdomain) within the same domain (or domain matrix, or Idealized Cognitive Model) (Lakoff, 1987; Langacker 1993; Kövecses & Radden, 1998; Croft, 2002, etc.; cf. Barcelona, 2011). Although each version of this approach has its own peculiarities, they are not crucial for the current discussion. In the case of conceptual metaphor, the conceptual mapping of a concrete domain onto an abstract domain is considered the major way to comprehend the structure of an abstract domain (Johnson, 1987, pp. 1−17; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, pp. 3−7; Kövecses, 2005, pp. 8−10; Gibbs, 2006, pp. 90−96). In other words, one cannot describe the process of thinking or cognition directly, beyond metaphorical mappings. For metonymy, this is not the case. We can directly name the customer without using the ham sandwich for that purpose; we can also say, “He likes to read books by Dickens,” and point at the required object without a metonymical shift. Among plenty of articles that discuss various aspects of metonymy, there are likely to be only two attempts to reveal the cognitive reasons for such a shift of reference. The first approach considers metonymy to be the way to attract our attention on the major elements of the whole (“There are a lot of good heads in the university” – intelligence that is associated with the head is the key element of humans in this context (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 36, cf. Gibbs, 1994, pp. 351–357)); the second is the provision of access to the less salient element by means of the more salient (Feyaerts, 2000, pp. 73–74; cf. Lakoff, 1987, p. 77).

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

These ideas, no doubt, can cast light on a number of particular cases, but they are unlikely to pose a general solution. Let us consider, for instance, the following sentence: “Washington is insensitive to the needs of the people” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 38). It seems strange both to consider the place the most important element of the construction “the US government” in this context, and to suppose that such an indirect way of referring to the main object is more obvious than its direct signification. Ultimately, there is no convincing theory explaining the cognitive nature of metonymy. Having said that, a well-known psychological phenomenon – complex thinking – may be considered the basis for such a theory. Strangely enough, it has been beyond the interest of cognitive linguists so far. Let us now glance over the history of the research in this field.

2.1

Complex thinking and metonymy

The first study that should be referred to here was conducted by Lévy-Bruhl in the early decades of the 20th century (Lévy-Bruhl, 1978, 1979). He described in his research certain views of primitive people that appeared to contradict Aristotelian logic. For instance, the Bororo tribe of northern Brazil boasted that they are red araras (parakeets), not merely signifying that they will become araras after their death, or that the Bororos can metamorphose into araras, but that the Bororos were actually araras in the present. Levi-Bruhl defined such an operation as “the law of participation,” and this way of reasoning as “pre-logical thinking.” Later, Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky explained Lévy-Bruhl’s observations by means of the notion of “complex thinking.” There is no need to discuss Vygotsky’s approach in detail – some of his individual suggestions seem rather simplistic now. However, a few words should be said about the main idea. Vygotsky interpreted a “complex” structure as one in which there is certain order within each small group of elements, but this order cannot be extended to all elements. In other words, there is a certain principle of linking adjacent elements within this structure (appearing in a particular context, shape, colour, function, etc.), but this principle differs from one element (or group of elements) to another. In a complex, the bonds between its components are concrete and factual rather than abstract and logical, just as we do not classify a person as belonging to the Petrov family because of any logical relation between him and other bearers of the name. The question is settled for us by the facts (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 113).12 12. In the case of Bororos and araras this correlation is obviously not real, but an imaginary fact or belief.

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Vygotsky (1986, p. 127) illustrates his approach by the well-known example from Darwin: A child’s use of ‘quah’ to designate first a duck swimming on the pond, then any liquid, including the milk in his bottle; when he happens to see a coin with an eagle on it, the coin is also called a ‘quah’, and then any round, coinlike object. This is typical of a chain complex – each new object included has some attribute in common with another element, but the attributes undergo endless changes.

Figure 2. The structure of the complex “quah”

Vygotsky developed a typology of complex thinking and a model of its evolution, mainly, for pre-school and primary school children, although he also applied the category to particular situations beyond this scope, for instance, to Lévy-Bruhl’s observations. That said, further investigations in this area have clearly indicated the importance of his approach in general, for both ontogeny and phylogeny.13 Strong evidence has been collected that complex thinking characterizes not only people of hunter-gatherer cultures (see, e.g., Cole & Scribner, 1974; Luria, 1976; Tulviste, 1991; Wertsch & Tulviste, 1992; Cole et al., 2011), but also those of modern industrial and postindustrial cultures in many everyday situations. Studies of Rebecca Frumkina and her colleagues (Mikheev, 1985; Frumkina & Mirkin, 1986; Frumkina et al., 1991; Frumkina & Mikheev, 1996; Frumkina, 2007) can be referred to in this scope, among others. Let us examine one of her typical experiments. The participants, 25–35-year-old individuals with a university degree, were asked to sort a set of tableware objects (Frumkina et al., 1991, p. 64–74). They were not limited in the number of groups or in the number of elements within each group. In brief, the results were as follows: the participants did not employ a general principle to classify all the elements, they applied a number of specific prin13. It is worth noting the similarity between Vygotsky’s complex and “family resemblances” (Familienähnlichkeiten) by Ludwig Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein, 1986, p. 32; cf. Glebkin, 2014a, p. 69, 83–74).

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

ciples, strictly correlated with a set of particular practical situations, for instance, “vessels to drink alcohol,” “objects to lay the table for tea (coffee),” and so forth. Basically, their cognitive strategy fell strictly within the domain of complex thinking, with two clarifications. First, the subjects could easily change their minds and suggest different principles of classification according to the researcher’s requests. Second, they could precisely explain each of the suggested variants. One can, therefore, speak about the more visible plasticity of their minds and the higher level of their reflections in this particular context compared to hunter-gatherer cultures. In order to generalize this and similar results, it is worth considering the outcome from a broader perspective. Modern cognitive psychology distinguishes two basic types of mental functioning, representing them in various guises: “situational” thinking vs. “abstract” thinking (Luria, 1976; Tulviste, 1991; Wertsch & Tulviste, 1992; Cole et al., 2011); experience-based vs. rule-based thinking (Norenzayan, 1999); field-dependent vs. field-independent cognitive style (Witkin et al., 1962; Witkin 1967; Witkin & Berry 1975; Berry 1976; Witkin et al., 1977; Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 247; Nisbett et al., 2001, p. 293), etc. The former is both a product of adopting and a means for handling personal day-to-day experience; people exploit it when swimming, moving in space, dressing, and so on. The latter has no direct connection with everyday life; it is premised on a number of general logical operations and prevails in science and similar forms of theoretical activity. Within the scope of FLTCD presented in the previous chapter, the former subsumes cognitive operations positioned at Level B, whereas the latter those positioned at Level C and Level D. In order to avoid possible misunderstandings, some additional comments on this dichotomy are needed. Indeed, “situational” thinking may well deal with abstract concepts, such as love or money; however, in this case, it is based on personal everyday experience, not on a formal description. Interesting examples of this view were reported by Afanasy Selischev (1928). In this book, the author cites a few definitions given by Soviet peasants to certain abstract concepts they faced in a new Soviet reality. In particular, they defined konferenciya ‘conference’ and miting ‘political meeting’ as ‘eto rechi govoryat’ (when people give talks), pionery ‘young pioneers’ as ‘eto hodyat s barabanom i poyut’ (they go with drum and sing), and kategorija ‘category’ as ‘eto den'gi nam tak vydajut, komu bol'she, komu men'she’ (this is how they give us money, some more, some less) (pp. 214–215). In other words, they comprehend such concepts by means of a set of situations encountered in their everyday lives. For the peasants, these concepts were not abstract, because they did not actualize the abstract level of these concepts. In

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contrast, abstract thinking includes general cognitive operations (such as Aristotle’s syllogisms) that have no direct links with the day-to-day experiences of a particular person. Undoubtedly, the mental functioning of modern industrial people tends to be a more or less complex blend of these two types, but it is possible to pick out “pure” cases in a number of situations. At the same time, hunter-gatherer culture bearers mainly exploit the “situational” mode of thinking (Luria, 1976; Vygotsky, 1986). From such a perspective, complexes and concepts can be considered the result of employing these types of thinking for object categorization. Importantly, concepts are stated as being attributes of the language of science, whereas complexes, featured by a flexible structure, correspond to words of everyday language. Such words change their meaning in a vein similar to the word “quah” in Darwin’s example above. The only difference is that the process that takes hours or days for Darwin’s child lasts decades or centuries in the case of commonly-accepted semantic shifts.14 Let me illustrate this with an example. The word pressure in physics is defined as ‘the ratio of the magnitude of a force applied perpendicular to a surface and the area over which the force is exerted’ (Houk et al., 1984, p. 124). It is a general definition that does not change in time in the scope of physical theory. Meanwhile, according to the OED, pressure in English before the 18th century meant ‘pain, bodily discomfort,’ which is situated far from both the meaning in physics and the spectrum of senses in modern language. Such shifts of meaning characterize, so to say, “situational” thinking, though not of a particular person, but of a culture in general. A case study, illustrating this point, is carried out in the following section.15 The conjecture that everyday words signify complexes with flexible boundaries may cast fresh light on the cognitive basis for metonymy. The waiter who, in the specific situation, relates the ordered ham sandwich to the customer, is not far from Darwin’s child associating the water in the duck-pond with the milk in the bottle. Indeed, unlike the waiter’s action, the child’s behaviour may seem incon14. Vygotsky mentioned the complex nature of everyday language (see, e.g., Vygotsky, 1986, pp. 131–132). 15. It is worth commenting on the obvious analogy between complexes and Lakoff ’s Idealized Cognitive Models (e.g., his description of the concept mother; Lakoff, 1987, pp. 74–76). A superficial similarity conceals, in this case, a few significant mismatches in depth. In fact, Lakoff ’s ICM falls precisely within the domain of language; it is a static construction that exists in the air, in the idealized space, and has no visible connection with a sociocultural context. The structure of a concrete ICM is a postulate for Lakoff; he does not explore the reasons for a particular constellation within it or any directions of its possible transformation. In contrast, a complex is a dynamic cognitive structure grounded in sociocultural experience.

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

sistent from the adult’s perspective, however, it is fairly consistent from the child’s own perspective in accordance with his experience and his view of the situation. In order to make the similarity between the Darwin’s child and the Lakoff ’s waiter more graphic, let us imagine that the “ham sandwich” customer is a married middle age man interested in Heidegger’s philosophy, and an hour later an awkward teenager, a fan of heavy metal, ordering a ham sandwich, is given the same nickname, and another hour later the waiter gives this nickname to an old women who claims permanently to her neighbor that she hates ham sandwiches. We can see here the shift of meaning consistent with the example from Darwin. Significantly, the approach outlined above seems quite productive in helping us to work out why these particular connections are actualized in metonymy, but not a great number of other possibilities. It is worth emphasizing that cognitive linguists (e.g., Croft, 2006; Peirsman & Geeraerts, 2006a), by and large, consider this issue as being beyond their competence. The tenet of the affective nature of thinking, which occupies a prominent place in the later works of Vygotsky (Vygotsky, 1984; Samuhin et al., 1981), is an important starting point in this context. The shift of reference that entails the transformation of the complex structure depends here on what objects fall into the focus of the child’s attention or, put another way, what event gives rise to his/her interest. The key factor proves to be the contiguity of different objects in the child’s specific experience rather than their true external contiguity. Similarly, in Lakoff ’s ham sandwich example, the waiter’s activity determines what becomes the focus of his attention and causes the metonymical shift, actualizing an extremely marginal feature of the customer. Apparently, the waiter is not interested in the customer’s education, his family status or hobby; he is merely interested in his order. In a more complex case, in metonymy one can reveal social or cultural interest that focuses the attention of a cultural group or culture at large on a certain set of situations, activities, and so on. In this context, it is advisable to turn to the problem of the cognitive distinction between metonymy and metaphor. The first systematic attempt to account for this problem might have been undertaken within the scope of structuralism. It was Roman Jacobson who interpreted metonymy and metaphor as general cognitive models, connecting the first with the idea of contiguity and the second with that of similarity.16 However, in this case, we encounter the methodological problem that was discussed above in relation to Kövecses and Radden’s view of lan16. “The development of a discourse may take place along two different semantic lines: one topic may lead to another either through their similarity or through their contiguity. The metaphoric way would be the most appropriate term for the first case and the metonymic way for the second, since they find their most considered expression in metaphor and metonymy respectively” (Jacobson, 2002, p. 42).

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guage as metonymy: the concepts of metonymy and metaphor prove to be too broad and situated too far from the prototypical meaning to allow us to work accurately with them. In this chapter, a different model is outlined based on a certain correlation between prototypical meanings of conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor and, accordingly, situational thinking and abstract thinking. From the perspective of FLTCD, conceptual metonymy subsumes cognitive operations conducted at Level B, which characterizes pre-theoretical cultures (e.g., hunter-gatherer cultures or those of ancient Egypt or Babylon), while conceptual metaphor emerges in the wake of the occurrence of Level С in early theoretical cultures such as ancient Greece. This approach opens up a new perspective on the demarcation between cognitive metaphor and cognitive metonymy in the diachronic aspect (Goossens, 1990; Feyaerts, 2000; Radden, 2000; Turner & Fauconnier, 2000; Geeraerts, 2002; Deignan, 2005, pp. 59–71; Barcelona, 2011, pp. 36–48). Thus, K. Feyaerts (2000, pp. 61–62) argues that the interpretation of such phrases as “I see what you mean” as metaphor or metonymy depends on whether or not “visual perception” and “mental perception” belong to the same domain matrix. This point, which seems reasonable, raises the question of the criteria for such belonging. The analysis of representations of the process of thinking, formed in a certain culture, provides the clues for that. For instance, Homer associated thinking with breathing and movement of particular fluids (Onians, 1951, pp. 66–84); in this case, one can speak of a direct meaning or metonymy, which was transformed into metaphor when the domain of thinking morphed into a special abstract domain separated from perceptual domains. This example needs more commentary. Importantly, abstractness and concreteness are hardly objective features of concepts; rather, they are characteristics of the way these concepts are exploited by a particular person. The same concept can be abstract for one person and concrete for another. Some evidence for that was presented above when quoting the definitions of abstract concepts given by Soviet peasants. A concept becomes abstract for a person if it becomes an element of a special abstract domain, the objects of which are subject to a set of formal rules that have no direct links with the everyday experience of a person. In order to illustrate this, let us take the concept mother. There are some works revealing the great complexity of the structure of this concept (see, e.g., Lakoff, 1987, pp. 74–76). At the same time, for a 3–4-year-old child, mother is a person featured by a set of concrete characteristics (she cooks, plays with child, sometimes swears, etc.). The pathway from this image to a sophisticated structure recognized by adults is quite long and requires the acquisition of special theoretical models (for understanding such constructions, as, say, biological mother).

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

This is correct not only for individuals, but also for cultures in general. A necessary condition for the emergence of conceptual metaphors in the texts of a certain culture is the presence of abstract domains (i.e., cognitive level C) in this culture. Such metaphors emerge in the wake of cognitive development from personal experience to universal models.17 A few clarifications are needed here. Some researchers (e.g., Auletta, 2011, pp. 491–492; Gil & Shen, 2021, pp. 1–2) find metaphorical reasoning in primates, not to mention hunter-gatherer cultures. However, they seem to confuse metaphorical reasoning and analogical reasoning, which differ markedly in some aspects. In particular, one can recognize analogical reasoning in Darwin’s child linking a duck swimming on the pond to a coin with an eagle on it, but this is clearly not a metaphor. Metaphor is premised by default on the conjecture that a speaker is well aware of the boundaries of the concepts, and the new context of use takes it beyond these boundaries. Meanwhile, if the boundaries of a given concept are flexible and easily shifted, then this is a case of a complex structure, and not a metaphor. The experiments referred to in the articles above do not test whether primates are aware of the boundaries of the concepts they use. Another clarification is that in this chapter we examine conceptual metaphor as understood by Lakoff and Johnson, and not metaphor in general. With these clarifications, let us proceed to the case study of the semantic evolution of the Ancient Greek word ὕλη, the Latin equivalent of which (materia) penetrated into the major European languages and became one of the key categories for the Western philosophical tradition. This study will illustrate the above discussion.

2.2

The semantic evolution of the word ὕλη

According to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, the conceptual structure of the complex ὕλη can be visualized in the way graphed in Figure 3. One can see here both the clear similarity with the structure of the complex “quah” in Figure 2 17. It is worth noting that in theoretical cultures metonymy in some cases may deal with abstract objects, but it is a secondary phenomenon. Without dwelling on this issue, let me illustrate it with a brief analysis of the sentence Washington is insensitive to the needs of the people. At first sight, we encounter here a case of metonymy in the abstract domain (this sentence is a result of metonymical transformation of the sentence The US government is insensitive to the needs of the people). However, the latter sentence contains a conceptual metaphor: the US government is considered here a concrete person and Washington can be treated in this context as the person’s alias. The metonymy Washington – the US government is positioned, therefore, in the concrete domain linking concrete counterparts of the abstract objects.

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and the important difference associated with the appearance of the metaphorical component (ὕλη as a philosophical category, as the material for poems and treatises, and so on). To distinguish between metaphorical and metonymical shifts correctly, it is worth moving on from the dictionary information to a diachronic analysis of the senses of the word ὕλη based on direct text examination.

Figure 3. The structure of the complex ὕλη

We find the earliest occurrences of the word ὕλη in Homer. In Iliad this word and its derivates occur 39 times; in Odyssey, 23 times. The core sense is ‘forest,’ ‘woodland’ – 45 examples (72.6%) (e.g., “…but a sheer rock or a shadowy thicket (δάσκιος ὕλη) saveth him from them” (Il., 15, 273–274, tr. by A. Murray)); the next sense in frequency is ‘firewood,’ ‘fuel’ (mainly funeral fire) – 11 examples (17.7%) (e.g., “…but in the morning rouse thou the folk, king of men Agamemnon, to bring wood (ὕλην), and to make ready all that it beseemeth a dead man to have, whenso he goeth beneath the murky darkness” (Il., 23, 49–51)). In three cases ὕλη means ‘toponym,’ the name of a particular place; in two cases, ‘bushes’; in one case, ‘the material to build a ship.’ Herodotus uses the word eight times: in four cases it means ‘forest, a group of trees’; in three cases, ‘fuel’; in one case, ‘building material.’ Thucydides uses it nine times: in five cases it means ‘forest’; in two cases, ‘brushwood’; in one case, ‘dead-wood’; and in one case, ‘bushes.’ Euripides uses it four times with the meaning ‘forest, woodland.’ These data, with all the necessary reservations, give an idea of both word usage in language and the direction of metonymical shift. One can see that the shift of meaning from ‘forest’ to ‘firewood’ seems to be the main vector in this

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

case. This fact exactly correlates with the core usage of wood in everyday life, in other words, with a focus of social interest. In addition, one can find, though not as frequently, the sense of ὕλη as ‘building material,’ and this also directly reflects social practice. There are no signs of a metaphorical use of ὕλη in these texts. The picture starts changing in the writings of Plato, even though he uses this word rarely. In all his texts we find only 13 examples: in seven cases ὕλη means ‘forest, woodland’; in two cases, ‘fuel’; and in two cases, ‘building material.’ The last two cases require special attention. The first is the following extract from Timaeus (69a, tr. by W. Lamb) (Plato, 1914–1930, 9, p. 179): Seeing, then, that we have now lying before us and thoroughly sifted – like wood ready for the joiner – the various kinds of causes (‘Οτ’ οὖν δὴ τὰ νῦν οἷα τέκτοσιν ἡμῖν ὕλη παράκειται τὰ τῶν αἰτίον γένη διυλισμένα), out of which the rest of our account must be woven.

One can see here a basic example of conceptual metaphor: the work of joiners falls into the source domain, whilst the building of an intellectual construction falls into the target domain; ὕλη happens to be the material for such a construction. Here, unlike all the above texts, the author describes an abstract domain and employs conceptual metaphor as a tool to clarify the chain of his reasoning. The second extract is from Philebus (54c, tr. by H. Fowler) (Plato, 1914–1930, 8, p. 355): I say that drugs and all sorts of instruments and materials (ἕνεκα φάρμακά τε καὶ πάντα ὄργανα και πᾶσαν ὕλην) are always employed for the sake of production or generation, but that every instance of generation is for the sake of some being or other, and generation in general is for the sake of being in general.

In this case, we encounter the metaphorical extension of the core sense from a specific material used in construction to the material in general, which means something that is to be transformed into another thing. This step paves the way for further shifts of meaning in Aristotle. It is important to note that Aristotle decisively changes the state of affairs in this area. He employs the word ὕλη much more frequently than all previous authors combined (over 570 occurrences). Furthermore, the core sense (‘forest, woodland’) is located on the periphery of his interest (12 examples, less than 2%). To give a comprehensive analysis of all the philosophical issues associated with this word in Aristotle’s writings would require another book (various aspects of this problem are discussed, e.g., in Witt, 1989, pp. 63–142, 2003, pp. 17–58; Scaltsas, 1994, pp. 8–27, 97–120; Byrne, 2001), but certain remarks, related to the subject in question, should be included in the current debate.

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The essence of Aristotle’s approach is to use the idea of potentiality as the basis for the semantic structure of ὕλη. The following quotation (De anima, 412a5–9; tr. by J. A. Smith) (Barnes, 1991, 1, p. 21) illustrates this: We say that substance is one kind of what is, and that in several senses: in the sense of matter or that which in itself is not a this (ὡς ὕλην, ὃ καθ’ αὑτὸ οὐκ ἔστι τόδε τι), and in the sense of form or essence, which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called a this, and thirdly in the sense of that which is compounded of both. Now matter is potentiality (ἔστι δ’ ἡ μὲν ὕλη δύναμις), form actuality;…

One can see here that the secondary, not the basic, sense of ὕλη – ‘wooden material for construction’ – arisen due to metonymy, became the subject of significant generalization. It proves to be a source domain for the general conceptual metaphor which considers the material of all things as “the thing potentially.” The metaphor of the thing potentially is a wooden material for construction, in turn, yields a number of more narrow metaphors, in particular, the important metaphor of primary matter as the potency for the four primary elements (earth, fire, water and air) (primary matter is a wooden material for construction), which is the total potentiality without any actual status. Among other examples are matter as the subject for a discourse (subject for a discourse is a wooden material for construction), as in “our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts” (Eth. Nicom. 1094b12–14; tr. by W. Ross) (Barnes, 1991, 2, p. 3); or matter as the subject of judgement in logic (subject of judgement is a wooden material for construction; De caelo. 268a20–23), and so forth. Ultimately, the use of these conceptual metaphors by Aristotle is influenced by the theoretical problems that Aristotle encountered; put another way, it is influenced by the necessity of finding a language for the description of the abstract domains that he addresses (or creates) in his philosophy. Thanks to Aristotle, this metaphor becomes commonly used, and gradually penetrates into literature and everyday language.

2.3

Features of philosophical terminology at level C and level D of FLTCD

The case of ὕλη is not unique. There is convincing evidence that philosophical terms in Ancient Greece are originally conceptual metaphors. Semantic trajectories of the words ιδέα, εἶδος, and χώρα provide other interesting examples of this.

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

Thus, before Plato, the word ιδέα had a basic meaning of ‘a visual form of an object,’ and Plato himself uses it in this sense (e.g., τὴν δ’ οὖν ἰδέαν πάνυ καλός (Prot. 315e) “certainly remarkable for his good looks”; tr. by B. Jowett) (Plato, 1892, 1, p. 137). The word εἶδος also had a basic meaning of ‘form, shape,’ in particular, ‘human form or figure,’ frequent in Homer’s texts. One can find this word in the same sense in Plato’s dialogues (e.g., Sym. 210b). At the same time, in the philosophical system of Plato, these words took on a different meaning, denoting ideal structures that oppose material objects and are considered structural prototypes for these objects (e.g., Herrmann, 2007, pp. 95–178). As in the case of Aristotle’s ὕλη, Plato’s terminological choice was influenced by the requests of his philosophical system (he contrasted physical vision to intellectual vision, and physical forms to intellectual ones), and his construal both was based on the general meaning and transformed it. The case of the word χώρα is positioned along these lines. Before Plato it had the meaning of ‘a land, countryside,’ often as opposed to polis, then a position, proper place of a person or thing (in particular, a soldier’s post), in other words, a place that endows the objects it contains with special properties. Plato in his “Timaeus” used this semantic aspect of χώρα to distinguish between ideal forms and material objects and to explain certain properties of material objects that are not characteristic of ideal forms (change in shape, structure, position in space, etc.). In Plato’s model introduced in “Timaeus,” material things are endowed with these properties by χώρα that is considered a substratum of instability and mutability (Borodaj, 2008, pp. 100–132). One can see that Plato’s χώρα and Aristotle’s ὕλη have similar functions in their philosophical systems (they explain the property of mutability of material things), but the philosophers develop different models and, therefore, use different conceptual metaphors.18 That said, for both philosophers, deep links with general language are decisive, and this is likely to be a common feature of the philosophical terms in early theoretical cultures, positioned at Level C. At the same time, it is not the case for many philosophers of the modern era, who introduce philosophical terms positioned at level D. Schelling’s Intelligenz, Hegel’s Absoluter Geist and many other categories of modern philosophy have no direct links with general language. In accordance with the remark by Piaget and

18. Interestingly enough that χώρα was defeated in this “competition”, and even Neoplatonists utilized the concept of ὕλη in this context. This could be explained by the tension between a pejorative sense of χώρα in Plato’s system (χώρα deteriorates forms by morphing them into material things) and positive sense of this word (basically, a homeland endowing everything living on it with special properties) in general language. In the case of the word ὕλη, there is no such tension between two senses.

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Garcia quoted in Section 1.4, modern philosophers rely on the terminology developed by their predecessors. The case of Husserl’s ἐποχή provides clear evidence for that. In contrast with Intelligenz and Absoluter Geist, Husserl takes an exact Greek word and makes it one of the key concepts of his philosophy. He introduces this concept in his writing Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie published in 1913 (Husserl, 1983, pp. 59–60; tr. by F. Kersten): Here we disregard this part; we are not interested in every analytically distinguishable component of the attempt to doubt, and consequently we are not interested in the exact and fully sufficient analysis of it. We single out only the phenomenon of “parenthesizing” or “excluding” which, while obviously not restricted to the phenomenon of attempting to doubt, is particularly easy to analyze out and which can, on the contrary, make its appearance also in other combinations and, equally well, alone. With regard to any positing we can quite freely exercise this peculiar ἐποχή (In Beziehung auf jede Thesis können wir und in voller Freiheit diese eigentümliche ἐποχή üben), a certain refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken conviction of truth, even with the unshakable conviction if evident truth. The positing is “put out of action,” parenthesized, converted into the modification, “parenthesized positing;” the judgment simpliciter is converted into the “parenthesized judgment.”

A deeper analysis shows that, unlike Aristotle and Plato in the above examples, Husserl is not premised on the meaning of ἐποχή in general language (‘check, cessation, retention’), but he rather refers to the meaning of this word in stoic philosophy (‘suspension of judgement’) (e.g., Overgaard, 2004, pp. 31–133; Moran & Cohen, 2012, pp. 106–111), and also to the Cartesian principle of universal doubt. That said, he does not develop these approaches, but rather markedly transforms them, considering them material for his own philosophical model,19 which is along the lines of Piaget and Garcia’s remark. Ultimately, Husserl’s ἐποχή has no projection on general language that create a conceptual metaphor, and this seems to be a general feature of concepts positioned at Level D.20

19. Husserl is quite clear about that: “We could now let the universal ἐποχή, in our sharply determinate and novel sense (in unserem scharf bestimmen und neuen Sinne) of the term, take the place of the Cartesian attempt to doubt universally.” (Husserl, 1983, p. 60; tr. by F. Kersten; my italics – V.G.) 20. In order to avoid misunderstandings, not all concepts of modern philosophy are located at Level D. Moreover, in the philosophy of the 20th century, one can see a reverse trend towards the introduction of philosophical terms that have direct links with general language (Bergson’s intuition and Wittgenstein’s Sprachspiel ‘language game,’ among others).

Chapter 2. Cultural-historical psychology and the cognitive view of metonymy and metaphor

2.4

Conclusion

The results of the discussion provided in this chapter can be summarized in the following points: –

–

–

–

Although the structuralist view of metonymy and metaphor as general cognitive operations is lacking, these tropes correlate with fundamental cognitive processes. Conceptual metonymy is likely to be rooted in “situational” thinking and featured by the “complex” model of categorization that subsumes cognitive operations positioned at Level B of FLTCD, whereas conceptual metaphor seems to be bridging the gap between everyday experience and various abstract concepts positioned at Level C. Looking at this issue through the lens of cultural-historical theory, one can conjecture that conceptual metonymy is the basic means of semantic evolution in pre-theoretical cultures (such as hunter-gatherer cultures and those of ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon), devoid of abstract cognitive domains (Luria, 1976; Glebkin, 2011), whilst conceptual metaphor arises in early theoretical cultures (such as the ancient Greek culture) in the wake of the emergence of abstract cognitive domains as a bridge between these domains and day-to-day experience. In contrast to Lakoff and Johnson’s descriptions, primary conceptual metaphors, at least, in some important cases, have individual “biographies” which are rather bewildering. Sometimes metaphor has a concrete author. This author, facing a particular theoretical problem, creates a metaphor as a tool for solving this problem. For readers, the first usage of the metaphor by the author sounds incidental and is perceived as a feature of the author’s individual style. However, later on, thanks to the authority of its creator, the shift of meaning can gain further adherents and, step by step, comes to be commonly used, at least within a specific discourse. In other situations, the emergence of conceptual metaphor is triggered by a more complex chain of reasons, and it can have several creators. The reconstruction of such “biography” for a particular conceptual metaphor is a tantalizing puzzle in itself; however, it also is of a significant methodological value, providing us with the material to construct diachronic conceptual metaphor theory in general. Conceptual metaphor is an important tool for the “embodiment” of abstract concepts positioned at Level С, but this is unlikely to be the case for those at Level D. Concepts attributed to Level D seem to have no direct projections onto Level B and no direct links to general language.

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chapter 3

Cognitive style of early theoretical culture The case of Ancient Greece 3.0

Introduction

In this chapter, characteristics of cognitive operations at Level C in early theoretical cultures are examined by the example of Ancient Greece.21 We will also touch upon some implications of this analysis for cognitive semantics. The concept of cognitive style is a useful instrument to structure a set of these characteristics, so a brief description of this concept and a context in which it was introduced and has been developed is necessary before we proceed directly to Ancient Greece.

3.1

The contrast between Eastern and Western types of reasoning and the concept of cognitive style

The contrast between Eastern and Western cultures has been of interest to Western philosophy since at least the early modern era (the philosophy of Leibniz is clear evidence of this; see, e.g., Leibniz, 1968; Mungello, 1977, pp. 39−134). That said, until the end of the 20th century, this contrast was of a speculative nature and was not based on empirical data. The situation has changed over recent decades. Lots of experiments have been conducted to reveal the difference in reasoning, decision making, and self-construals between North Americans and Western Europeans, on the one hand, and East Asians (modern Japan, South Korea, and China), on the other.22 This contrast has been specified in a few particular contrasts such as “analytic vs. holistic cognition” (Nisbett et al., 2001; Nisbett, 2003), “rule-based vs. experience-based thinking” (Norenzayan, 1999), “formal vs. intuitive reasoning” (Norenzayan et al., 2002), “independent vs. interdependent Self ” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 2003; Kitayama et al., 2007, 2009) and, to some extent, “field-dependent vs. field-independent cognitive style.” Despite emerging earlier 21. This chapter is a revised version of Glebkin, 2015a. 22. Interestingly, researchers in this area, with rare exceptions (e.g., Varnum et al., 2008; Kitayama et al., 2009), make little difference between North Americans and Western Europeans considering them both bearers of the Western cultural model.

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

in a different context (Witkin et al., 1962; Witkin, 1967; Witkin & Berry, 1975; Berry, 1976; Witkin et al., 1977), the last contrast has been widely used in this area (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 247; Nisbett et al., 2001, p. 293). The collected data look impressive; however, they require more precise interpretation. Especially, the historical underpinnings of this set of contrasts are far from clarity. Thus, Nisbett and colleagues find the origins of an analytic type of cognition in Ancient Greece, taking for granted the strict similarity between Ancient Greek and modern Western societies. They consider these societies individualist, while the Ancient Chinese and modern East Asian communities are considered collectivist in orientation.23 Unfortunately, this notion and its possible implications (following this logic, one can claim, in particular, that the Ancient Greek way of thinking is more analytic than, say, that of modern Japan) are not properly argued by Nisbett and his colleagues. Their arguments are based on an analysis of the social and political system and scientific achievements of ancient Greece, which is too general to hold water. This case highlights a general problem that all researchers of ancient and medieval cultures encounter. Obviously, they cannot conduct real experiments and observations. Archaeological evidence aside, the only way to extract any information about how people reasoned and made decisions in these cultures is through a comprehensive analysis of the texts they wrote. It is worth quoting here the “methodologically irresoluble dilemma” posed by the German historian Reinhart Koselleck: “…every history, while in process and as occurrence, is something other than what its linguistic articulation can establish; but that this “other” in turn can only be made visible through the medium of language” (Koselleck, 2004, p. 223; сf. Pocock, 2009, pp. 106−119). This dilemma may just as well be applied to cognition: the way people think is different from its verbal representation, but we cannot understand how people of the 19th century and earlier thought and perceived the world unless we carefully analyze the texts they created. This falls directly into the domain of cognitive semantics. Nevertheless, one can hardly encounter any studies that provides one with a precise analysis of different types of texts attributed to a particular culture in order to reveal cognitive models common to these texts. In this chapter, a methodology for such an analysis is developed using the example of Ancient Greek culture. The concept of ‘cognitive style’ is a substantial part of this methodology. This concept has been used in a wide range of research domains (Rubin, 1970; Berzonsky & Ondrako, 1974; 23. “There is substantial evidence that the social psychological differences characteristic of ancient China and Greece do in fact persist. China and other East Asian societies remain collectivist and oriented toward the group, whereas America and other European-influenced societies are more individualist in orientation” (Nisbett et al., 2001, pp. 295).

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Witkin et al., 1977; Logan, 1983; Roberge & Flexer, 1983; Fuchs, 1991; McIntyre & Meloche, 1995; Judice, 1997; Riding & Rayner, 1998, 2000; Tomes, 2004; cf. the concept of ‘mind style’ in Semino, 2002, 2007) in a slightly different way, so there are several versions of this concept (cf. Tomes, 2004, pp. 47−48). That said, certain features common to all versions can be recognized: (a) Cognitive styles refer to the form rather than the content of cognitive activity; (b) they are metadisciplinary in nature; (c) they are stable over time; (d) they are bipolar, that is, they can be sorted into opposite pairs (field-dependency vs. independency; holist vs. serialist thinking; adaptors vs. innovators, and so on) (Witkin et al.,1977, pp. 15−16; Riding & Rayner, 1998, p. 20). There are two peculiarities of how this concept is used in this book: First, it is applied to a particular culture, not to a particular person; in other words, it refers to the mode of thinking common to a significant number of people in this culture, involved in different types of intellectual activity; second, certain criteria to compare cognitive styles are developed in order to put them into correspondence with the cognitive levels of FLTCD. The basic property of the cognitive style we will focus on is the contrast of “field-dependency vs. field-independency.” Following Witkin, the field-independent cognitive style characterizes the tendency to distinguish objects from their surroundings, whereas the field-dependent style is associated with the strict connection between surroundings and objects. In particular, people with the fielddependent style are more likely to follow external instructions, while people with field-independent style prefer to base their actions on their own internal basis (Witkin et al., 1977, pp. 2–14). As regards the terms of complex thinking and conceptual thinking discussed in the previous chapter, the former term corresponds to the strongly field-dependent cognitive style (the decision is deeply influenced by the situational context) and, consequently, Level B of FLTCD, while the latter type of thinking can be characterized as field-independent (the decision is determined by general rules that have no connection with a particular situation) and considered a feature of cognitive operations at Level C and Level D of FLTCD. The links between Vygotsky’s approach and that of Witkin and his colleagues become clearer if addressing the notion of “field binding” (svjazannost’ s polem) that was outlined in the later research of Vygotsky (Samukhin et al., 1981; Vygotsky, 1984). Introducing the concept of ‘field binding,’ Vygotsky was influenced by Kurt Lewin’s field theory (e.g., Lewin, 1975). Lewin extended a physical theory of field to psychological and social domains, interpreting an individual’s behavior as being the total of various forces which affect an individual. Along with physical forces, Lewin also considered psychological and social forces (in a more traditional way, motives, stimuli, needs, and obstacles). In its primary version, this approach might have been

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

too formal and too close to mathematics and physics. However, Vygotsky found in the field theory a certain basis for his conception of complex thinking. As argued in the previous chapter, complex thinking is determined by a piece of perceptual information obtained “here and now.” Within the scope of field theory, this can be considered the strong impact of situational “forces” on thinking, which is represented in the concept of field binding. It is easy to see that the conception of field binding is close to Witkin’s contrast of field-dependent vs. field-independent cognitive style, also influenced by Lewin’s ideas. In the following sections, the conception of field dependency (or field binding) is applied to distinguish cognitive operations at Level C in early theoretical cultures and those at Level D in developed theoretical cultures and to argue, in particular, that Nisbett’s ideas about the strong similarity between Ancient Greek and modern Western ways of reasoning are likely to be wrong. In this context, the main methodological problem is how to compare these cognitive operations and measure the discrepancies between them. Unfortunately, we have no time machine and, hence, no opportunity to test Ancient Greeks directly; therefore, Witkin’s Rod-and-Frame Test and his Body-Adjustment Test as well as the Framed-Line Test by Kitayama cannot be useful in this case. Once again, the only way to examine properties of cognitive operations in Ancient Greek culture is a versatile analysis of texts. Some examples of such an analysis are given in the following sections.

3.2

Peculiarities of cognitive operations in the first large-scale civilizations

As outlined in the previous chapters, conceptual thinking and cognitive Level C of FLTCD emerge in early theoretical cultures rather than in first large-scale civilizations, such as Ancient Babylon or Ancient Egypt. In this section, general arguments for this point presented in Section 1.3 are supplemented with a brief case study. We refer to the Code of Hammurabi, the Babylonian law code, dating from around the 18th century BC. When reading a law code, one expects to find a rigid framework and general principles for constructing the text, in particular, unified models of a coherent transition from one paragraph to another. That said, the Code of Hammurabi is structured in a markedly different way. Let us take a closer look at a number of consecutive paragraphs of the code (tr. by M. Richardson; Richardson, 2004, p. 75):

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(108)

(109) (110) (111)

If instead of grain a brewer has accepted silver weighed with a large weight-stone for the price of drink, thus making the price of the drink less than the price of the grain, they shall prove that brewer guilty and throw her into the water. If there is a brewer in whose house villains have congregated but she has not caught those villains and has not taken them to the palace, such a brewer shall be killed. If a temple-woman, a priestess who has not been living in the communal house, opens a drinking house or enters a drinking house for a drink, they shall burn such a woman. If a brewer gives one keg of beer on trust, she shall receive five measures of grain at harvest.

One can see that the principles of the transition from one paragraph to another are rather strange for this type of text and similar to Darvin’s quah rather than to a structure built under abstract rules. Actually, §108 and §109 are connected by a brewer committing different types of crime, §109 and §110 by a house of a brewer, and in §111 a brewer appears again, but here she is taken as a usual trader, not as a criminal. In other words, these principles are subsumed within cognitive operations attributed to complex thinking (Glebkin, 2000, pp. 92–94). Arguably, this is not the result we might expect. We know Ancient Babylon as a large-scale civilization with complex forms of political and social life, with their own literature and art, and, to some extent, science; therefore, we might expect the closeness of the currently dominant ways of reasoning and those basic at that time, at least, in texts of the same type. Nevertheless, it is not the case. The more precise analysis of Babylonian texts shows that Babylonian “literature,” “art,” and “science” differ decidedly from the modern ones in a few substantial elements. For instance, as mentioned in Section 1.3, Babylonian “science” is closely linked with a set of practical situations (mainly related to agriculture) and does not involve any generalization. The structure of the Code of Hammurabi correlates with these principles.

3.3

The cognitive style of the ancient greek mathematics (on the example of Euclid’s elements)

Let us move on to the analysis of the cognitive style of Ancient Greek culture. Given that the cognitive style mainly characterizes the form of the cognitive activity applied to different content, it seems appropriate to explore the data in different domains of intellectual activity, trying to identify similar cognitive models.

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

For this purpose, I have chosen Ancient Greek mathematics and historiography based on three classical books, namely, Euclid’s Elements and the historical treatises of Herodotus and Thucydides. As you know, modern mathematics (at least, mathematics at school) is premised on Euclid’s Elements, the first textbook of geometry, including the major results of Ancient Greek mathematics (Waerden, 1954, pp. 121−224; Piaget & Garcia, 1976, p. 31; Heath, 1981, pp. 354−446; Kline, 1990, pp. 56−89). There is a strong opinion, characteristic of both experts and ordinary people, that modern mathematics is heir to ancient Greek mathematics. In common sense, mathematics is not grounded on socio-cultural environment. That said, there is a group of philosophers and historians of science who argue the opposite view. First of all, German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler should be mentioned in this context. In his book Der Untergang des Abendlandes (The Decline of the West), he claimed that every culture had its own mathematics, and the difference between the mathematical style of Ancient Greece and that of Modernity is crucial. He stated, in particular: Eine Zahl an sich gibt es nicht und kann es nicht geben. Es gibt mehrere Zahlenwelten, weil es mehrere Kulturen gibt. Wir finden einen indischen, arabischen, antiken, abendländischen Zahlentypus, jeder von Grund aus etwas Eignes und Einziges, jeder Ausdruck eines andern Weltgefühls, jeder Symbol von einer auch wissenschaftlich genau begrenzten Gültigkeit, Prinzip einer Ordnung des Gewordnen, in der sich das tiefste Wesen einer einzigen und keiner andern Seele spiegelt, derjenigen, welche Mittelpunkt gerade dieser und keiner andern Kultur ist. Es gibt demnach mehr als eine Mathematik. Denn ohne Zweifel ist das architektonische System der euklidischen Geometrie ein ganz andres als das der kartesischen, die Analysis von Archimedes eine andre als die von Gauß, nicht nur der Formensprache, der Absicht und den Mitteln nach, sondern vor allem in der Tiefe, im ursprünglichen Phänomen der Zahl, dessen wissenschaftliche Entwicklung sie darstellt. Diese im Geiste und durch den Geist empfangene Zahl, das Grenzerlebnis, das in ihr mit innerster Notwendigkeit versinnlicht und Form geworden ist, mithin auch die gesamte Natur, die ausgedehnte Welt, deren Bild durch diese spontane Grenzgebung entstand und die immer nur der Behandlung durch eine einzige Art von Mathematik zugänglich ist, das alles spricht nicht vom allgemeinen, sondern jedesmal von einem ganz bestimmten Menschentum. (Spengler, 1920, pp. 85−86) (There is not, and cannot be, number as such. There are several number-worlds as there are several Cultures. We find an Indian, an Arabian, a Classical, a Western type of mathematical thought and, corresponding with each, a type of number − each type fundamentally peculiar and unique, an expression of a specific worldfeeling, a symbol having a specific validity which is even capable of scientific definition, a principle of ordering the Become which reflects the central essence of one and only one soul, viz., the soul of that particular Culture. Consequently,

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there are more mathematics than one. For indubitably the inner structure of the Euclidean geometry is something quite different from that of the Cartesian, the analysis of Archimedes is something other than the analysis of Gauss, and not merely in matters of form, intuition and method but above all in essence, in the intrinsic and obligatory meaning of number which they respectively develop and set forth. This number, the horizon within which it has been able to make phenomena self-explanatory, and therefore the whole of the “nature” or worldextended that is confined in the given limits and amenable to its particular sort of mathematic, are not common to all mankind, but specific in each case to one definite sort of mankind. (tr. by Ch. Atkinson; Spengler, 1966, p. 59)

Although Spengler provided scanty evidence to support his view, certain evidence has been given in a set of later studies of historians of philosophy and historians of mathematics (Gajdenko, 1987, pp. 184−187; Katasonov, 1993, pp. 8−25; Glebkin, 1994, pp. 125−155, 2009 among others). Let us proceed to Euclid’s treatise, bearing in mind the above quotation from Spengler. We begin with the definitions of the first book and dwell on the definition of a triangle. Euclid defines a triangle as follows (Heath, 1956, 1, p. 2): Of trilateral figures, an equilateral triangle is that which has its three sides equal, an isosceles triangle that which has two of its sides alone equal, and a scalene triangle that which has its three sides unequal.

For modern mathematics, a scalene triangle represents, by default, a general case of a triangle, while an equilateral triangle is special case of it, so there is no reason to consider a scalene triangle as a special type of triangle. However, for the Ancient Greeks, the more perfect cannot be a special case of the less perfect, and it is an equilateral triangle that is a triangle par excellence. One can see that the visual image of an object and the associated ideas of harmony and beauty are considered, in this case, an important part of the object and have a strong impact on its definition. The next illustration of this principle is the difference between the concepts of number and magnitude. Let me remind you that in Ancient Greek mathematics the word ἀριθμός (number) meant only natural numbers, and rational numbers were interpreted as the ratio of two natural numbers. Unlike magnitude (μέγεθος), each number had its own visual image (εἷδος): single numbers were represented by segments, composite numbers by rectangles, squares, and so on. The definitions pertaining to magnitude are placed in the fifth book of the Elements, and those pertaining to number are placed in the seventh book (Heath, 1956, 2, pp. 113–114, 277–278). Some of them are identical, and one could say that number is a special case of magnitude (put another way, natural numbers are a special case of real numbers). However, it is not the case for Ancient Greeks. Number is more

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

perfect than magnitude, as an equilateral triangle is more perfect than a scalene. Hence, the former cannot be only a special case of the latter. It is worth emphasizing here that the idea of the perfect form, based on a visual perception, is extremely important for Ancient Greek philosophy and culture in general. The greater the perfection of an object, the more perfect its form becomes. Thus, Parmrnides’ Being (τὸ ὄν) and Plato’s Universe (κόσμος) have the most perfect form, that is, the form of a sphere (Parmen. Fr. 7; Pl. Tym. 33b –34a). The visual ground for cognition can also be illustrated by the “geometric algebra” of the second book, in which the elementary algebraic formulas, such as (a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2, are proved in the language of geometry. The proof given in Figure 4 is a clear illustration of this. It is interesting that in Elements it takes two pages, while in modern school textbooks the proof of this formula fits in one line. This case clearly demonstrates the fundamental limitations of the Ancient Greek mathematics. The “geometrization” of mathematics, its dependence on the visual field24 determined its limits; its best achievement was the solution of some equations of the third and fourth degree. The next step in this field was associated with the abstract notation of algebra, which led to the breaking of the links between numbers and their visual ground. This step was underpinned by radical cultural changes from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. These changes were outlined in Section 1.4. Let us look at them in more detail. According to Aristotle, each thing, existing by nature (Arist. Phys II 192 b9–30, tr. by R. Hardie and R. Gaye) (Barnes, 1991, 1, p. 19; cf. Festugière, 1987, pp. 67–75): has within itself a principle of motion and of stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of alteration)”, and is opposed in this aspect to such things as a bed or a coat, or other artificial products, which “have no innate impulse to change”, because “none of them has in itself the source of its own production.

In short, there is a fundamental divergence between artificial products and things existing by nature, where the latter are much more perfect than the former due to their self-sufficiency. With some caveats, this conception can be considered repre-

24. The “visual basis” of the Ancient Greek mathematics can also be recognized in terminology. Thus, according to Liddell-Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, the basic meaning of θεορέω (theorize) is ‘to look at, view, behold’ (e.g., “to view the public games”); θεορία (theory) basically means ‘sending the state-ambassadors to the oracles or games or being a spectator at the theatre or games,’ θεώρημa (theorem) – ‘sight, spectacle, object of contemplation.’ Thanks to Aristotle, these concepts were shifted from the material world to the ideal world to characterize the process, product and object of intellectual contemplation.

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Figure 4. A geometrical proof of the formula (a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2

sentative of Ancient Greek culture as a whole.25 An important implication of this conception is a view of the definition of objects (in particular, objects in geometry), which can be called eidetic. This means that an object is defined by its structure (primarily form) and not by its function. In the Middle Ages, from the Christian (or Muslim) perspective, all objects (whether material or ideal) are considered creations of God, performing a certain function in the world. They lose their self-sufficiency, and the key element in their definition is their function, not their structure. Some implications of this shift for mathematics can be illustrated by the comparison of views of number developed by Plotinus and Augustine. The former is the author of “Enneads,” an important outcome of Ancient Greek philosophy, the latter is one of the most influential early medieval philosophers and theologians. So this comparison helps us to recognize the subtle links between the change of cultural models and the further development of mathematics. For Plotinus, numbers are placed between ἕν (the One) and νοῦς (the Divine Mind). They have the higher rank than the other εἷδοτα (ideas) and are selfsufficient, retaining their form and structure (Enn. 6, 6, 8–14). This is not the case for Augustine. In his texts, numbers are morphed into tools in God’s hands,

25. At first glance, this point contradicts the basic tenets of Plato’s philosophy. For Plato, as is well known, material things are “shadows” of ideal objects, and κόσμος (the Universe), “a living soul” which “contains us and all other visible creatures” (Pl., Tim. 30 b–d, tr. by B. Jowett) (Plato, 1892, 2, p. 525), was created by the demiurge (ibid.: 29e –38b). However, in this case, the principle of self-sufficiency characterizes ideal objects (ιδέαι, εἶδοτα) that have their own visual images, as was briefly evidenced in Section 2.3. The Universe also has its own ideal prototype that is self-sufficient.

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

and this entails more abstract conception of them. Numbers lose their status, and, having received a special function from God, they can change their forms in accordance with this function. Thus, Augustine introduces numbers, perceived by senses (numeri sensibilis), numbers moving over time (temporales numeri), and so on (Epistola III, 2; De musica, VI, 57). The diversity of types and forms of number brings about the release from a visual-field dependence (Glebkin, 2009). There is another factor, perhaps more important, which causes the release from a visual-field dependence. Augustine repeatedly emphasizes that God has no perceptual characteristics and cannot be perceived through perceptual channels, extending this notion to other abstract objects, in particular geometric ones. The quote below is a clear illustration of this (tr. by Ch. Starbuck; Oates, 1948, pp. 296–297): R.26 … thought portrays to itself, for instance, a square of this or that or the other magnitude, and, as it were, brings it before the eyes; but the inner mind which wishes to see the truth, applies itself rather to that general conception, if it can, according to which it judges all these to be squares. A. What if some one should say to us that the mind judges according to what it is accustomed to see with the eyes? R. Why then does it judge, that is, if it is well trained, that a true sphere of any conceivable size is touched by a true plane at a point? How has eye ever seen, or how can eye ever see such a thing, when anything of this kind cannot be bodied forth in the pure imagination of thought? Or do we not prove this, when we describe even the smallest imaginary circle in our mind, and from it draw lines to the centre? For when we have drawn two, between which there is scarce room for a needle’s point, we are no longer able, even in imagination, to draw others between, so that they shall arrive at the centre without any commixture; whereas reason exclaims that innumerable lines can be drawn, without being able to touch each other except in the centre, so that in every interval between them even a circle could be described. Since that Phantasy cannot accomplish this, and is more deficient than the eyes themselves, since it is through them that it is inflicted on the mind, it is manifest that it differs much from Truth, and that that, when this is seen, is not seen.

Such a gap between geometric objects (numbers) and their visual representation leads to a more abstract view of them, which, in turn, provides new opportunities for mathematics, in particular, for the theory of functions. The implementation of these opportunities can be clearly illustrated by Descartes’ coordinate system. This invention made it possible to unify a wide range of forms by representing them as functions. From this perspective, the idea of the 26. R. in this context means Augustine’s reason, and A. is the abbreviation for Augustine.

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perfect form becomes irrelevant; say, the form of a sphere, considered the most perfect in Ancient Greek culture, in analytic geometry is represented by the equation (x−a)2 + (y−b)2 + (z−c)2 = R2, which is a particular case of the general equation f(x,y,z) = 0 (cf. Piaget & Garcia, 1976, pp. 90–93). A direct analogy between this case and the above discussion of the definition of a triangle seems obvious. Along with the need to develop language for representation of transcendental objects that have no perceptual characteristics, as outlined in Section 1.4, this shift from the eidetic to the functional paradigm brought about the emergence of much more abstract cognitive operations associated with Level D of FLTCD. In the terms of the contrast between field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles, this meant the loss of any direct connection with perceptual fields for cognitive operations of this type. Let us now move from mathematical to historical texts and try to identify the features of cognitive operations in this area.

3.4

The cognitive style of the ancient greek historiography (on the example of treatises of Herodotus and Thucydides)

Let me first emphasize that I will discuss not annals or chronicles but historiography, that is, “an orderly account of past events and of the people who participated in them, with a reasoned explanation of why things happened as they did” (Brown, 1954, p. 830). Herodotus and Thucydides, whose historical methods can be characterized as “narrative” and “positivist,” turn out to be two opposite poles in this respect; other antique historians are located between them (Wallace, 1964, p. 255). That is why the identification of the cognitive background common to Herodotus and Thucydides is important for understanding the general characteristics of Ancient Greek historiography. We begin with the History of Herodotus. This historian is known as the “Father of History” because his treatise is considered the first example of the elaborate systematic analysis of a huge amount of historical data. To some extent, his status in science is similar to that of Euclid. Here we focus on the first book of the History and start with the methodology. To give a more accurate analysis of the narrative structure of this book, I first identified three levels of narration: external (the basic level at which people are considered to implement various social roles, and their behavior is determined by their social environment), internal (the level corresponding to feelings, thoughts, and decisions of humans as people of free will), transcendent (the level that characterizes the actions of the gods, fate, predestination, and other factors which are believed transcendent to the human world). Then the text was divided into some structural elements, namely: events; causal

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

remarks placed either within or between events, the function of which is to clarify the events or the connections between them; expositions, which introduce the information about the venue of the event, the people involved, and other sort of information unknown to readers, but important for further narration; philosophical, existential, and other reflections and explanations. The events, in turn, were divided into three groups: “temporal markers,” i.e., references, devoid of any detail, to fill in gaps in time (e.g., Not long after the overthrow of the tyrants by the Lacedaemonians, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Athenians and the Persians (Thuc. Hist., 1, 18; tr. by B. Jowett) (Thucydides, 1900, 1, p. 13) (E0); briefly described events (E1); events described in detail (E2) (although it was not an absolute criterion, the detailed description in most cases included more than 2000 characters). Additionally, I recorded whether the event was single or iterative. Since there is no opportunity to discuss here all the aspects of the narrative structure of the first book of the History, I will focus on some observations that are important in respect of a cognitive style. First, 19% of the first chapter is occupied by the events described in detail (E2).27 Given that 21% of this chapter are ethnographic descriptions within expositions, one can stress a slow speed of narration; the view of the historian here is the view of a spectator, sensitive to details, rather than a bird’s-eye view of a researcher looking for generalizations. Additional evidence for this dependence on the visual field is provided by the fact that all the events described in detail (E2) and 67% (55 from 82) of briefly described events (E1) turn out to be spectacular descriptions based on a visual perception, like a theatrical performance. Let me illustrate this with an episode of the return of the tyrant Peisistratus to Athens (Her. Hist., 1, 60; tr. by A. Godley) (Herodotus, 1981–1990, 1, pp. 69–71): Presently his enemies who had driven him out began once more to be at feud together. Megacles then, being buffeted about by faction, sent a message to Pisistratus offering him his daughter to wife and the sovereign power besides. This offer being accepted by Pisistratus, who agreed on these terms with Megacles, they devised a plan to bring Pisistratus back, which, to my mind, was so exceeding foolish that it is strange (seeing that from old times the Hellenic has ever been distinguished from the foreign stock by its greater cleverness and its freedom from silly foolishness) that these men should devise such a plan to deceive Athenians, said to be the cunningest of the Greeks. There was in the Paeanian deme a woman called Phya, three fingers short of four cubits in stature, and for the rest fair to look upon. This woman they equipped in full armour, and put her in a chariot, giving her all such appurtenances as would make the seemliest show, and so drove into the city; heralds ran before them, and when they came into the 27. I counted the number of characters in the Greek text.

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town made proclamation as they were charged, bidding the Athenians “to give a hearty welcome to Pisistratus, whom Athene herself honoured beyond all men and was bringing back to her own citadel.” So the heralds went about and spoke thus: immediately it was reported in the demes that Athene was bringing Pisistratus back, and the townsfolk, persuaded that the woman was indeed the goddess, worshipped this human creature and welcomed Pisistratus.

One can see that the core element of the composition of this episode is the visual image of Phya-Athena, and the general structure of this episode correlates with the structure of the scenes in the comedies of Aristophanes or Menander. Second, philosophical reflections are expressed in this text not by the words of the author, but mainly by the extended remarks of the characters in the dialogues. For instance, the conception of happiness, one of the basic emotions for Herodotus and Ancient Greek culture in general, is expounded by the Athenian legislator and poet Solon in his dialog with Croesus, king of Lydia (Her. Hist., 1, 30–33). The behavior of the characters and the context of the dialog are reminiscent of a scene from the Homeric epic or an ancient tragedy and expect a viewer (listener), rather than a reader (cf. Hartog, 2000). Both of these characteristics of Herodotus’ narrative style can be considered visual-field-dependent. His narrative is a description of the sequence of visually described events, which does not include the meta-position of the author. From this perspective, it is important to discuss what factors, according to Herodotus, cause this or that historical event. Following the logic of the field-dependent cognitive style, one can expect that these factors are embedded in the stream of life “here and now” and devoid of any meta-status. The case of Herodotus is more complex. In this context, he refers to both transcendent forces (a fate, an envy of gods) and human intentions. Most often, his interpretation is guided by a cumulative principle; in other words, he gives several versions without reconciling them. However, a closer look at his text shows clearly that transcendent factors cause any event only in theory, but in practice, human quick-wittedness and stupidity turned out to be the main trigger for historical changes at the micro and macro levels. A striking illustration of this is Herodotus’ view on oracles and signs. Taking the truth of signs as an undoubted fact, he considers the capacity to interpret them in a right way to be a decisive factor for successful action, and attributes human failures to people rather than to fate or destiny (Hist.1, 65; 1, 67–68; 1,71; 1, 91, among others). Ultimately, one can conclude that for Herodotus the cloth of history is woven by specific people who implement their intentions and projects, taking into account various circumstances (such as intensions and beliefs of other people, weather, signs, and so on) in order to achieve their goals most effectively. These stances correlate directly with the field-dependent cognitive style.

Chapter 3. Cognitive style of early theoretical culture

Let us move on to the treatise of Thucydides. At first sight, his narrative manner has nothing in common with that of Herodotus. A significant part of the events in the first chapter of Thucydides’ History is represented by temporal markers; the descriptions that are based on a visual perception occupy only 13% (8 from 62) of briefly described events. At the same time, the events described in detail occupy much more space in his text than in that of Herodotus (41.5% from the total of the text). These events can be divided into two types. Some of them (12.3% from the total of the text) look like quite “cinematic” stories (e.g., a naval battle between Corinth and Corcyra (1, 48–53), or the construction of walls around Athens (1, 89–93)), the others are monologues and dialogues composed by Thucydides (29.2%). In these scenes, the characters state their views of the situation in an attempt to convince the audience to follow their suggestions. Considering their length and position in the text, they can be called the core elements of Thucydides’ writing. An analysis of these scenes allows us to draw the following conclusions: First, their composition resembles Euripides’ tragedies. Like those of Herodotus, the talks of the characters are addressed to a viewer (listener), rather than to a reader. Second, Thucydides, even much more consistently than Herodotus, recognizes the triggers for historical change in human beliefs and intentions and accompanying material factors. The transcendent level is irrelevant to his text. The situation changes decidedly in medieval historiography. The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours is a good example of these changes. The analysis of the first chapter shows that the rhythm of the narrative, dominated by temporal markers, is much more intense in this text than in the texts of Herodotus and Thucydides. Although one can find in The History of the Franks quite “cinematic” scenes, they all seem to be signs of transcendent reality, evidence of its presence in the material world. One of such scenes is quoted below (1, 35; tr. by E. Brehaut) (Gregory, 1916, p. 14): At that time Quirinus, bishop of the church of Sissek, endured glorious martyrdom in Christ’s name. The cruel pagans cast him into a river with a millstone tied to his neck, and when he had fallen into the waters he was long supported on the surface by a divine miracle, and the waters did not suck him down since the weight of crime did not press upon him. And a multitude of people standing around wondered at the thing, and despising the rage of the heathen they hastened to free the bishop. He saw this and did not permit himself to be deprived of martyrdom, and raising his eyes to heaven he said: “Jesus lord, who sittest in glory at the right hand of the Father, suffer me not to be taken from this course, but receive my soul and deign to unite me with thy martyrs in eternal peace.” With these words he gave up the ghost, and his body was taken up by the Christians and reverently buried.

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This text illustrates another important feature of the narrative style of Gregory of Tours, that is, the lack of direct causal links between events. The historical chain of events that is visual in Ancient Greek historiography, in The History of the Franks breaks up into the independent fragments, and only the transcendent perspective transforms this set of fragments into a structured whole. Like numbers for Augustine, historical events for Gregory of Tours turn out to be instruments in the hands of God, and the functional view of them replaces the eidetic one. Similar to mathematics, this entails weakening the dependence on the visual field for historiography. Later, in the Western culture of the Modern Era, both approaches to historical narration are developed. Broadly speaking, this process can be outlined as follows. On the one hand, a majority of concrete historiographic studies follow the approach of Thucydides. The only important difference is the omission of the “Euripides’ element.” The direct speech of the author replaces “inserted speeches.” In this case, one can speak of the field-dependent cognitive style and attribute this type of cognitive operations to Level C of FLTCD. On the other hand, the persistent search for a general law of historical development hidden from a superficial glance, which one can find, say, in the writings of Hegel or Marx, points directly at the Christian heritage. In this case, abstract cognitive models associated with Level D of FLTCD are postulated to determine a sequence of historical events, which characterizes the field-independent cognitive style.

3.5

Conclusion

Summing up, the concept of cognitive style and the contrast of field-dependent vs. field-independent seem to be a useful tool for specifying basic tenets of FLTCD and for distinguishing the way of theoretical reasoning in Ancient Greece from that of modern Western culture. Despite a fundamental difference between the content of cognitive operations in Ancient Greek mathematics and historiography, structural characteristics of these operations have a significant intersection. Indeed, the concept of cognitive style and the notion of field-dependency are currently not clear enough and need further clarification and elaboration. At the same time, they seem to have significant potential for unifying the principles of comparison of the cognitive levels in FLTCD. From this perspective, Level B is more field-dependent than Level С, and Level C, respectively, is more field-dependent than Level D. In other words, a chain of shifts from more fielddependent to less field-dependent cognitive operations can be considered the main principle of cognitive development in both ontogeny and phylogeny.

part ii

A cultural-historical analysis of the concept of machine

chapter 4

A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor 4.0

Introduction

machine metaphors are an essential part of modern language and the modern way of thinking.28 The machine in general, as well as a number of certain machines and their elements, have proved to be a useful tool to represent the structure and functioning of various societies, industries, and organizations. For example, Google yields 127,000 results for the search term “the Labour Party machine” (e.g. the wheels of the central Labour Party machine have turned so incredibly slowly that it is a wonder that the whole institution doesn’t grind to a halt). Individuals, both their minds and bodies, may also be metaphorized as machines. Furthermore, such expressions do not always function merely as metaphors; a great number of people believe that they account for real processes. Pinker’s claim that “we have understood the body as a wonderfully complex machine, an assembly of struts, ties, springs, pulleys, levers, joints, hinges, sockets, tanks, pipes, valves, sheaths, pumps, exchangers, and filters” (Pinker, 2009, p. 22) has a long history and is widely shared by our contemporaries. The exact distinction between human being and machine (and the possibility of making such a distinction), as well as the danger of the invasion of machines into human life, have been the subject of a heated debate since at least the mid-19th century (Sagal, 1994; Boden, 2006; Goatly, 2007, pp. 111–118). In other words, the machine discourse has attracted the attention of both lay people and experts in a wide range of academic domains including cognitive linguistics and, particularly, conceptual metaphor theory. There are a few fundamental issues to be referred to in this regard. Are machine metaphors rooted in common features of human nature and hence universal? Some scholars (Johnson, 1987, pp. 130–131; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, pp. 247–255; Kövecses, 2005, pp. 11–112; Kövecses, 2010, pp. 155–161), more or less overtly, support this point. From another perspective, such metaphors are the products of certain sociocultural situations. If it is so, what cultural processes triggered their emergence and further evolution? The common answer is that machine metaphors came about in the 28. This chapter is a revised version of Glebkin, 2013.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

Early Modern era in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the development of Newtonian physics (Goatly, 2007, pp. 102–103, 107, 111, 335–344, 361–365; cf. Des Chene, 2001; Bertman, 1991; Brandt, 1986; Hartz, 2010; Nachtomy, 2010; Phemister, 2010). However, there is strong evidence that machine metaphors appeared a long time before the Early Modern era. Many metaphors of this type and, moreover, a well-developed mechanistic philosophy can be found in the treatises of Leonardo da Vinci (Garin, 1969; Moon, 2007) and even earlier (Meier, 1955). Therefore, in order to shed further light on the emergence of machine metaphors, it is worth analysing the lexical items that designate machine in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

4.1

Conceptual structure of the words μηχανή and machina in classical and late antiquity

Before discussing a semantic representation of the machine in Antiquity, a possible misunderstanding should be clarified. The conceptualization of human activities in Ancient Greece differed radically from nowadays’. In Ancient Greece, the activities of a sculptor, a builder, a craftsman, or an engineer were considered close to each other and called τέχνη (the domain of “craft” or “art”, i.e., handson activity), as opposed to επιστήμη (the domain of “knowledge”, i.e., intellectual activity).29 The story of Daedalus, a famous character in Greek mythology, provides an impressive example of this. According to the ancient sources, he was an outstanding sculptor (D.S. IV, 76, 1–3; Apollod. II, 6, 3; Paus. 7, 4, 4–7; 9, 11, 4–5; 9, 39, 8; 9, 40, 3–4), a builder (D.S. IV, 76, 1–9; Apollod. III, 1, 4), and an architect (D.S. IV, 76, 2). These jobs, which in the modern world are considered quite different types of activity, were united in the classical world by the idea of imitation of nature. Some of Daedalus’ works, which today could be construed as machines (i.e., according to the standard definition, an assembly of interconnected components, arranged to transmit or modify mechanical energy in order to perform useful work), therefore had a markedly different meaning in Ancient Greek culture. The ancient authors admired Daedalus’s talent for imitation (D.S. IV, 76, 2; Apollod. II, 6, 3), and their remarks leave no doubt that Daedalus’s skill was in imitating nature. The idea of transforming nature for human needs was not familiar to the ancient Greeks. This general point covers, in particular, the case of the wooden cow, which is commonly considered the most popular “mechanical” creation of Daedalus. At 29. It is well beyond this discussion to examine the concept of τέχνη in detail (see, e.g., Roochnik, 1996; Roberts, 2007; Angier, 2008).

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first sight, this cow can be rendered a machine. Thus, Diodorus Siculus calls it μηχάνημα (an engine, a machine), as opposed to εἰκών or ἄγαλμα (an image, a statue), traditionally used to characterize Daedalus’s creations in ancient texts. However, the primary function of this so-called “engine” is not “to perform useful work”, but to imitate a real cow for sexual intercourse with a bull (Apollod. III, 1, 4; D.S. IV, 77, 1–2). These remarks help to clarify the methodology for further analysis. There were certain objects operating as machines in ancient Greek society. I consider the conceptual structure of lexical units designating these objects as machine-related, even though ancient authors construed these objects in a different way. According to Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, there are only five machine-related words frequently used in the ancient Greek texts: μηχανή, μηχανάομαι, μηχανεύς, μηχάνημα, and, to some extent, μηχανικός. The most significant in this context is μηχανή,30 which occurs in classical Greek texts about 260 times.31 Following Liddell & Scott (1996, p. 1131), its first meaning is ‘contrivance, esp. machine for lifting weights and the like, crane’ with distinguishing special cases, such as ‘engine of war’, ‘theatrical machine by which gods, etc., were made to appear in the air’. For example (D.S. XII, 28, 3, tr. by C. H. Oldfather) (Diodorus, 1933–1946, 4, p. 431),32 he built also siege machines (κατεσκεύασε δὲ καὶ μηχανὰς), being the first of all men to do so, such as those called "rams" and "tortoises," Artemon of Clazomenae having built them; and by pushing the siege with energy and throwing down the walls by means of the siege machines (ταῖς μηχαναῖς καταβαλὼν τὰ τείχη) he gained the mastery of Samos.

The analysis of the texts indicates that this meaning dominates. It is worth noting that in this example the performance of a siege machine is rather close to the operation of modern machines: it performs useful work by transferring mechanical energy. This engine is not created to imitate nature; it solves a solely “technical” problem, namely, to break down the resistance of enemies under siege. Following the modern machine metaphor (body or mind/brain is machine), one could expect such constructions as σῶμα is μηχανή (body is a siege machine, e.g. “his hands operated like a siege machine”) in the Ancient Greek texts. However, the extension of the core meaning of μηχανή occurs in a completely different way. According to Liddell & Scott (ibid.), the second meaning of μηχανή is ‘any artificial means or contrivance for doing a thing.’ This can be illustrated by the fol30. Importantly, the etymology of machine leads to μηχανή. 31. Here I refer to the database of Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu). 32. See also: Her. 2.125; Aesch. Sept. 132; Thuc. 2.76; Pl. Crat. 425d, Clit. 407a, etc.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

lowing example from Plato’s Symposium (190с, tr. by H. Fowler) (Plato, 1914–1930, 3, p. 137):33 Thereat Zeus and the other gods debated what they should do, and were perplexed: for they felt they could not slay them like the Giants, whom they had abolished root and branch with strokes of thunder – it would be only abolishing the honours and observances they had from men; nor yet could they endure such sinful rioting. Then Zeus, putting all his wits together, spoke at length and said: “Methinks I can contrive (δοκῶ μοι ἔχειν μηχανήν) that men, without ceasing to exist, shall give over their iniquity through a lessening of their strength.

These meanings and their variations cover the whole range of occurrences. To the best of my knowledge, the metaphors world is machine, body is machine, society is machine, or other conceptual metaphors of machine are not found in the Ancient Greek texts. This may seem unexpected, but Ancient Greek culture views machines differently than we do in the Modern era. It is easy to notice that the second meaning is connected with the first one by the concept of contrivance. It is the contrivance that links a device of an engineer who creates machines with the ingenuity of a man or god in any difficult situation. The machine, according to this view, is primarily a complicated device, a result of human ingenuity. The component “a device to perform useful work” is not relevant for this conceptual structure.34 It is interesting to discuss the reasons for this. One might explain the absence of the metaphor implementing the model world (body, society) is machine by the fact that machines had little impact on social and economic life; however, this impact was quite tangible in making machines a paradigm of a smart decision or action. Furthermore, as can be seen below, machine metaphors emerged in the preindustrial society of the early Middle Ages, where the influence of machines was no stronger than in Antiquity. We have therefore to look for the reasons at a deeper level, referring to some fundamental features of Ancient Greek culture. First, as argued in Section 3.3, the ancient Greeks distinguished between natural things and artificial products and considered the former to be more perfect that the latter, because natural things have no external causes for their existence and change in their state. Second, one of the key features of a polis as an economic, political, and social system was a stark contrast between the free and the slaves, which was believed to have natural rather than social roots. From this perspective, the slaves were born 33. See also: Her. 2.160, 3.83, 3.152; Eur. Andr. 66; I.T. 112; Pl. Sump. 191b, etc. 34. This shift of meaning can be considered a metaphor, but it is a metaphor of a completely different type.

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to perform rough physical work, whereas the free were meant to engage in various forms of intellectual activity.35 This attitude can clarify the above difference between natural and artificial: things, existing by nature, have a principle for their actions in themselves (as the free), while artificial products receive this principle from outside (as the slaves).36 Importantly, this brought about another fundamental feature of the Ancient Greek value system: contemplation of ideal structures and the art of rhetoric had a much more honorable social status than the creation of material objects and any operations with them. This view permeated Ancient Greek culture and can be found in plenty of texts. For example, Aristotelian νοῦς (the Mind of the Universe) “thinks itself through participation in the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought by the act of apprehension and thinking, so that thought (νοῦς) and the object of thought are the same” (Arist. Metaph. XII 1072 a19–23, tr. by H. Tredennick) (Aristotle, 1935, 2, p. 149).37 Contemplation is also considered the highest form of activity for humans (Arist. Nic. Eth. 1177a17–20).38 It might have been Plutarch (Per. 2.1–2, tr. by B. Perrin; Plutarch, 1958, p. 5) who expressed this notion most clearly: Labour with one’s own hands on lowly tasks gives witness, in the toil thus expended on useless things, to one’s own indifference to higher things. No generous youth, from seeing the Zeus at Pisa or the Hera at Argos, longs to be Pheidias or Polycleitus; nor to be Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus out of pleasure in their poems. For it does not of necessity follow that, if the work delights you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of your esteem.

Third, the cultural function of μάντις (one who divines, a seer, a prophet) need to be referred to. Prophets were supposed to interpret oracles of gods, and the importance of such an activity in Ancient Greek society can hardly be overestimated. Almost all political decisions were based on the appeal to gods and on the interpretation of their oracles. Moreover, such an ability to correctly interpret the signs of the gods, or, more generally, to solve riddles, the ancient Greeks considered their unique property that distinguishes them from other peoples.39 This skill was transferred to nature, and explanations of various “riddles” of nature unexpectedly

35. Aristotle overtly states this in Politics (see, e.g. 1254b27–33). 36. This does not actually mean that the slaves are artificial products, but it does mean that, according to Aristotle, both the slaves and artificial products (as well as cows, horses and other domestic animals) do not have their own purpose of existence but exist in order to be used by the free for help in everyday life. 37. See also Parmen. Fr. 7; Arist. Metaph. XII 1074b15–1075a10. 38. See also Pl. Smp. 210e –211b, Phd. 107c –108c, RP VII 514a –517c. 39. See, e.g., Her. 1.67–68, 5.92, 7.57, 7.140–141

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

appear in various historical and philosophical texts (see, e.g. Herodotus’s, 2.19–22, 3.12, explanation of the flood of the Nile and the strength of Egyptian skulls). In view of that, the activity of an artisan was considered ambivalent; on the one hand, the products of such activity were only pale images of reality, on the other hand, the ability to imitate nature correlated with the ability to solve its riddles, and, therefore, was assessed as quite valuable. This might be a reason for the fact that the idea of contrivance (as a kind of generalization of the ability to solve riddles) determined the way of expansion of the basic meaning of μηχανή. The situation in Roman culture was similar. According to the data of A Latin dictionary by Lewis & Short (1958, pp. 1092–1093), one can find the following words in the Latin language with the semantic in question: machina, machinatio, machinor and, to some extent, machinatus, machinator, machinamentum. Machina is apparently the most frequently used and the most important word. Its basic meaning is ‘a machine, i.e., any artificial contrivance for performing work, an engine, fabric, frame, scaffolding, staging, easel, warlike engine, military machine, etc.’. A direct analogy with the case of Ancient Greece is obvious. The second meaning also coincides with that of Ancient Greece: ‘a device, plan, contrivance; esp. a trick, artifice, stratagem.’ In other words, based on the dictionary entries, one can see a close similarity of the conceptual structures of words designating machines between Ancient Greek and Latin. This observation is confirmed by a direct analysis of the texts. I could not find in them metaphors that implement the model world (body, society) is machine. Perhaps the only exception to this rule is the fragment of the poem «De rerum natura» by Lucretius (5.91–96; tr. by W. Leonard) (Lucretius, 2004, p. 148): But for the rest, – lest we delay thee here Longer by empty promises – behold, Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky: O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo, Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike, Three frames so vast, a single day shall give Unto annihilation! Then shall crash That massive form and fabric of the world Sustained so many aeons (multosque per annos sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi)!

However, even in this lone passage from Lucretius’ poem this metaphor is more likely to be attributed to the enormous size of the world than to its structure. Ultimately, conceptual metaphors of machine, such as world is machine, society is machine, and so on, cannot be found in Antiquity.

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4.2

Conceptual structure of the word machina in the Middle Ages

The situation changed crucially in the Middle Ages. In order to illustrate the direction and character of these changes, I will explore Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina (PL) (1844–1855), an enormous collection of writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers from the end of the 2nd to the beginning of the 13th centuries. A comprehensive analysis of the machine-related semantics, exposed in all volumes of the collection, would require another book, so I will limit myself to examining all occurrences of the word machina in volumes 1–47 (this extract includes the authors from Tertullian to Augustine, i.e., from the end of the 2nd to the first third of the 5th century), and 182–221 (from Bernard of Clairvaux to Pope Innocent III, i.e., 12th century) volumes of the collection.40 This will help tracing the semantic evolution of machina from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and also through the Middle Ages. The results are reported in Table 1. The table shows the number of occurrences of the word machina in any form in each of the marked senses, the total number of occurrences, and the percentage of comparative frequency. It also records the number of the authors who use this word with a particular sense, the percentage of these authors in the ratio to the total of the authors using it with any sense, and that for the total of the authors in the examined volumes of PL. The data are sorted into two groups: one group includes volumes 1–47, the other comprises volumes 182–221. Thus, the entry “14 authors (41.2%, 13.9%)” means that 14 authors use the word machina in the first sense, which corresponds to 41.2% of all authors using the word in any sense, and 13.9% of the total number of authors of volumes 1–47. Let us analyse the data presented in Table 1, starting with volumes 1–47. As can be seen, 34 authors (i.e., 36.6% from the total of the authors in these volumes) use the word machina at least once, and the total of occurrences is 127.41 The first set of senses coincides with that used in Antiquity: ‘a machine for lifting weights and the like,’ ‘an engine of war,’ and so on. For example,

40. It corresponds to the 1st and 5th CD in the Patrologia Latina Database, so these data sets can be roughly considered as equal. 41. I counted all the occurrences of the word machina in all its forms, with the proviso that in the historical chronicles all mentions of the same object (e.g., a siege machine), as well as mentions of similar objects within the same event (e.g., one siege machine … another siege machine) were considered one entry.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

Table 1. Conceptual structure of machina in the Middle Ages Machine for lifting weights and the like, engine of war etc.

Any artificial means or contrivance for doing a thing

Physical and social object (world, body, ecclesia etc.) as machine

Total

V. 1–47 (the end of 2nd to the first third of 5th cent.)

46 instances (36.2%), 14 authors (41.2%, 13.9%)

57 instances (44.9%), 18 authors (53%, 17.8%)

24 instances (18.9%), 14 authors (41.2%, 13.9%)

127 instances, 34 from 101 authors (36.6%)

V. 182–221 (12th cent.)

169 instances (55.8%), 30 authors (37%, 19.5%)

67 instances (22.1%), 31 authors (38.3%, 20.1%)

67 instances (22.1%), 31 authors (38.3%, 20.1%)

303 instances, 81 from 154 authors (52.6%)

thrown back by him (Josephus Flavius – V.G.), Vespasian continues to besiege the town, draws up the troops around it, shutters the town walls by machines (machinis murum quatit) and rams them.42 (Ambrosius Mediolanensis, De exidio urbis Hierosolymitanae, I, 10; PL 015, 2079B)43

In this context, the most frequent sense is the ‘engine of war,’ but one can also see here ‘Trojan Horse,’44 and ‘something like a winch for supplying water.’45 The second set of senses, at least at first sight, is also close to that used in Antiquity: ‘any artificial means or contrivance for making a thing.’ However, a more precise examination exposes a profound mismatch between them. First of all, it is essential to stress that in the Middle Ages the system of mappings between the first and the second sets of senses differed radically from that used in Antiquity. It was the concept of contrivance that linked them in Antiquity, while in the Middle Ages this concept was replaced by the concepts of battle, siege, and building construction, projected onto mental or volition processes; accordingly, they became a source domain for a new set of conceptual metaphors. Let me illustrate this observation with two examples.

42. 43. 44. 45.

If the translator’s name is not indicated, it is my own translation. These figures indicate the volume, the page and the column in Patrologia Latina. Philastrius Brixiensis, De haeresibus; PL, 12, 1141A. Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi; 20, 0192A.

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Dear brother, you acted very substantially and thoughtfully to have sent us an acolyte Nicephore, who notified us about the glorious return of the confessors, and equipped us quite well against new pernicious plans of Novatin and Novat, who have prepared a siege of Christ’s Ecclesia (adversus Novatiani et Novati novas et perniciosas ad impugnandam Christi Ecclesiam machinas plenissime instrueret). (Cornelius papa, Epistola VII; PL 003, 725B –726A) The City of God is fortified … It is secured by towers from each side, from where the forthcoming Devil can be noticed. The Devil has the troops which he would use to siege God’s souls, bring siege engines (consuevit admovere machinas) to capture fortified towers. (Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Enarrationes in XII psalmos Davidicos; PL 014, 1154C)

These examples emphasize two aspects of metaphorical constructions within the second set of senses. First, a contrivance in these texts is not an instantaneous insight like the above decision of Zeus in Plato’s “Symposium,” but a system of rationally ordered elements, a mental construction with a rather complex structure. Second, such a contrivance is mostly an insidious plan of the devil and other enemies of God, in other words, it is evaluated negatively. Simplicity, but not contrivance, is a Christian virtue. It is worth noting that this meaning is the most frequent in the second set of meanings (40 occurrences from 57; 70.2%). The second subset of meanings is subsumed under the metaphor of building construction. It is Augustine who uses it most frequently. One of the most impressive illustrations of his approach is a fragment from one of his sermons. He draws a parallel between the Birth, Terrestrial Life and Crucifixion of Christ, and tools used in construction. The time of use of these tools is limited, after which they become useless; however, the building will remain forever. In a similar way, the Terrestrial Life of Christ is a temporary instrument (machina) to build the edifice of Christian Church headed by Jesus Christ in heaven.46 It is noteworthy that the model for this construction metaphor is the creation of the Universe by God, who acts here as the divine artist creating majestic fabric – put another way, the Craftsman. This statement can be illustrated by the following quotation from Augustine’s Confessions (tr. by H. Chadwick; Saint Augustine, 1998, 226–227): 46. “Machinae autem per quas aedificatum est, transierunt … Omnia haec machinae deputantur, ut aedificaretur per has machinas illud quod manet in aeternum. Haec autem resurrectio Domini nostri Jesu Christi in coelo posita est” (Aug. Sermones de diversis; PL 039: 1615). See also: Aug. Sermones de diversis; PL 039: 1519; Aug. Enarrationes in Psalmos; PL 037: 1084; Aug. De doctrina Christiana, I, 39; PL 034: 36; Aug. De sermone Domini in monte, I, 2; PL 034: 1233, among others.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

How did you make heaven and earth, and what machine did you use for so vast an operation (quae machina tam grandis operationis tuae)? You were not like a craftsman who makes one physical object out of another by an act of personal choice in his mind, which has the power to impose the form which by an inner eye it can see within itself. This capacity it has only because you have so made it. He imposes form on what already exists and possesses being, such as earth or stone or wood or gold or any material of that sort. And these materials exist only because you had first made them. By your creation the craftsman has a body, a mind by which he commands its members, material out of which he makes something, a skill by which he masters his art and sees inwardly what he is making outwardly. From your creation come the bodily senses which he uses to translate his mental concept into the material objects he is making, and to report back to the mind what has been made, so that the mind within may deliberate with the truth presiding over it to consider whether the work has been well done. All these praise you, the creator of everything.

Importantly, for Augustine all acts of human creativity are merely pale shadows of the divine creation, and it is God who gives the ultimate authority for the creative acts of human beings. This image of the divine artist helps to clarify the structure of the third set of senses. The universe and its parts, considered self-contained entities in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages morph into God’s creatures, identified as machinas. Most often, the universe (mundus) is designated in such a way (12 instances from 24; 50%), but also heaven (coelum) (six instances; 25%), body (corpus) (five instances; 20.8%), animal (one instance; 4.2%). Importantly, there is a notable difference between this set of senses and the previous one: such entities as the universe are not instruments in a traditional sense; they are not used for practical purposes such as building construction. Usually, they refer to the creation of particular objects by God.47 It is legitimate to ask therefore about the reason for calling them machinae.48 Arguably, the universe, heaven, and other creations of God can be understood as instruments in a broader sense – as the instruments for God’s designs, unknown to humans. This view appears to be a visible trans47. See, e.g. Auctor incertus, De laudibus Domini; PL 6, 45C; Auctor incertus, Hymnus ad Matutinum; PL 17, 1177; Auctor incertus, De vocatione gentium; PL 17, 114B–C; Coelus Sedulius, Carmen Paschale; PL 19, 577A; Auctor incertus (Rufius Aquileiensis) Commentarius in Joel prophetam; PL 21, 1049A, 1051B; Auctor incertus (Hieronymus Stridonensis) Regula monacharum, 30, PL 394A–B. 48. In some cases, the word machina can be treated as an emphasis of the huge weight of an object (this usage is similar to that of Lucretius). See, for example, the description of the elephant in Hexameron by Ambrose of Milan: “and it doesn’t bend its knees, because its shins must be as firm as columns to bear the fabric of its body (quo velut columnis tanta possit membrorum machina sustineri)” (Ambrosius Mediolanensis, Hexameron; PL 14, 253 B–C). However, this explanation seems appropriate only for a few occurrences.

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formation of the views of the universe in Antiquity. As mentioned above, both the universe and every natural object were considered in Antiquity self-contained entities that had in themselves a principle of movement and change in their state. In the Middle Ages, the cause of this movement was supposed to be external; put another way, natural objects were likened to machines. Summing up, there is robust evidence that the conceptual structure of the word machina decidedly changed from Antiquity to the Middle Ages; in particular, three kinds of conceptual metaphors arose in medieval texts: the metaphor representing a design (usually impious) as a siege engine (e.g., pernicious plans are siege engines from the above Cornelius papa example), the metaphor of a spiritual action is scaffolding to build a spiritual construction, and the metaphor of the universe, heaven, body, and animal are machines. As mentioned above, this fact can hardly be explained by socio-economic changes: the period from the end of the 2nd to the first third of the 5th centuries is known as the decline of the Roman Empire, and it would be strange to call this period the time of technological progress. Moreover, the texts examined above leave no doubt that the technological basis for the new metaphors is the same as in Antiquity (a siege machine, etc.); it was the general cultural framework that changed. The transformation of basic elements of the cultural model from Antiquity to the Middle Ages led to many local transformations and, in particular, provided the actualization of mappings that were latent. The analysis of the 12th century texts confirms and specifies these points. It is easy to notice that both the number of occurrences and the percentage of authors using the word machina increase notably. Some semantic models, which used to be uncommon and required special contexts or reservations in the Early Middle Ages, are now considered commonplaces and are widely used in various texts. Let me move on to a more scrupulous analysis. Looking at Table 1, one can notice two tangible changes in the semantic “weights” of the sets of meanings in comparison with those of the end of the 2nd to the first third of the 5th centuries.49 First, the second set loses some of its significance (one can see a decrease of the percentage of both occurrences and authors). This change might have been influenced by consolidation within the Christian Church. The incessant struggle against heresies had passed into history; Christian doctrinal construction

49. A sharp increase in occurrences in the first set of senses does not present any tendency. A majority of these occurrences (90 from 169) appear in the two historical chronics: Historia rerum gestarum in partibus transmarinis by Guilelmus Tyrensis and Historia ecclesiastica by Ordericus Vitalis.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

looked well-formed and well defended. As a result, metaphors of siege and battle became less common. Second, the third set extends its influence. Both the frequency of occurrences and the percentage of authors (in the ratio to the total of the authors collected in these volumes) increase noticably, and such phrases as machina mundi and rerum machina now are perceived as close to clichés.50 The spectrum of objects called machines is as follows: the universe (mundus) – 51 occurrences from 67 (76.1%); Church (Ecclesia) – eight occurrences (11.9%);51 body (corpus) – four occurrences (6%);52 heaven (coelum) – two occurrences (3%);53 humanity (humanitas) – one occurrence (1.5%);54 temple (templum) – one occurrence (1.5%).55 A certain novelty as compared with the similar spectrum at the end of 2nd to the first third of 5th centuries is the Church represented as machine. The following example illustrates this: The columns bearing this house are bishops supporting the construction of Church (machinam Ecclesiae) by word and life. (Sicardus Cremonensis, Mirale sive Summa de officiis ecclesiasticus; PL 213, 22B)

The structure of this metaphor is worth attention: the church is a construction is the source domain for the church is a community, and such a construction, in turn, is conceptualized as a machine. Here we can see a notable inversion: as mentioned, machines in Antiquity were considered sculptures or architectural constructions, while in the Middle Ages such constructions are presented as machines. This observation provides a clear illustration of the transformation of the basic elements of the general cultural model from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

50. See, e.g.: Alanus de Insulis, De planctu naturae; PL 210, 445A; Absalon Spinckirsbacensis, Sermones; PL 211, 173C–D; Petrus Pictaviensis, Sententiae; 211, 958C. 51. See: Gerhohus Reicherspergensis, Expositio in Psalmos; PL 194, 595A; Philippus de Harveng, Commentaria in Cantica canticorum; PL 203, 221B; etc. 52. See: Hugo Eterianus, De anima corpore exuta; PL 202, 208B Robertus Pullus, Sententiae; PL 186, 691A; etc. 53. See: Petrus Lombardus, Commentaria in Psalmos; PL 191, 1196C; Aelredus Rievallensis, De bello Standardii; PL 195, 704C–D. 54. See: Alanus de Insulis, Anticlaudianus; PL 210, 499D. 55. See: Nicolaus Claraevallensis, In nativitate Domini; PL 184, 827D –828C.

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4.3

Conclusion

It is now time to return to the questions raised in the introduction. Is the conceptual metaphor of machine universal? If not, at what time did it emerge and what was the reason for that? There is robust evidence that two common answers to these questions fall short of the truth. One cannot find a conceptual metaphor of machine, such as universe is machine, society is machine, and so on, in Antiquity, therefore, the hypothesis of its universality is wrong; at the same time, a significant number of such metaphors appears in the Middle Ages, long before Newton and the Industrial Revolution. To be sure, socio-economic and cultural processes of Modernity significantly extended the field of application and gave rise to a great number of novel types of machine metaphors, but the foundation for their growth and propagation is located in the cultural paradigm of Christianity. In particular, the philosophies of Descartes and Leibniz provide important samples of the mechanistic approach to the world and human being.56 Let us dwell for a while on the philosophy of Leibniz (Descartes’s philosophy is examined in the next chapter). Leibniz calls soul and body automata,57 i.e., certain types of machines, and claims that they did not interact directly, giving the following explanation of their harmonious interaction (tr. by E.M. Huggard; Leibniz, 1985, p. 157): Being on other considerations already convinced of the principle of Harmony in general, I was in consequence convinced likewise of the preformation and the Pre-established Harmony of all things amongst themselves, of that between nature and grace, between the decrees of God and our actions foreseen, between all parts of matter, and even between the future and the past, the whole in conformity with the sovereign wisdom of God, whose works are the most harmonious it is possible to conceive. Thus I could not fail to arrive at the system which declares that God created the soul in the beginning in such a fashion that it must produce and represent to itself successively that which takes place within the body, and the body also in such a fashion that it must do of itself that which the soul ordains. Consequently the laws that connect the thoughts of the soul in the order of final causes and in accordance with the evolution of perceptions must produce pictures that meet and harmonize with the impressions of bodies on our organs; and likewise the laws of movements in the body, which follow one another in the order of efficient causes, meet and so harmonize with the thoughts of the soul that the body is induced to act at the time when the soul wills it.

56. It is worth also mentioning the commonly quoted extract from Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (Hobbes, 1997, p. 9; cf. Goatly, 2007, pp. 362–363; Brandt, 1986). 57. See, e.g. Leibniz, 1985, pp. 65, 151, 157, 159, 246, 364.

Chapter 4. A sociocultural history of the machine metaphor

Far from its being prejudicial, nothing can be more favourable to freedom than that system. And M. Jacquelot has demonstrated well in his book on the Conformity of Faith with Reason, that it is just as if he who knows all that I shall order a servant to do the whole day long on the morrow made an automaton entirely resembling this servant, to carry out to-morrow at the right moment all that I should order; and yet that would not prevent me from ordering freely all that I should please, although the action of the automaton that would serve me would not be in the least free.

Arguably, it would not be radical to state that Leibniz’s model is a mere philosophical actualization (though quite sophisticated) of new opportunities outlined by Christian thought in the Middle Ages. The idea of the Pre-established Harmony, and, in particular, the idea of harmonization of actions of soul and body, seem to be a logical extension of the medieval image of God as an “intelligent Designer” and the ultimate cause of all events and actions (cf. Hartz, 2010; Phemister, 2010). Based on the above analysis, it is worth addressing some methodological issues important for the next chapters. In Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Blowup” a scene of affection, after enlarging the negatives, transforms into a scene of an attempted of an actual murder. This seems to be a good image to characterize the marked transformation of the initial view of conceptual metaphor from a more precise perspective. Conceptual Metaphor Theory in its original version was based on the principle that primary metaphors, such as category is container, more is up, affection is warmth, and even time is money, were determined by the fundamental constants of the perceptual experience of human beings, and, therefore, could not change or evolve, had no history (see Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, pp. 7–9, 1999, pp. 50–51). Later, however, plenty of studies, conducted from various perspectives (Geeraerts & Grondelaers, 1995; Geeraerts, 1997, 2006; Kövecses, 2005, 2010a; Gevaert, 2005; Geeraerts & Gevaert, 2008; Geeraerts et al., 2011; Mischler, 2013, pp. 39–190 among others), provided strong evidence that such metaphors, being much more complex structures, have strong sociocultural underpinnings. At least in some cases, this has brought about a radical transformation of the initial view of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which correlates well with Antonioni’s shift in perspective. Anonymous objects have found their own, sometimes quite unexpected biographies. A scrupulous reconstruction of these biographies for specific types of metaphors provides important data for specifying the theoretical framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The machine metaphor is one such type, and the above analysis paves the way for possible generalizations. Some of these are presented in Chapter 6.

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chapter 5

The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era The case of Francis Bacon and René Descartes 5.0

Introduction

It has been a commonplace for philosophers, sociologists, and historians of science over the last century that socio-cultural (mainly religious) factors, along with socio-economic reasons, had a strong impact on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. While some authors find such factors in Puritan values (e.g., Stimson, 1935; Westfall, 1958; Merton, 1970, pp. 55–136; Mason, 1974; Webster, 1975; Harrison, 1998, pp.161–266), others stress the importance of the dogmas of the Christian Trinity and the incarnation for the methodology of early modern science (e.g., Kojève, 1964; Nicolescu, 1991, pp. 110–117, 2014, pp. 3–6), and still others point to some ideas of the last Scholastics (e.g., Duhem, 1958, pp. 56–78; Crombie, 1963; Jaki, 1978, pp. 34–49; Wallace, 1981; Hooykaas, 1987, pp. 456–458), and also attend to the role of Renaissance astrology, alchemy, and magic in this process (e.g., Yates, 1964; Webster, 1982; Popkin, 1990; Dobbs, 1991; cf. Westman, 1977; McGuire, 1977; Copenhaver, 1990; Jones, 2008; Coudert, 2009). Sharing the point of importance of sociocultural factors in the Scientific Revolution, in this chapter, I will specify the nature and impact of these factors, deferring on the results of the previous chapter.58 A detailed analysis of the concept of machine in texts of Descartes and Bacon provides a ground for this specification. As argued in the previous chapter, conceptual metaphors of the machine, such as world is machine, society is machine, and human being is machine, are not present in Antiquity; they emerge in the Early Middle Ages and become more and more popular through the Middle Ages. The reason for that is not socioeconomic factors, such as the Industrial Revolution, but a radical change of the image of the universe from a self-sufficient cosmos to the creation of God. It is important in the context of this discussion that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries machine metaphors became triggers for new theories of natural philosophy. In particular, William Ockham and Jean Buridan considered mechanical causes (causae efficientes), and not the pre-arranged, purposive causes 58. This chapter is a revised version of Glebkin, 2019a.

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

(causae finales) of Aristotle, to be the factors influencing the movement and change of natural objects (e.g., Lagerlund, 2021). These ideas had a strong impact on the posterior development of science (Meier, 1955). Thus, in the Renaissance culture, machine models are used quite consciously, and Leonardo da Vinci, for example, considers the human body to be a machine, the bird to be a machine, and so on (Garin, 1969, pp. 49–69). Another important issue within this scope is the tenet of a single set of causes for the emergence of early modern science, taken for granted by many researchers. An analysis of the development of mechanistic philosophy at that time provides clear evidence that this type of philosophy was alien to some scholars who had a strong influence on the ideology of early modern science, in particular, to Francis Bacon. This casts doubt on the above tenet. The divergences between the philosophy of Bacon, on one hand, and that of “mechanistic philosophers,” such as René Descartes, on the other hand, are profound; moreover, they cover both fundamental features of their philosophies (their attitudes towards the nature of humans, the relationship between man and God, the structure of the Universe, etc.) and technical aspects of their research methods. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that such contrasting approaches cannot have the same cultural-historical underpinnings. Put another way, the cultural milieu feeding early modern science is heterogeneous; hence, one cannot speak about the cultural context and religious context in general, but must be more specific in the description. The following sections of this chapter examine certain features of the philosophies of Bacon and Descartes, who are considered the originators of two opposite (at least in some basic aspects) research programs. The objective of such an analysis is to identify the main cultural paradigms on which these scholars based their approaches. As previously mentioned, the use of machine metaphors by Bacon and Descartes provides important data for this.

5.1

The philosophical basis of the research programmes of Bacon and Descartes

Various aspects of the philosophies of Bacon and Descartes have been analyzed in thousands of books and in tens of thousands of articles.59 In this section, a synopsis of basic studies on Bacon and Descartes is presented, which includes some new findings and highlights a few points that are important for further discussion. 59. The Library of Congress Online Catalogue offers 1,677 results for the search “Descartes in Title,” of which more than 80 percent are studies of various aspects of Descartes’ life and philosophy. Figures for Bacon are lower, but not significantly. In the context of this discussion, it is worth

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Let me begin with Bacon. As certain studies over recent decades evidence (Desroches, 2006, pp. 70–73; Mattheus, 2008, cf. also Rabb, 1974, pp. 268–269), the widespread notion of his close connection with Puritanism (e.g., Hill, 1961, p. 9; Merton, 1970, pp. 87–89, 115) is not entirely correct. The sociocultural situation of the second half of the sixteenth century in England, characterized by the coexistence of different religious tendencies, paved the way for his critical view of both Catholicism and various versions of Protestantism. His concerns resulted in a specific religious model based on certain ideas of early Church Fathers. Lancelot Andrews, Bishop of Chichester and an influential scholar, through his criticisms helped Bacon to systematize his theological attitudes (Mattheus, 2008, pp. 3–53, 76–77). The original sin and the way of redeeming mankind were the pivotal aspects for Bacon. He did not share with the Protestants their views of the deep corruption of human nature based on the claim that people inherited the sin of Adam. As he writes (tr. by M. Silverthorn; Bacon, 2000, p. 221): By the Fall man declined from the state of innocence and from his kingdom over the creatures. Both things can be repaired even in this life to some extent, the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and sciences. For the Curse did not make the creation an utter and irrevocable outlaw. In virtue of the sentence “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” man, manifold labours (and not by disputations, certainly, or by useless magical ceremonies), compels the creation, in time and in part, to provide him with bread, that is to serve the purposes of human life.

Put another way, the ultimate goal of arts and sciences for Bacon is the instauration of human supremacy over other creatures. It is exactly that goal to which Bacon’s project, entitled Instaturatio Magna Scientiarum (Great Instauration of Learning), is dedicated. The Latin word Instaturatio has clear Christian connotations: it correlates with a Christian conception of lost harmony (Mattheus, 2008). For such instauration, humans must change their views of the nature and their way of understanding it, by getting rid of numerous idols (idola).60 Bacon distinguishes four types of such idols, that is, idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the market, and idols of the theater. Introducing the concept of idols, he criticizes public opinion, philosophical tradition, and, importantly, both the individual mind of a mentioning Urbach, 1987; Russel, 1993; Menn, 1998; Ariew, 1999; Zagorin, 1999; Kaufman, 2000; Miner, 2005; Weinberger, 2005; Desroches, 2006; McKnight, 2006; Frankfurt, 2008; Mattheus, 2008; Hassing, 2011. 60. It is worth noting that the medieval Latin word idolum had clear religious connotations and meant false gods as opposed to the true God and the true Church (e.g., Aug. Sermones; PL 47 1148B; Bern. Claraev. De S. Clemente; PL 183 499D; Petr. Lomb. Commentaria in Psalmos; PL 191 85B; etc.). The use of this concept highlights once more the religious groundwork of Bacon’s philosophy.

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

particular person and the human mind in general as criteria for understanding the truth. The last point is crucial for comparing him with Descartes. Descartes might have been more careful than Bacon in the form of his criticism of dominant religious views, but he definitely was no less radical in essence. Unlike Bacon, he was not a politician, and he endeavoured to cognize the world rather than to change it (in his well-known letter to Mersenne he formulated his credo with the motto bene vixit, bene qui latuit (he lived well who hid well)) (Descartes, 1991, p. 43). Although there is strict similarity between some of his basic ideas and those of his predecessors (Koyré, 1923; Menn, 1998; Ariew, 1999; Kaufman, 2000; Hassing 2011),61 he was as persistent as Bacon in his concerns about the validity of philosophical and religious tradition (e.g., Descartes, 2001, pp. 4–10, 1996, p. 12). That said, sharing Bacon’s criticism of idols of the cave, the market, and the theater, he adhered to decidedly different views of the idols of the tribe. The human mind, in his opinion, is the ultimate basis for cognition, likening man to God (Descartes, 1996, pp. 16–36). For him, the natural light (lumen naturale) of reason alongside the divine light is the only right way for people to reveal the truth. He admits that the mind, because of the direct contact with the body, can fail and distort the truth, but the idea of the original corruption of the human mind is alien to him. The above difference leads to radical discrepancies in the research programs developed by Bacon and Descartes. Bacon pursues a clear practical aim; namely, discovering the laws of nature, to help people to restore their dominion over nature, lost after original sin. To achieve this, humanity must join forces, gleaning and analyzing data from a huge array of various observations and experiments. This process is cumulative and is considered the common task of all people. From this perspective, the history of science and scientific institutions is of great importance. Bacon was apparently the first to emphasize this fact.62 Bacon’s distrust of the human mind and senses is the reason for his intention to develop special constraints restricting the activity of the mind.63 This gives 61. Descartes (1991, p. 232) comments this similarity in a letter to Mesland: “I am grateful to you for pointing out the places in St. Augustine which can be used to give authority to my views. Some other friends of mine had already done so, and I am pleased that my thoughts agree with those of such a great and holy man. For I am not the kind of person who wants his thoughts to appear novel; on the contrary, I make my views conform with those of others so far as truth permits me.” 62. These ideas are clear in Bacon’s description of the activity of the House of Solomon in The New Atlantis (McKnight, 2006). 63. “There remains one hope of salvation? One way to good health: that the entire work of the mind should not be left to itself, but be constantly controlled; and the business done (if I may put it this way) by machines. If men had tackled mechanical tasks with their bare hands and

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rise to various aspects of Bacon’s research program, such as the exploitation of machines in order to correct perceptive information, and the elaboration of the procedure of induction. For Bacon, the main flaw of the previous science was that the human mind made a leap from concrete facts to general statements, missing parts in between, or intermediate axioms, as he called them.64 Bacon’s method of induction seeks to discover such axioms that account for individual fragments of the universe but not the universe as a whole. Bacon illustrates his method by examining the phenomenon of heat. The purport of his method is to recognize factors that are associated with a specific phenomenon and at the same time are not associated with similar ones (Bacon, 2000, pp. 110–136). Put another way, Bacon endeavours to reveal the unique constellation of factors that separate one phenomenon from others of its kind. To accomplish this, he elaborates a complex system of observations and experiments that he calls instances (instantia): solitary instances, instances of transition, revealing instances, constitutive instances, instances of resemblance, and so on. Descartes’ approach is the opposite. Like Bacon, he distrusts sense data; however, unlike Bacon, who corrects such data by both mechanical tools and a cumulative system of observations, Descartes (2001) considers self-evidence based on introspection to be the main criterion of truth. The clearer such introspection, the more veritable it is.65 without the help and power of tools, as they have not hesitated to handle intellectual tasks with little but the bare force of their intellects, they would surely be very few things indeed which they could move and overcome, no matter how strenuous and united their efforts” (Bacon, 2000, p. 28). 64. “But we must not allow the understanding to leap and fly from particulars to remote and highly general axioms (such as so-called principles of art and things), and on the basis of their unshakable truth, demonstrate and explicate the intermediate axioms, as is still done, since the mind’s natural bent is prone to do this, and is even trained to it and made familiar with it by the example of syllogistic demonstration. But one may only expect anything from the sciences when the ascent is made on a genuine ladder, by regular steps, without gaps or breaks, from particular to lesser axioms and then to intermediate axioms (as now conceived) are conceptual and abstract, and have no solidity. It is the intermediate axioms which are the true, sound, living axioms above them, the most general axioms themselves, are not abstract but are given boundaries by these intermediate axioms. Therefore we do not need to give men’s understanding wings, but rather lead and weights, to check every leap and flight. And this has not been done before, we may have better hope of the sciences” (Bacon, 2000, p. 83). 65. Cf. Bacon’s (2001, p. 28) remark: “For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.”

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

An important specification is needed here. Over the past two decades, a number of studies have appeared in which the backbone of Descartes’ research program – namely, introspection as a way to identify basic truths and deduction as a way to justify the statements that follow from them – is claimed to be “fallacies of youth,” which he rejects in his late treatises (Treatise on Man, Passions of Soul, etc.) (e.g., Garber, 2001, pp. 51, 85–110; Cook, 2007, pp. 227–237, 259). In effect, Descartes is considered in these studies an empiricist à la Bacon. Although there is some superficial evidence for such claims, they contradict deep intentions of Descartes’ philosophy for the early and the late period alike. The view of introspection as the major criterion of truth can be found in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy and his replies to critics of Meditations. Of even more importance is the fact that a procedure close in essence to introspection sets out a framework for his late treatises that are usually characterized as empirical. The function of an observation and experiment in these studies is markedly different from that of Bacon. Since the natural light of reason is weakened in the corporeal domain, additional operations are needed to elucidate basic ideas with a sufficient degree of clarity. After elucidating the basic ideas, others are deduced from them by a specific “deductive” procedure based on Descartes’ intuitive understanding of the process. Thus, the model, introduced in Passions of Soul, can hardly be a result of a set of empirical observations (in particular, a movement of animal spirits from the brain’s gland to muscles is unlikely to be evidenced by any observation); rather, it is a model explaining a priori almost all observations in this field. Descartes (1976, p. 20, tr. by J. Cottingham) formulates this methodological procedure directly in the conversation with Burman when he sets out his theory of the origin of the universe: But this hypothesis of mine is very simple, if we consider the near-infinity of things I have deduced from it; and the way the consequences hang together confirms the hypothesis. For I came to see that I could deduce practically everything from it. And I swear before God that when I was putting forward these hypotheses I hadn’t yet thought about fire, magnetism, and the rest; it wasn’t until later that I saw how beautifully these things could be explained in terms of my original hypotheses.

It should be specially stressed that Descartes considers natural light of reason to be a major criterion of truth for humans in general,66 and in the correspondence, he repeatedly advices addressees to use introspection in order to see the evidence 66. “…because as to reason, or common sense (bon sens), inasmuch as it is the only thing that makes us men and distinguishes us from the beasts, I prefer to believe that each of us is equal in the possession of it” (tr. by P. J. Olscamp) (Descartes, 2001, p. 4).

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of his postulates: for him, they are obvious for all people who exploit introspection correctly. In other words, if other people check his postulates, being based on their own introspection, they are to come to the same conclusions.67 Interestingly, such a stance prevents, to a considerable extent, objections to his tenets: if his opponents deny the evidence of some of them, he replies that they are not selffocused enough in their introspection. Another feature of Descartes’ apriorism is his view of nature and limits of its understanding, which correlates with the modern concept of a model. This view is explained by Descartes (2008, p. 79, tr. by J. Veitch) as follows: But here some one will perhaps reply, that although I have supposed causes which could produce all natural objects, we ought not on this account to conclude that they were produced by these causes; for, just as the same artisan can make two clocks, which, though they both equally well indicate the time, and are not different in outward appearance, have nevertheless nothing resembling in the composition of their wheels; so doubtless the Supreme Maker of things has an infinity of diverse means at his disposal, by each of which he could have made all the things of this world to appear as we see them, without it being possible for the human mind to know which of all these means he chose to employ. I most freely concede this; and I believe that I have done all that was required, if the causes I have assigned are such that their effects accurately correspond to all the phenomena of nature, without determining whether it is by these or by others that they are actually produced.

Such a refusal to disclose the real causes of the emergence and change of natural objects and the restriction of knowledge only to possible causes revealed through introspection demonstrates significant divergences between Descartes’ and Bacon’s methodologies. Of special importance is the image of an artisan and two clocks that is used to illustrate the conception. This naturally brings us to the concept of machine, discussed in the next section.

5.2

The concept of machine in the texts of Bacon and Descartes

Keeping in mind the content of the previous section, let us examine the use of the word machina (including its French and English equivalents) and its derivatives in the texts of Bacon and Descartes.

67. It is worth noting, that, unlike Bacon, Descartes (2001, pp. 13–15) considered science to be the work of individuals. He did not endeavour to conduct experiments together with other researchers and preferred to be on his own in his reasoning and actions.

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

In all texts of Bacon, I could find 93 occurrences68 of the word machina (machine) and its derivatives, distributed as follows: Novum Organum (31); Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral (11); De Augmentis Scientarum (11); The History of the Reign of King Henry VII (6); Historia Ventorum (6); Redargutio Philosophiarum (5); Inquisitio Legitima de Motu (4); De Sapienta Veterum (4); The Great Instauration (3); The New Atlantis (2); Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (2); Historia Vitae et Mortis (1); Historia Densi et Rari (1); Cogitationes de Natura Rerum (1); De Principiis Atque Originibus Secundum Fabulas Cupidinis et Coele (1); De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium (1); Cogitata et Visa de Interpretatione Naturae (1); Phaenomena Universi (1); In Felicem Memoriam Elizabethae (1).69 The spectrum of senses is as follows: ‘specific machines’ (21); ‘mechanical arts’ (artes mechanicas) (19) (mainly plural); ‘contrivance, mainly bad or false’ (17); ‘specific activity (opera mechanica) and the sphere of knowledge’ (8); ‘machine as opposed to organism’ (6); ‘mechanical tool’ (6); ‘working drawing in geometry’ (2); ‘mechanical invention’ (3); ‘auxiliary tool for reason’ (4); ‘machine of the intellect as a model for other authors in polemic with them’ (3); ‘mechanical experiments’ (2); ‘contrivance in construction’ (1); ‘forced motion as opposite to natural motion’ (1). These senses can be combined into six groups: (a) the activity for elaborating various tools and instruments which improve people’s lives and help them to explore and subjugate nature (34);70 (b) particular machines (siege machines, etc.) (21);71 (c) bad or false contrivances (17);72 (d) attachments, helping humans 68. I have summarized all the occurencies of these lexemes in texts, except when they describe the same object or the same aspect of some object in the same situation. 69. I used Spedding et al., 1857–1874 as the source of data for the analysis reported below. 70. Some examples are quoted above. See also: “Again, it helps to notice the force, powder and consequences of discoveries, which appear at their clearest in three things that were unknown to antiquity, and whose origins, though recent, are obscure and unsung: namely the art of printing, gunpowder and the nautical compass. In fact these three things have changed the face and condition of things all over the globe: the first in literature; the second in the art of war; the third in navigation; and innumerable changes have followed; so that no empire or sect or star seems to have exercised a greater power and influence on human affairs that those mechanical things (non secta, non stella, majorem efficaciam et quasi influxum super res humanas exercuisse videatur, quam ista mechanica exercuerunt).” (Bacon, 2000, p. 100) 71. E.g., “If before the discovery of the cannon one had describe the thing by its effects, and said something like this: ‘a discovery has been made, by which the biggest walls and fortifications may be smashed and thrown down from a great distance,’ men would surely have been likely to have many different ideas about increasing the force of catapults and siege-engines (de viribus tormentorum et machinarum) by means of weights and wheels and similar mechanisms for battering and striking.” (Bacon, 2000, p. 85) 72. E.g., “So again we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of this heathen; insomuch that the edict of the

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to perform some activity (in particular, drawing in geometry); group emphasizing the auxiliary function (11);73 (e) artificial things as a special class with peculiar features in comparison with other classes of objects (7);74 (f ) in polemic with other authors, the machine of the intellect as a model used by them (3).75 Let us take a closer look at some of these groups. a. Bacon considers mechanical arts to be one of the basic activities for investigating nature76 and repeatedly emphasizes their advantage in this over the speculative sciences. As he states (Bacon, 2000, p. 61): The sciences stand still in their own footsteps and remain in practically the same state; they have made no notable progress; in fact they reached their peak in their earliest author, and have been on the decline ever since. We see the opposite evolution in the mechanical arts, which are founded in nature and the light of experience; as long as they are in fashion, they constantly quicken and grow as if filled with spirit; at first crude, then adequate, later refined, and always progressing.

One can find here a close connection with the purport of Bacon’s philosophy; as mentioned, for him, mechanical arts were the main instrument to subdue nature and, due to that, restore the status of the human beings before the original sin. b. Siege machines were prototypes of machines in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, so the use of the word machina (machine) by Bacon in this context

Emperor Julianus (whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures, or exercises of learning) was esteemed and accounted a more pernicious engine and machination against the Christian Faith (pernicitor machina ad expugnandam fidem Christianam) than were all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors.” (Bacon, 2001, p. 42) 73. E.g., “…and thus did what men do in building, namely after completion of the building, remove the scaffolding and ladders from sight (nempe post aedificii structuram machinas et scalas a conspectu amovisse).” (Bacon, 2000, p. 97) 74. E.g., “For compressions destroy every kind of life and even every flame and fire, and damage and disable every kind of machine (ut et omnis machina corrumpitur et confunditur per easdem.” (Bacon, 2000, p. 210) 75. “Nota Interpretationem legitimam non fieri, nec clavem Interpretationis adoperari usque ad reordinationes et cartas novellas finitas, ut duae sint machinae Intellectus, una Inferior quam descripsimus, altera Superior quae est novellarum.” (Bacon, 1874, p. 150) (It is worth noting that neither a right interpretation occurs nor a clue to this interpretation operates given that there are two machines of Intellect, the Inferior machine drawn above and the Superior machine drawn in some modern treatises) 76. “Mechanic, mathematician, physician, alchemist and magician do meddle with nature (for results).” (Bacon, 2000, p. 34)

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

correlates with this tradition. Interestingly, he mentions a submarine as a machine: “We have heard that a device has just been invented like a small ship or boat (inventam esse jam machinam aliquam naviculae aut scaphae), which can carry men under water for a certain distance.” (Bacon, 2000, p. 209) c. This group of senses is alien to scholars of Antiquity, but quite common in Latin patristics and scholastics, as argued in the previous chapter. The broad use of derivatives of machina with this meaning confirms that Bacon was familiar with patristic and scholastic writings and recognized their stylistic peculiarities. d. Like the previous group of senses, the meaning of machina as an auxiliary tool is presented in patristic texts. In particular, the above example of scaffolding from The New Organon has a counterpart in Augustine’s writings (see Section 4.3), which can be considered additional evidence of Bacon’s close acquaintance with patristic literature. e. Interestingly, Bacon bridges the gap between natural and artificial things in several texts. An illustrative example is quoted below (Bacon, 1874a, pp. 410–411): And I am more induced to set down the History of Arts as a species of Natural History, because an opinion has long been prevalent, that art is something different from nature, and things artificial different from things natural; whence this evil has arisen, –that most writers of Natural History think they have done enough when they have given an account of animals or plants or minerals, omitting all mention of the experiments of mechanical arts. But there is likewise another and more subtle error which has crept into the human mind; namely, that of considering art as merely as assistant to nature, having the power indeed to finish what nature has begun, to correct when lapsing into error, or to set her free when in bondage, but by no means to change, transmute, or fundamentally alter nature. And this has bred a premature despair in human enterprises. Whereas men ought on the contrary to be surely persuaded of this; that the artificial does not differ from the natural in form or essence, but only in the efficient; in that man has no power over nature except that of motion; he can put natural bodies together, and he can separate them; and therefore that wherever the case admits of the uniting or disuniting of natural bodies, by joining (as they say) actives with passives, man can do everything; where the case does not admit this, he can do nothing. Nor matters it, provided things are put in the way to produce an effect, whether it be done by human means or otherwise.

Having said that, in concrete descriptions he considers machines a special class, highlighting, in particular, the roughness of their inner structure in comparison with organisms (Bacon, 2000, p. 137).

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Importantly, Bacon never resorts to conceptual metaphors subsumed within the classes world is machine, church is machine, society is machine, body is machine, which are common in medieval texts (see Section 4.3), although medieval theological tradition is well known to him. This observation can be supplemented by an analysis of the construal of the concept of nature in Bacon’s writings. His attitude in this regard is ambivalent. On the one hand, in some theoretical treatises, he considers the investigation of nature to be a way to comprehend God and views nature as the material for such comprehension, rather than an independent reality (e.g., Bacon 1874a, p. 477–479, 2000, p. 96). On the other hand, in the majority of his studies aimed directly at an exploration of natural phenomena, he looks at nature as an independent subject, a rival keeping its own (not God’s) secrets that Bacon seeks to disclose. When specifying his notion of the absence of a radical distinction between the natural and the artificial, Bacon (1874a, p. 411) writes: Gold is sometimes refined in the fire and sometimes found pure in the sands, nature having done the work for herself (ministrante sibi ipsi natura) …Still therefore it is nature which governs everything (natura omnia regit), but under nature are included this three; the course of nature, the wanderings of nature, and art, or nature with man to help.

Such an image of nature as a living being with reason, feelings, and will characterizes a whole range of lexical constructions used by Bacon (2000, pp. 34–35): “Nature is conquered only by obedience (natura enim non nisi parendo vincitur),” “Nature does (natura transigit) the rest internally,” “The subtlety of nature far surpasses the subtlety of sense and intellect (subtilitas naturae subtilitatem sensus et intellectus multis partibus superat),” and so on. An analysis of Descartes’ texts paints a completely different picture. Various aspects of his mechanistic theory have been carefully examined in a huge number of works (e.g., Dear, 1998; Des Chene, 2001; Garber, 2001, pp. 133–167; Baker & Morris, 2002; Gaukroger, 2002; Alanen, 2003; Machamer, 2009, pp. 198–241); so I limit myself to a synopsis of these studies, complemented by some of my own observations. The lexeme machine (machina) and its derivatives occur 127 times in Descartes’ texts:77 Correspondence (62); L’Homme (22); La Dioptrique (7); Principiorum Philosophiae (6); Responsio autoris ad Objectiones in praecedentes Meditationes (6); Meditationes (4); Les Passions de l’Â me (6); Discours de la Méthode (4); La Description du corps humain (4); Lettre apologetique (2); Le Monde ou Traité de la Lumière (1); De la Verité (1); La Géométrie (1); Historie Moderne (1). The spectrum of senses is as follows: (a) ‘a human body as a machine’ (36); (b) ‘a machine 77. I used Adam & Tannery (1897–1913) as the source of data for the analysis reported below.

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

as an object of analysis in physics, a physical model (whether natural or artificial)’ (31); (c) ‘particular artificial machines or classes of machines’ (28); (d) ‘contrivance (usually bad)’ (6); (e) ‘natural (including celestial) objects’ (5); (f ) ‘animal as a machine’ (4); (g) ‘animated being (common for animals and humans)’ (4); (h) ‘special machines to imitate humans’ (4); (i) ‘machines created by humans in comparison with animals created by God’ (4); (j) ‘the object of study in mechanics’ (4); (k) ‘auxiliary argument in reasoning’ (1). Descartes also uses the lexeme automate78 in similar contexts in twenty instances: Correspondence (10); Historie Moderne (2); Discours de la Méthode (1); Meditationes (1); Principiorum Philosophiae (1); Lettre apologétique (1); Cogitations privatae (1); De la Verité (1); Le Monde ou Traité de la Lumière (1); Les Passions de l’Â me (1). The spectrum of senses can be subsumed into the following groups: (a) animated creature (common for animals and humans) (5); (b) particular artificial self-propelled machines (5); (c) human being (4); (d) special machines to imitate humans (3); (e) machines created by humans in comparison with animals created by God (1); (f ) a celestial object (1); (g) the object of study in mechanics (1). A remark on these data is required. Speaking about artificial machines, Descartes often highlights the link between a machine and its creator, and the comparison between artificial machines as creations of humans and natural machines as creations of God is a significant element of his discourse. The former feature is a characteristic of patristic writers (in particular, Augustine), while the latter is an important element of Renaissance culture. This remark is worth keeping in mind for further discussion. Images of machines in Descartes’ writings are not metaphors; rather, they represent the real structure of the world and are deeply connected with the substance of his philosophy, namely, with his dualism (the contraposition of thought substance and corporeal substance). Supplementary data to the contrast between Bacon and Descartes are provided by the analysis of how Descartes exploits the word natura (nature). This word occurs quite often in his texts, but Descartes almost never uses it in the contexts that are basic for Bacon: he speaks of human nature, divine nature, but not of nature as an environment, which is an animated entity that functions on its own.79 78. Basically, the meaning of this lexeme in his texts is a special class of machines; namely, selfpropelled machines. 79. The way Descartes uses the concept of nature is clear, e.g., in this quotation: “In this context I am taking nature to be something more limited than the totality of things bestowed on me by God. For this includes many things that belong to the mind alone –for example my perception that what is done cannot be undone, and all other things that are known by the natural light;

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5.3

Conclusion

Now let me sum up the analysis of this and the previous chapter. Images of the universe, society, and living beings as machines can be found already in the early patristics, and then they occur with increasing frequency and diversity during the Middle Ages. The reason for that is the drastic change in the model of the universe from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. In the classical world the universe was represented as a self-contained cosmos that moved and changed its state on its own, whereas in the Middle Ages it was considered a creation of God with no independent status – put another way, a machine. During the Renaissance and the Reformation, these two models coexisted. In general terms, this process can be described as follows: the growth of cities, the development of trade, and the sharp increase in spatial mobility brought about an increased “social pressure” on late medieval culture: the dominant cultural models thus became inconsistent with the dominant social processes. The actualization of scenarios that were in a latent state in the Middle Ages proved to be the result of such pressure. The Renaissance and the Reformation brought into being different scenarios, but they shared a few features: in the first place, the high status of commercial activity that was condemned in medieval Christianity, and the glorification of socially active individuals who make decisions on their own and who are responsible for them. In particular, in the culture of the Renaissance, such an actualization aroused interest in esoteric texts glorifying the human creator and bringing them closer to God the Creator. One of the most striking signs of this is the popularity of the hermetic corpus examined by Frances Yates (1964). Importantly, the conception of the human creator as compared with God the Creator was one of the basics in the hermetic texts,80 and this conception was subsequently reproduced by a number but at this stage I am not speaking of these matters. It also includes much that relates to the body alone, like the tendency to move in a downward direction, and so on; but I am not speaking of these matters either. My sole concern here is with what God has bestowed on me as a combination of mind and body.” (Descartes, 1996, p. 57) 80. “But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for he was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with His own Form; and on him did bestow all of His own formations. // And when he gazed upon what the Enformer had created in the Father, [Man] too wished to enform; and [so] assent was given him by the Father” (Mead, 1992, p. 8). To be sure, this state preceded the Fall, but, unlike in Christianity, the Fall in hermeticism is caused by keenness in the matter and can be overcome by the select few who have special knowledge. After being cleansed of their sins, such persons “cometh to that Nature which belongs unto the Eighth, and there with those-that-are hymneth the Father. // They who are there welcome his

Chapter 5. The concept of machine in the philosophy of the early modern era

of Renaissance scholars who considered man a mortal God.81 In this regard, the medieval model in which the universe as a whole and all things within it were conceptualized as machines, was reproduced in the Renaissance with an important complement that not only God, but also man is a designer of such machines.82 The foundation of Descartes’ philosophy, as already mentioned, seems to fit well with the model described. Reason likens man to God; therefore, one must rely on reason in search of a true basis for understanding reality. The universe is a set of machines; put another way, the set of rules governing its existence and the change in its state is the result of the design of its Creator. The human mind can comprehend this set of rules because it is of the same substance as God.83 This entails the view of introspection and deduction as the basic operations to explore the universe. Bacon’s research programme is based on a different set of ideas. An important feature of the hermetic corpus was the conception of the universe as a living being functioning on its own, which was, as mentioned, a commonplace for classical philosophy. The culture of the Renaissance revived this view.84 At the same time, such conceptions influenced the Reformation, where they were supplemented by the ideas of an infinite distance between God and man, the corruption of human nature after original sin, and the investigation of nature as the only way for people coming there with joy; and he, made like to them that sojourn there, doth further hear the Powers who are above the Nature that belongs unto the Eighth, singing their songs of praise to God in language of their own. // And then they, in a band, go to the Father home; of their own selves they make surrender of themselves to Powers, and [thus] becoming Powers they are in God. This the good end for those who have gained Gnosis –to be made one with God” (pp. 16–17). 81. The image of the human being as a mortal god and the likening of the human creator to God the Creator is of decisive importance for such Renaissance thinkers as Marcilio Fichino, Pico della Mirandola, Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci and others. The following quotation from Alberti’s writings illustrates this: “I like very much the sentence of Aristotle where he stated that the human being is almost like a mortal happy god, capable of understanding and doing with reason and virtue” (Garin, 2008, pp. 217–18). See Garin (1969, 2008) for more detail. 82. This notion explains, in particular, the appearance of mechanistic images in the texts of Leonardo da Vinci, mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. 83. It is worth noting, however, that Descartes understood clearly the limitations of human reason in comparison with God. See, e.g.: “Neque tamen ullo modo Deus errorum nostrorum author fingi poteft, propterea quod nobis intelledum non dédit omnifcium. Est enim de ratione intellectus creati, ut fitfinitus; ac de ratione intellectus finiti, ut non ad omnia se extendat” (Descartes, 1905, p. 18) (It must emphatically not be supposed that God is the author of our errors because he didn’t give us an omniscient intellect. It stands to reason that a created intellect is finite, and that a finite intellect has a limited scope). 84. Some premises for such an interpretation can also be found in the last scholastics. See, e.g., the treatise Secretum secretorum by Roger Bacon (Bacon, 1920).

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to understand God. Both views of nature – as a living being that keeps its secrets in itself, and as the main way of understanding God to the extent that it is allowed to humans – can be found in the texts of Bacon. Having said that, in particular studies examining various natural phenomena, the former model dominates. This observation shows clearly that Bacon’s research program is not mechanistic.85 To round up, the analysis of Bacon’s and Descartes’ research programmes and their philosophical underpinnings provides clear evidence that there were two major paradigms that formed the basis of early modern science: the medieval (God as the Supreme Creator and the universe as a machine) and that of the ancient Greek (the universe as a self-sufficient entity). These paradigms – supplemented by several local conceptions developed in the Renaissance and Reformation – engendered a wide range of approaches, many of which may seem controversial from a modern perspective, but at the same time were selfcongruent for their authors (the research programmes of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton are striking examples thereof (e.g., Westfall, 1958; Webster, 1982; Beck, 1986; Clericuzio, 1998). Therefore, it may be useful from a methodological perspective to be cognizant of these paradigms in order to unravel a complex tangle of thoughts characteristic of various scholars of the early modern era, as well as to present a more balanced picture of early modern science as a whole.

85. To avoid misunderstanding, let me highlight again that Bacon’s research program has two different underpinnings: the early patristics (the problem of the original sin and of the way for redeeming mankind) and the ancient Greek model of the universe (adopted through the hermetic corpus and other Renaissance texts).

part iii

The sociocultural theory of lexical complexes

chapter 6

The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC 6.0

Introduction

This part of the monograph introduces the Sociocultural Theory of Lexical Complexes that can be viewed as a generalization of the research presented in Part II and in some sections of Part I. Compared to FLTCD, it illustrates other facets of the use of the cultural-historical method in cognitive semantics. STLC mainly explores cognitive operations (and their semantic representations) associated with Level B and Level С of FLTCD, in early theoretical and developed theoretical cultures. Unlike FLTCD, it focuses on more local and manifold sociocultural processes that affect the change in the conceptual structure of lexical units as well as the emergence of novel lexical units. In this chapter, the framework of STLC is outlined.

6.1

The philosophical underpinnings of STLC

The name of the theory implies two key conceptions: first, the view of language as an open system involved in sociocultural processes; second, the idea of a complex (in the sense of Vygotsky, see Section 2.1) as a framework of a conceptual structure designated by a set of lexical units. These conceptions underlie the following tenets: a. The view of the world as an autonomous entity, independent of human beings, is a theoretical abstraction. In reality, the image of the world emerges and changes as a result of the interaction between human beings and their natural and sociocultural environments. This image is special for each person, but some invariants can be distinguished in it that characterize a certain social group, subculture, culture (English, Russian, Japanese, etc.) and humanity as a whole. b. Language is an important tool for generating and processing the image of the world and, at the same time, a compact form of storing this image, an abbreviation, so to speak. From this perspective, several levels of language (types of language) can be singled out: the language of a particular person (idiolect); the language related to a certain community, subculture, professional group,

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

etc. (dialect, jargon); language in its basic form (English, Russian, French, etc.); and a set of conceptual invariants common to all languages. c. A language system can be seen as containing two modules with a high level of independence: a linguistic module that provides a repository for the storing and packaging a certain image of the world, and a conceptual module that stores the image itself. These tenets require a certain clarification and specification. A. The first postulate represents the fundamental shift in ontology and epistemology that took place in the science of the 20th century. According to the main tenets of quantum theory (e.g., Bohr, 1987; Dirac, 1958), a quantum object has no intrinsic characteristics independent from the process of measurement; values of all parameters characterizing the object (impulse, energy, spin, etc.) are a result of the interaction between the object and a measuring device. The only “intrinsic” characteristic of the object is the probability of obtaining a certain value after such an interaction. James J. Gibson’s theory of affordances and Max Weber’s concept of “ideal type” can be considered generalizations of this change of paradigms. Thus, Gibson (2015, pp. 119–129) argues that it is a mistake to consider the environment to be the same for all living beings, and conceptualizes it as providing a specific set of possibilities for each of them. The concept of affordance, which he introduces, emphasizes “the complementarity of the animal and the environment” (p. 119). In a similar vein, Weber (1904) posits that a conception in the humanities is the result of an interplay between specific interests of a researcher and a structure of objects (events, processes) he/she explores. B. Many experiments conducted within the scope of the embodied cognitive science paradigm (Glenberg et al., 1987; Bower & Morrow 1990; Wilson et al., 1993; Barsalou, 1999, 2020; Matlock, 2004; Barsalou & Wiemer-Hastings, 2005; Bergen, 2007, pp. 286–294; Barsalou et al., 2008 among others) provide clear evidence that lexical items activate (at least partially) the same neuron circuits that are activated in real-life actions that these lexical items designate. This means that a language used by a particular person (idiolect) stores mental representations of things, events, and activities that this person has experienced or could experience. In other words, such a language retains a specific image of the world that this person possesses. To be more specific about this, let us look at the problem of meaning, one of the basic ones for cognitive semantics, through the lens of quantum theory. From this perspective, there is no objective meaning of a word (or a phrase and a sentence), just as there are no “objective” values of impulse, energy and spin for a certain state

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of a quantum particle. Just as these values characterize the interaction between the object and a measuring device, the meaning of any word is a result of the interaction between the subject and the surrounding world. Such a meaning is different for different subjects and even for the same subject in different situations, depending on the subject’s previous experience and the characteristics of the situation (Boroditsky & Ramscar, 2002; Glebkin, 2009a; Connell & Lynott, 2014; Casasanto & Lupyan, 2015; Yee & Thompson-Schill, 2016; Barsalou, 2017, pp. 32–33 among others). This view of meaning prompts the following questions. If the meaning of a word can change from one speaker to another and even differ for the same speaker depending on the situation, how is it possible to refer to semantics in general and determine general rules inherent in this field? Moreover, given this unsteady structure of meaning, how is it possible to understand our interlocutors and communicate with them correctly? To answer these questions, some clarifications are needed. Despite situational fluctuations, there is a robust core in our construals of most concepts. This core may change in time (thus, a peasant’s attitude towards dogs as pets (their appearance, functions, etc.) would gradually change after moving to a big city); however, as a rule, such changes are quite rare and may be passed over in an analysis of the general structure of this core. In addition, experiences of different people have a tangible area of intersection, which paves the way for productive communication.86 In the terms of Lawrence Barsalou (1999, p. 586), a necessary condition for such communication is a significant intersection of mental simulations of interlocutors, which can be expanded due to certain corrections in direct contact. Next, there are certain domains (basically relating to academic discourse), in which the meaning is defined overtly and cannot change in time. Thus, a triangle in mathematics and work in physics have general formal definitions, which are sufficient for a correct communication in these domains, despite the fact that the mental representations of these concepts vary between people. Importantly, these domains demand a type of language different from the language of day-to-day communication. This difference correlates with the contrast between concepts and complexes, in Vygotsky’s terms, and Fillmore’s (1985, pp. 230–252) contrast of U-semantics and T-semantics. Ultimately, one can say that the system of language presented in dictionaries and grammar books, and reproduced via various public and private educational practices, is a model (such as a material point in physics) which is productive in many communicative domains but not all. An important feature of this model is 86. Fillmore’s (1976, 1985) concept of ‘frame’ could be mentioned in this context: frames represent patterns of recurring experience common in certain sociocultural groups.

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

its bipolar structure: it is both a model of and a model for (Geertz, 1966, pp. 7–8); in other words, it represents sociocultural reality and, at the same time, forms it. This leads to the fundamental problem of a correlation between idiolects and general language. The English philosopher Michael Dummett (1991, p. 87) interprets this correlation as follows: A language is not to be characterized as a set of overlapping idiolects. Rather, an idiolect is constituted by the partial and imperfect grasp that a speaker has of a language, which is related to the language as a player’s grasp of the rules of a game is related to the game. It is largely determined by what the speaker rightly or wrongly takes the meanings of words in the language to be; the concept of such an idiolect therefore cannot be anterior to that of a common language.

Importantly, Dummett gives no definition of a language but seems, by default, to look at a language as a system presented in grammar books and dictionaries (he likens a language to a game with strict rules). In other words, this standpoint is premised on the static model of language. In reality, however, a language changes in time and the relation between a language and idiolects is more complex than presented by Dummett. Let me dwell on this issue in the following. Language retains the collective experience of human beings and, in particular, past experiences that cannot be directly reproduced at the present time. Moreover, it is the dominant form of retaining such experiences. At another level, a collective experience is not transformed into a personal experience by acquisition of dictionary meanings and grammar rules. Meanings of words are acquired in certain communicative situations and then, gradually, they root themselves in the minds and bodies of people, forming part of the images of their world. It is worth noting that certain people can markedly change the conceptual structure of particular lexical items in order to represent their personal experiences (ideas, beliefs, conceptions) in a more accurate way, and sometimes their innovations become entrenched in general language, being supported by other speakers; in other words, the relationship between idiolects and general language is reciprocal. The material of Section 2.2 provides clear evidence of how Aristotle changed the conceptual structure of the word ὕλη, but it is of course not the only case. A more solid piece of evidence is provided in Section 10.3.1. C. In the Language and Situated Simulation theory of conceptual processing (Barsalou et al., 2008), which generalizes a wide range of empirical data, the linguistic system and the situated simulation system are distinguished in the process of language comprehension. The former operates with linguistic forms (phonological resemblance, taxonomical bonds, etc.) and has no direct links with perceptive experience; the latter is closely related to perception, proprioception and introspection. This demarcation correlates, by and large, with the

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above view of the language system as a compact form of storing images of the world. It seems reasonable to distinguish between the structure and working principles of such a system and a stored content. In order to clarify this, it is worth referring to an analogy with a video camera. When using a camera, we make a distinction between its inner structure and instructions for its use from data stored within the camera. A camera includes a few autonomous systems, devoid of any links with stored information (e.g., a power system); there are different types of cameras implementing different approaches to storage (digital cameras, analogue cameras, etc.); nevertheless, all cameras pursue the same goal: to present a recorded “piece of reality” in the most precise and convenient way. A camera can work in different settings, and all improvements in its functional structure are aimed at obtaining a more and more detailed and informative picture, given a certain goal. This analogy could cast additional light on the limitations of the approach to language as an autonomous system. The domain of the autonomy of language is limited by its functional structure, which determines the boundaries of isolationist theories of language. That said, this structure is not self-contained; it is worth remembering that its main goal is to retain for us images of natural and sociocultural environments, providing the best way to communicate with them and represent our personality.

6.2

The framework of STLC

Given the above philosophical underpinnings, let me proceed to the description of the framework of the theory. α. The key concept of STLC is the concept of a lexical complex. The lexical complex is defined as an ordered pair (х; y), in which x is a certain word family and y is the conceptual content corresponding to it. As presented in Section 2.1, the content is structured according to the model of a complex in Vygotsky’s terms. The lexical complex, therefore, is considered in this book to be the pair (word family; complex). α1. The concept of a word family may need some clarification. In this book, I follow the definition of a word family as a set of lexical items that contain identical or similar morphological stems descended from the same root (e.g., Coxhead, 2000, p. 217; Augst, 2009, p. XXV ). It primarily includes a basic lexeme and its derivatives.87 In particular, the word family formed by the verb prygat’ ‘to jump’ includes the noun pryzhok ‘a jump,’ the participle prygajush87. A similar concept, not well-established in Western literature, however, used, in particular, in the analysis of lexical structure of Slavic languages, is the concept of a lexical nest (Pjataeva, 2006, pp. 114–116; Gouws et al., 2013, p. 1062; Kardela, 2014).

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

hij ‘jumping,’ the adjective pryguchij ‘capable to jump easily and far away,’ the verbs podprygivat’ ‘bounce,’ vyprygivat’ ‘jump out,’ and so on. That said, the main criterion for including a particular lexical item in a word family is viewed here as conceptual rather than formal: lexical items in a word family “illuminate” different fragments of the conceptual content of the complex related to the family. Some illustrations of a word selection for a word family are demonstrated in the following chapters. From this perspective, one of the basic problems is which structure of a conceptual content is designated by a certain word family. In the philosophical tradition originated in the classical world (mainly, in the writings of Plato and his disciples) and developed by realists (Augustine, Bernard of Chartres, Gilbert of Poitiers) in medieval Western philosophy and in the philosophy of 17th and 18th century rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz, Wilkins, etc.), this conceptual content is presented in the form of discrete conceptual structures (ideas, universals, concepts, etc.) that exist independently of corresponding words. In modern semantics this view underpins, among others, the NSMapproach by Wierzbicka and Goddard (this is argued, e.g., in Glebkin, 2012, pp. 33–42, 2014a, pp. 36–44) and a majority of works within so-called theory of concepts (e.g., Stepanov, 2001, pp. 43–44; Dem’jankov, 2007, p. 617). These assumptions may be appropriate for fairly simple concepts such as an apple or a table, but they seem questionable in the case of more complex ones. The concept of intelligencija ‘intelligentsia’ is a clear illustration of this. The word intelligencija ‘intelligentsia’ in the sense of ‘the most educated people of a country or community, especially those interested in the arts, philosophy, and politics’ occurred in Russian in the 1860s in the wake of fundamental political, economic, and sociocultural changes.88 Meanwhile, these changes did not lead to the emergence of the concept of intelligencija with a steady conceptual structure. For more than a century and a half, native speakers (both experts and laymen) have conceptualized this category in different ways, and these divergences are inherent not only in peripheral elements of the conceptual structure, but also in the prototypical core. Some people consider the main prototypical features of members of this category to be higher education and intellectual work, others view this as a certain lifestyle, and still others as a particular worldview and value system. This means that they create their own concepts of intelligencija, conceptualizing in their own way the “piece of 88. Some scholars date the first occurrences of the word family intelligencija in this meaning back to 1830s, but their interpretation is doubtful, and, in any case, one can talk only about single occurrences, and not about systematic use of this word family in language. See Glebkin (2014a, pp. 283–292) for a review of this discussion.

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sociocultural reality” which this word family designates (see Chapter 9 for a detailed analysis). STLS is not premised on the conception of a conceptual content as a network of discrete structures that lexical items link with, and develops a view of this as a dynamically changing continuous structure. The basic category which forms the ontological ground for STLC is life (in Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1991, pp. 75–118) meaning), that is, a flow of sociocultural reality, different fragments of which change at different speeds: some of them undergo radical transformations within a few years, while others retain their structure for dozens and even hundreds of years. Some of these fragments happen to be anonymous for a while (for example, some peculiarities of provincial life, referred to by the concept of provincija ‘a province’ did not appear in Russian until mid-18th century, despite the contrast of center vs. periphery being real for Russian society, at least, from the second quarter of the 16th century on) but most of them are represented in the language. Although it is impossible to detect any autonomous structures with robust boundaries within this flow, certain groups of elements are characterized by a significant structural stability and strong links between elements within the group. Lexical complexes, as defined within the scope of STLS, include such groups of elements represented lexically by certain word families. It is worth stressing once again that conceptual content corresponding to a particular word family can noticeably change in time (thus, the lexical complex gosudarstvo ‘the state’ changed markedly between the 16th and 20th centuries). At another level, different word families can designate similar (but not the same) conceptual content. Another important point to be mentioned in this context is that word families in different languages (even if they are presented in the dictionaries as equivalents) actualize different (sometimes, markedly different) conceptual content. For instance, the Russian complex filosofija and the English complex philosophy despite the common lexical and semantic ground (they both are rooted in the Ancient Greek complex φιλοσοφία) have a number of significant inconsistencies (Glebkin, 2016). This is also the case for English empirical and French empirique (Wierzbicka, 2010, pp. 6–22). β. There are two basic levels in the structure of the lexical complex. Level A corresponds to a conceptual content actualized by speakers/writers in the case of an involuntary use of the lexical units attributed to a particular word family. This means that a utilized unit does not become the focus of attention (its conceptual content is not subjected to deliberate reasoning); its use, in this case, is determined by the semantic intuition of a language user. Level A is termed in this book as the level of everyday use of language.

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

This definition requires certain clarifications. The constructions89 of language user and everyday use of language are theoretical abstractions (ideal types, in Weber’s sense). The content and structure of conceptual information corresponding to a certain word family are different for different idiolects, but one can detect invariants at different levels of generalization in this conceptual information, the highest level of which refers to so-called “language norm” (presented in explanatory dictionaries). From this perspective, the concept of ‘language user’ designates a user who represents this norm in his/her speaking/writing for the entire lexical system of language. In other words, such phenomena as dialects, jargons, slang, etc. are set aside in this sketch of STLC. To examine these subjects, a more detailed description of STLC is needed. It also concerns sublevels of Level A with different stylistic marking (literary, colloquial) and different word frequency and use in a given modern language (uncommon, obsolete). At another level, the concept of ‘everyday use of language’ is not concerned exclusively with everyday speech. It covers domains of oral speech, correspondence, journalism, literature, and even academic texts. The only criterion used to refer to it is that a word is used spontaneously in the flow of speech and such a use is based on a linguistic intuition, not on rational arguments. Level B is represented by interpretations of a lexical complex, i.e., the cases in which some words (usually, basic words of a complex) happen to be the focus of attention. As a result, these words morph into elements of a theoretical construction and obtain a special definition within this construction. This definition may differ tangibly from the meaning of the word at Level A. The most common examples of such a definition are, presumably, scientific categories. These categories have a robust “objective” meaning, in contrast to the meaning of the same word in everyday language, which has a complex structure. In the majority of cases, the discrepancies between these meanings are significant (e.g., as outlined in Section 2.1, the meaning of the word pressure in physics differs markedly from its meaning in everyday language).90 However, the spectrum of interpretations is not limited by the “language” of science. Often intellectuals (philosophers, writers, columnists, politicians, etc.) 89. The concept of construction is understood here as a form-meaning correspondence (e.g., Goldberg, 1995, p. 1), in contrast with the concepts of word and lexical unit which are considered to be physical signs (sets of letters or sounds) addressing certain conceptual content but not including it. 90. The demarcation between Level A and Level B helps, in particular, to solve the problem of the “division of linguistic labor” (Putnam, 1975; cf. Geeraerts, 2006, pp. 20–21). The experts’ view is positioned at Level B of the conceptual structure of the complex, whereas the view of lay people would be synonymous with Level A.

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suggest their own interpretations of a particular concept, by placing it in a theoretical construction that they create. Let me return to the case of the word ὕλη, examined in Section 2.2. As previously shown, Aristotle’s definition of this word (as the primary matter) differs visually from its conceptual structure at Level A. Aristotle takes this word from everyday language and changes its conceptual structure, in order to fit it into the needs of his philosophical system. Importantly, the interpretation of Aristotle, based on a primary intuition formed by the use of this word at Level A, in turn, brought about new transformations of its conceptual structure at Level A, as well as the emergence of new interpretations (in particular, in Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enn., II, 4) and Stoicism (e.g., Graeser, 1972, pp. 91–94)). Similarly, the interpretations of ennui by Pascal and Senancour differ both from one another and from the conceptual structure of this word at Level A. This is also correct for the interpretations of Langeweile by Schopenhauer and Heidegger (Glebkin, 2018, pp. 49–132), etc. Let me dwell on the structure of Level A. β1. For each complex at Level A, it is possible to indicate one or more prototypical cores and peripherical elements generated by shifts of the prototypical cores within the conceptual space.91 This notion correlates with the Diachronic Prototype Semantics, developed by Dirk Geeraerts and colleagues (Geeraerts et al., 1994; Geeraerts 1997, 2006, 2018). It is worth focusing on certain aspects of this approach that are important for both its theoretical representation (e.g., Geeraerts, 2006, pp. 3–21) and an analysis of particular cases, but not fully elucidated by these authors. Thus, when examining the change of the conceptual structure of the word legging in Dutch, Geeraerts posits that such a change can be treated as an extension of a peripheral area, provided that the conceptual core is an 91. The concept of ‘prototype’ and links between prototypicality, different kinds of salience, and frequency have been a subject of intense debate over recent years (Geeraerts, 2006, pp. 90–91; 2018, pp. 38–48; Gilquin, 2006; Glynn, 2010, pp. 14–15; Taylor, 2015, etc.). Not discussing this aspect in detail, I want only to stress that the prototypical cores are considered here to be substructures within the conceptual structure of a complex, which are basically actualized when language users exploit any lexical items associated with the corresponding word family. Often (but not always) these substructures are dated as the earliest historically. In particular, for the complex head, such a prototypical core is ‘The uppermost part of the body of a human, or the front or uppermost part of the body of an animal, typically separated from the rest of the body by a more or less distinct neck,’ but not ‘Aptitude in a particular subject or sphere’ (Justin, whose father is a pilot, has a good math head) or ‘A group or indefinite number of animals” (Parts of the Balnagown estate have for centuries carried a superior head of deer) (All quoted definitions and examples are taken from OED). A few examples of distinguishing prototypical cores in more complex cases will be given in the following chapters.

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

invariant. Given an increasing sociocultural interest in the emerging category, some objects that previously had other labels take their labels from this word. In turn, the more the sociocultural interest weakens, the more a conceptual area covered by the word diminishes and, ultimately, the word can become obsolete (Geeraerts, 1997, pp. 32–83). From this perspective, a word arises as a response to a sociocultural request and designates a fragment of sociocultural reality. If this fragment is stable (e.g., parts of human body),92 it is a robust prototype for the conceptual structure of a corresponding complex (for instance, the part of the body of a human or an animal for the complex head); if it comes about as a result of a local and short-term sociocultural transformation, then a corresponding word loses its “host” and becomes “homeless.” After a while it can find a new “host” (e.g., obtain an adjacent or a more general meaning) or just go out of use (as, e.g., bridewell, cordwainer, filibeg, among others). Importantly, the process of forming of a robust prototype can be long-lasting, and its description is of special interest. As a rule, a new meaning is “groped” and the word is used in a number of unexpected contexts; however, gradually, its framework becomes firmer and an intuition underpinning this word acquires the necessary stability. Important complementary information for an analysis of a language response to a sociocultural request is provided by an onomasiological approach (Geeraerts et al. 1994; Geeraerts 1997, 2006, 2018). This approach explores the competition between lexical items suggested to be candidates for such a response, which results in the “victory” of one (or some) of them. For instance, the complex inteligencija ‘intelligentsia’, as will argue in Chapter 9, won a rivalry for a name of a new sociocultural group that emerged in the mid-19th century, against the constructions obrazovannyj klass ‘high-educated class,’ privilegirovannyj klass ‘exempt class,’ and some others. Such a rivalry and its outcome are an object of onomasiological analysis. β2. Another important issue that correlates with the previous one is the problem of lexical polysemy. Having no time to delve into the long tradition and huge amount of research on this subject, I am forced to limit myself to a few general remarks.

92. It may appear strange that parts of human body are fragments of the sociocultural reality, but that is the case. As will argue in Chapter 8, even natural objects, such as stone, take additional sociocultural meaning and are, in fact, regarded as elements of sociocultural reality. This is also the case as regards the parts of human body. This standpoint is a particular representation of Gibson’s (2015) ecological paradigm.

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From a diachronic perspective, polysemy is the result of a conceptual extension of a prototypical core (cores). This, fundamentally, follows the procedure of complex thinking discussed in Section 2.1: words associated with a complex refer to some conceptual content (objects, events, situations) that has something in common with the conceptual structure of the core or is contiguous with certain areas of it. In linguistics, these shifts are basically treated in terms of metaphor and metonymy. Afterwards, new conceptual areas can lose their links with a prototypical core (in this case, they are considered by language users to be autonomous meanings), but these links are restored in a diachronic analysis. It is useful to distinguish between mononuclear complex (with one prototypical core) and polynuclear complex (with several cores). An example of the former is the complex otkryvat’ ‘to open’ explored in Chapter 7, while that of the latter is the complex kamen’ ‘stone’ examined in Chapter 8. β3. It is worth teasing apart lexical complexes, the prototypical cores of which have a direct perceptual image (e.g., otkryvat’ and kamen’) and so-called abstract complexes, devoid of such image (e.g., inteligencija ‘intelligentsia’ and skuka ‘boredom’). For the latter, a perceptual profile of the category (i.e., an ordered set of conceptual metaphors that represents it (Glebkin et al., 2014; Glebkin & Sosedova, 2015)) provides important supplementary information regarding the conceptual area that this category comprises. In particular, the most frequent perceptual image for the concept of skuka (as well as for its English equivalent boredom) is a living thing which tries to subdue humans, forces them to obey its whims, tortures them and is considered by humans an enemy or rival (e.g., Vser’ez skuka nachnet muchat’ ego znachitel’no pozzhe – vo vremja vojny.93 ‘In earnest, boredom will start torturing him a lot later – during the war’; ona tverdo reshilas’ pobedit’ skuku ‘it was her firm decision to defeat the boredom’).94 There are also some other, less frequent, metaphorical models, such as a gaseous substance bereaving a human of activity and even of health and life (mainly, by preventing him from taking a breath: No tam ja zadyhajus’ ot skuki ‘But I gasp of boredom there’), a container, and so on. Ultimately, the perceptual profile of this complex draws an image of a negative emotional state which takes the energy of life away from a human and can bring about serious psychological diseases. 93. All Russian examples hereafter (unless otherwise indicated) are taken from the Russian National Corpus (RNC, www.ruscorpora.ru). 94. Cf. English examples from the British National Corpus: To help combat the boredom he had brought his books on perspective with him; He had no desire to defeat boredom by provoking political excitement and keeping himself constantly at a stretch.

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

γ. Let us proceed now to the potential method of presenting this conceptual information in dictionaries (depending on the type of a dictionary and the objectives of its author, this information can be added by linguistic input). As a general rule, such a presentation includes three levels of description: – Level A0 (it represents a general conceptual domain which contains Level A of the conceptual structure of a complex); – Level A (corresponds to Level A of the conceptual structure of a complex); – Level B (corresponds to Level B of the conceptual structure of a complex). γ1. As repeatedly highlighted, a radical transformation of the conceptual structure of a certain word and emergence of a new word are mostly brought about by a certain change in a sociocultural situation, and they may be considered a response to a sociocultural request. The description of Level A0 may seem redundant in the case of the basic level concepts tree, hand, run, open referring to general experiences an explanation of which is unnecessary, but it is often not the case, as argued in the next chapter. Such an explanation becomes much more important for the categories that refer to a more specific and complex sociocultural content, such as skuka ‘boredom,’ meshhanstvo ‘lowermiddle class,’ and inteligencija ‘intelligentsia.’ In particular, a marked increase in the frequency and change of the conceptual structure of the complex skuka took place in the wake of the secularization in the second half of the 17th century and during the 18th century and the exemption of the Russian nobility from obligatory state and military service, stipulated in the manifesto by Peter III (1762) and in the Charter to the Nobility by Catherine the Great (1785). These processes entailed deep structural transformations of the everyday life of the nobility, resulting in a new frame of life, devoid of the external principle of regulation (the salvation of the soul, the state service, etc.) and therefore having such a principle of regulation in inself. In turn, this brought about the emergence of a special institute that provided sociocultural grounds for this frame of life. This institute, called svet, svetskoe obshhestvo ‘the high society’, initially reproduced Western (mainly, French) examples. The painful experience of “the empty time” and the elaboration of special tools to mitigate this experience became one of the key problems within this scope. The conceptual transformations of the complex skuka can hardly be understood without taking this sociocultural context into account (Glebkin, 2018, pp. 133–174). It may seem that Level A0 is relevant only to account for changes of conceptual structure at Level A and is not appropriate for Level B, which is linked to Level A without a direct connection with Level A0. However, the study reported in

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Chapter 4 evidences that it is not the case, and an interplay between Level A0, Level A and Level B can be much more complex. A sharp change in the basic characteristics of the universe from Antiquity to the Middle Ages brought about new interpretations at Level B of the conceptual structure of the complex machine (implemented in the conceptual metaphors, such as world is machine, body is machine, society is machine). To be sure, these interpretations were rooted in the conceptual structure at Level A, actualizing certain possibilities that this structure contained, but they were in the latent state, and their actualization became the result of processes at Level A0. Further evidence of the complex interplay between Level A0, Level A and Level B is presented in Chapter 9. γ2. Given that the key factor for understanding the conceptual information represented in language is the sociocultural experience of humans, a detailed account of prototypical situations, not formal definitions, has to form the basis of the description of the conceptual structure of a complex at Level A (cf. Fillmore’s, 1985, pp. 230–252, contrast between U-semantics and T-semantics). A correlation of these situations with the personal experience of people gives them an opportunity to make sense of the conceptual information and to create their own perceptual symbols (cf. Barsalou, 1999). If possible, such a description can be presented in the form of images or even short movies. From this perspective, the definition is not an obligatory element of the description; it becomes only a supplementary means of interpreting a prototypical situation. Thus, in the case of the complex skuka ‘boredom,’ there is a number of such situations: (a) communication with a boring interlocutor; (b) reading of a boring book (watching of a boring film or play); (c) tedious, monotonous work; (d) lack of any activity, idleness; (e) absence of a close friend or relative.95 In particular, Situation (a) (in the case of two interlocutors) includes three basic elements: a subject S experiencing boredom; an agent A propagating boredom; a communication С between S and A. The description of A clarifies the concept of a boring interlocutor (psychological characteristics; peculiarities of speech and behavior; etc.); the description of S presents, in a similar way, the concept of a bored person; the description of С stresses the features of the discourse between S and A (long pauses or enduring monologues of A, etc.).

95. It is worth stressing the contrast between two types of boredom, presented as “chronic” boredom vs. “responsive” boredom (Bernstein, 1975, pp. 513–515); “pathological” boredom vs. “normal” boredom (Spacks, 1995, p. 5); “hyperboredom” vs. “boredom” (Healy, 1984, p. 10), etc. The latter characterizes a natural reaction to a situation; the former is a disease requiring psychotherapeutic help. Importantly, the former is based on a reflexive analysis and emerges at Level B; Level A mainly represents “situational” boredom.

Chapter 6. The theoretical foundations, basic postulates and framework of STLC

γ2.1 A significant element of the description at Level A is an indication of conceptual content for each word of the word family and specifics of communicative situations underpinning this (in particular, represented in terms of different stylistic markers, i.e., literary, obsolete, etc.). γ2.2 Another important element of the description at Level A is a specification of derivative domains, which appear as certain shifts (metaphorical, metonymical, etc.) of conceptual cores. In the case of abstract complexes, a perceptual profile of a complex introduced in β3 is a substantial element of this. γ3 The description on Level B includes the most important interpretations and also the interplay between these interpretations and the conceptual structure at Level A (what elements of this conceptual structure they are based on and how they affect its subsequent changes).

6.3

Summary

The Sociocultural Theory of Lexical Complexes outlined in this chapter is based on the ideas of Diachronic Prototype Semantics. STLC allows us to explore different types of categories, but the objects of special interest are the categories, significant from a sociocultural perspective, the conceptual structure of which markedly changes in time. These changes can be due to internal factors, certain transformations in a general sociocultural context (Level A0), and new interpretations (Level B). From this perspective, the correct model includes the coherent diachronic description of Level A0, Level A and Level B. A sample of such a description is presented in Chapter 9 on the material of the complex intelligencija ‘intelligentsia.’ Chapter 7 addresses the mononuclear complex otkryvat’ ‘open’; Chapter 8 tackles the polynuclear complex kamen’ ‘a stone.’

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The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC 7.0

Introduction

There are a few reasons to choose the complex otkryvat’ ‘open, v.’ as an initial illustration of the description of lexical complexes within the scope of STLC. First, the everyday experiences that include opening various objects are universal and stable; therefore, the general conceptual domain, in which the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’ is positioned does not significantly change in time. Second, given the clarity of senses, the words attributed to the complex need no interpretations, and Level B is not included in the description. Third, the conceptual structure of the complex is mononuclear; i.e., it has only one conceptual core, the transformations of which engender all other elements of the conceptual structure. These features characterize a wide range of basic level categories; therefore, the complex otkryvat’ can be referred to as a sample for this lexical group. At another level, the structure, presented in this chapter, can be considered an element of composite complexes examined in the following chapters, which allows us to treat it as a certain structural “molecule” within the scope of STLC.

7.1

The verb otkryvat’ and its derivatives in the dictionaries

In this section, we mainly address the Great Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language (Balahonova, 2010; hereinafter, GADRL), which provides a quite accurate and detailed description of conceptual areas (“senses”) associated with the verb otkryvat’. The article otkryvat’ contains nine basic senses: 1.

‘To provide access to the inner part of smth. by taking aside a door, moving the sashes, lifting a lid, etc.; to take aside, move, etc. (a door, a window, shatters, etc.) in order to provide access to smth.,’ e.g., otkryt’ komnatu ‘open the room,’ otkryt’ kastrjulju ‘open the pan,’ otkryt’ okno ‘open the window’; 2. ‘To allow, to give access to smth.; to make smth. accessible for smb.; to give smb. an opportunity to make use of smth.,’ e.g., otkryvat’ dveri ‘to open the doors,’ otkryvat’ dorogu ‘to open the way,’ otkryvat’ novye, shirokie gorizonty, perspektivy, vozmozhnosti i t. p. v chem-l., dlja chego-l. ‘to open new, broad

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

3.

4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

horizons, perspectives, opportunities, etc. in smth., for smth.’; kto-l. otkryt dlja chego-l. ‘smb. is opened to (for) smth.’; um, dusha, serdce i t.p. kogo-l. otkryty dlja chego-l. ‘one’s mind (soul, heart, etc.) is opened to (for) smth.’; ‘To remove a cover, smth. hiding smb. or smth.,’ e.g., otkryt’ zanaves ‘to open the curtain’; ‘to make smth. visible by removing a cover; not to cover, to keep visible,’ e.g., ulybka, otkryvavshaja zuby ‘the smile opening the teeth,’ otkryt’ lico rebenka ‘to open the face of the child,’ vetvi to zakryvali, to otkryvali temnoe nebo ‘the branches then closed then opened the dark sky’; ‘to make smth. visible by illuminating it,’ e.g., svet far otkryvaet vperedi tol’ko pustynnoe prostranstvo ‘the headlight is only opening a desert space ahead’; ‘To remove packaging, a bung, etc.; to unseal,’ e.g., otkryt’ butylku ‘open a bottle’, otkryt’ pis’mo ‘open a letter’; ‘To unfold, unbend smth. folded, bent; to unclose smth. closed,’ e.g., otkryt’ zontik ‘open an umbrella,’ otkryt’ veer ‘open a fan,’ otkryvat’ glaza, rot, usta ‘open one’s eyes, mouth,’ etc.; also in figurative contexts, otkryvat’ rot in the sense of ‘to start speaking in order to express one’s own opinion,’ e.g., otkryvat’ rot ot udivlenija, voshishhenija ‘to be extremely surprised, admired,’ otkryvat’ glaza komu-l. na chto-l. ‘to disabuse, undeceive’; ‘to unlock a valve, a latch, etc. in order to provide a way for water, gas, electricity,’ e.g., otkryt’ kran ‘to open a tap’; ‘To discover smth. unclear, unnoticed, unexplored, etc.; to notice certain qualities, features in smb., smth.,’ e.g., otkryt’ dlja sebja ch’ju-l. pojeziju ‘to discover one’s poetry,’ otkryt’ zakon ‘to discover a law,’ otkryt’ mestorozhdenie nefti ‘to discover an oil field,’ otkryvat’ kogo-l. ‘to discover smb.’; ‘To disclose smth. hidden, a secret,’ e.g., otkryt’ svoi mysli, chuvstva, zhelanija ‘to open one’s thoughts, feelings, wishes,’ etc., otkryvat’ dushu, serdce ‘open one’s soul, heart,’ otkryt’ tajnu, sekret ‘open a secret’; ‘To initiate the existence, activity of smth. (an institution, an enterprise, an event, etc.),’ e.g., otkryt’ kafe ‘to open a cafe,’ otkryt’ pamjatnik ‘to open a monument,’ otkryt’ zasedanie, sobranie, miting ‘to open a meeting, rally,’ otkryt’ ogon’, strel’bu ‘to begin firing,’ otkryt’ schet (v matche) ‘to score the first goal,’ otkryt’ schet nagradam ‘to get the first award,’ otkryvat’ novuju jeru, jepohu v chem-l. ‘to open a new era in smth.,’ otkryvat’ novuju stranicu v chem.-l. ‘to open a new page in smth.’

Some supplementary information is provided by the entry otkrytyj ‘open, adj.’ from GADRL, which also contains nine senses: 1.

‘Having no awning or covering on top or from sides,’ e.g., otkrytye celi, pozicii ‘open targets, positions,’ etc., otkrytaja scena ‘an open stage,’ otkrytyj teatr ‘an open theatre,’ pod otkrytym nebom ‘under the open sky’;

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2. ‘Having no obstacles to sight (about a territory, space),’ e.g., otkrytaja poljana ‘an open glade,’ otkrytoe more ‘the open sea,’ (nahodit’sja) v otkrytom kosmose ‘(to be) in outer space’; ‘unshielded,’ e.g., Polk … shel s otkrytym pravym flangom ‘The regiment … moved with an open right flank’; 3. ‘accessible to all comers,’ e.g., otkrytyj urok ‘an open lesson,’ den’ otkrytyh dverej ‘an Open Day,’ otkrytaja sistema ‘an open system’; 4. ‘Naked, devoid of hair (about human body parts),’ e.g., otkrytyj lob ‘an open forehead,’ s otkrytym licom ‘with an open face’; 5. ‘Sincere, frank, straight,’ e.g., otkrytyj harakter ‘an open person,’ s otkrytoj dushoj ‘with an open soul,’ s otkrytym serdcem ‘open-hearted’; 6. ‘Overt, unconcealed,’ e.g., otkrytym tekstom ‘en clair,’ otkrytoe golosovanie ‘an open vote,’ otkrytoe pis’mo ‘an open letter,’ vstupit’ i t.p. v otkrytyj boj, srazhenie ‘to begin an open battle, combat,’ etc., v otkrytuju ‘openly’; 7. ‘Mining. Surface, not underground,’ e.g., otkrytye gornye raboty ‘open-cast mining’; 8. ‘Medicine. Overtly noticed, not hidden, not internal,’ e.g., otkrytyj perelom ‘an open fracture,’ otkrytaja forma tuberkuleza ‘an open case of tuberculosis’; 9. ‘Prof. speech. Clear, devoid of admixture,’ e.g., otkrytyj cvet ‘an open colour,’ otkrytyj golos ‘a clear voice.’ These descriptions cover almost all significant elements of the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’;96 however, they leave many questions unanswered. It is unclear, in particular, how certain senses were identified (why, e.g. otkryt’ zanaves ‘to open the curtain’ and otkryt’ zuby ‘to open the teeth’ are attributed to the same sense, whilst otkryt’ komnatu ‘open the room’ and otkryt’ butylku ‘open a bottle’ belong to different senses), if there are certain links (a certain hierarchy) between the senses, etc. Similar questions can be addressed to Ozhegov’s Russian Language Dictionary (ORLD), Ushakov’s Dictionary (UD) and other explanatory dictionaries in Russian. Interestingly, ORLD includes nine senses of the verb otkryt’ (the perfective form of the verb otkryvat’), some of which do not coincide with the senses in GADRL, UD includes nine other senses. In other words, the criteria for teasing apart different senses are not a matter of general agreement among lexicographers.97

96. Certain supplementary constructions for the words otkryvat’ and otkrytyj, and the analysis of other lexical items attributed to the complex otkryvat’ are omitted in this description, since this would add nothing significant to the overall picture. 97. Cf. an analysis of the articles for the word risk in several explanatory dictionaries in Fillmore & Atkins (1994) and their criticism on the principles these dictionaries are premised on.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

It would take at least another book to discuss the principles and the full range of theoretical approaches in modern lexicography, but it is useful to formulate a few tenets that seem accepted by default by the authors of explanatory academic dictionaries (see, e.g., Balahonova, 2004, pp. 3–15): – – –

–

A word has one meaning or several senses; there is an objective procedure for distinguishing between different senses (in fact, this procedure mainly comes down to the linguistic competence of a lexicographer). Each sense can be accurately represented by a formal definition sufficient for a reader to understand the sense. The set of senses presented in an explanatory article is static; words can change their meaning and there are certain links (logical or/and historical) between different senses, but, as a rule, it is not a matter of an explanatory dictionary (save historical dictionaries) to represent these links and changes. The sociocultural context does not have to be presented in an explanatory article, the language as an autonomous entity includes all the necessary information.

It is easy to see that these tenets are in many respects contrary to the principles of STLC reported in the previous chapter.98 Let me proceed to the description of the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’ within the scope of STLC to specify this contrast.

7.2

A sketch of the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’

7.2.0 Before giving a formal description, let me present the general idea in a less formal way. A wide range of situations associated with the complex otkryvat’ can be covered by the schema including three elements: a bounded internal area A, an external area B, and a boundary C separating them. Given that, an action designated by the verb otkryvat’, temporarily removes an element of the boundary, providing a direct contact between the area A and the area B. A way of removing is not important; it is only important that the possibility to be opened is included in the structure of the boundary and the process of opening is considered an ordinary action (otherwise, other verbs, such as vzlamyvat’ ‘to break open’, prolamyvat’ ‘to break through’, and so on, are used). This means, in turn, 98. Cf. Langacker’s (2008, pp. 36–43, esp., p. 38) criticism on a view of meaning as a conceptual structure with robust boundaries.

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that an object including A and C is, basically, a cultural object (or a natural object utilized for cultural needs), and an action of opening is, normally, a voluntary action (man or another living being opens an object for a specific purpose). With this in mind, the prototypical schema for the complex otkryvat’ can be characterized as follows (I am based on the terminology introduced in Fillmore & Atkins, 1994): – – –

It includes the bounded internal area A, the external area B, and the boundary C. The boundary C comprises an element that can be temporally removed, and such possibility is inherent in its design. The protagonist P opens a part of the boundary in order to have access to the source S for a specific goal G.

The schema is presented in Figure 5, two possible options (inward-outward and outward-inward direction) are shown in Figure 5a and Figure 5b.

Figure 5. The prototypical schema for the complex otkryvat’

Let me move on to a more detailed analysis.

7.2.1 The schema presented in Figure 5 correlates directly with a wide range of actions designated by the constructions otkryt’ dver’, okno, vorota, konservy, korobku, konvert, chemodan, penal ‘to open a door, a window, gates, a refrigerator, a bottle, canned goods, a box, an envelope, a suitcase, a pencil case’, and so on. Despite the difference in a form and size of objects, locomotor schemata of actions, amount of applied effort, etc., all the above situations follow the prototypical schema (for the constructions otkryt’ konservy, korobku, konvert, chemodan, penal only Figure 5a is relevant). Normally, the lexical item designates the boundary C as an object of transformation, however, the internal area A can also be named as such an object, after a metonymical shift (e.g., the construction otkryt’ dver’ ‘to open a door’ can be transformed into constructions otkryt’ komnatu (kvartiru, saraj) ‘to open a room (a flat, a shed),’ etc.; cf. also otkrytaja dver’ ‘an open door’ and otkrytaja

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

komnata, kvartira ‘an open room, flat,’ etc.99). Another version of the metonymical shift is a model in which the whole action is represented by its part not linked directly to the removal of an element of the boundary (e.g., On otkryl dver’ svoim kljuchom ‘He opened the door with his key’). The above schema also underpins the construction otkryt’ knigu ‘open a book’ (cf. otkryt’ shkatulku, chemodan ‘open a casket, suitcase’). The constructions otkryt’ gazetu ‘open a newspaper’ and otkryt’ zhurnal ‘open a magazine’ are likely to be its derivatives, positioned at the periphery of the conceptual structure of the complex.100 The constructions otkryt’ zontik ‘open an umbrella’ and otkryt’ veer ‘open a fan’, quoted in GARDL, are also positioned at the periphery of the conceptual structure.101 In this case, in contrast to prototypical situations, the internal area A is transformed markedly in the process of opening; nevertheless, a result of the action correlates with the prototypical model: the action provides an access to the area A from the area B.

99. That said, the constructions otkryt’ komnatu, kvartiru, saraj, etc. are much less frequent than that of otkryt’ dver’. Importantly, the productivity of the metonymical shift depends on a size of the area A and that of the boundary C. The more the difference between them, the more dubious such a metonymical shift is. Cf., e.g., otkryt’ vorota vo dvor ‘to open gates in the yard’ and ??otkryt’ dvor ‘to open the yard’; otkryt’ kalitku v sad ‘to open a gate into the garden’ and *otkryt’ sad ‘to open the garden.’ At the same time, otkryt’ holodil’nik ‘to open a fridge’ is more frequent than otkryt’ dvercu holodil’nika ‘to open the door of a fridge,’ and otkryt’ butylku ‘to open a bottle’ is of higher frequency than otkryt’ kryshku (ot butylki) ‘to open the lid (of a bottle).’ 100. They appeared later and are much less frequent. The earliest occurrences of the construction otkryt’ knigu, otkryt’ gazetu, and (in the same sense) otkryt’ zhurnal in the Russian National Corpus (RNC) are dated, respectively, to 1768, 1892, and 1949. According to the Google Books Ngram Viewer (GBNV ), the ratio of frequencies of constructions otkryt’ knigu and otkryt’ zhurnal varies in the range from 4.2 to 10.4 (even though the redundant senses are not separated in the case of latter construction), and that of constructions otkryt’ knigu and otkryt’ gazetu varies from 6 to 30.6 in the period from 1950 to 2008 (the dates of the use of RNS and GBNV for all statistics in this chapter are 15–17/09/2022). Other evidence of their peripherical status can be seen when viewed from an onomasiological perspective. Thus, according to GBNV, the ratio of frequencies of constructions razvernul gazetu ‘unfolded a newspaper’ and otkryt’ gazetu ‘opened a newspaper’ varies in the range from 9 to 90 in the period from 1950 to 2008. 101. The construction raskryt’ zontik ‘to unfold an umbrella’ is decidedly more frequent than otkryt’ zontik ‘opened an umbrella.’ According to GBNV, the ratio of frequencies of constructions raskryl zontik ‘unfolded an umbrella’ and otkryl zontik ‘opened an umbrella’ varies in the range from 2 to 10. Interestingly, a construction otkryt’ veer ‘to unfold a fun’ occurs in any form neither in the GBNV nor in the RNC.

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Another peripheral conceptual area of the complex contains the situations in which the action of opening is casual, the boundary С is interrupted, and/or the inner area A is infinite (this is so, e.g., in the quotation vetvi to zakryvali, to otkryvali temnoe nebo ‘the branches then closed then opened the dark sky’ from GARDL). The sense ‘to make smth. visible by illuminating it’ (svet far otkryvaet vperedi tol’ko pustynnoe prostranstvo ‘headlights open ahead only a deserted space’), found in GARDL, is deeply peripheral (in this case, the prototypical schema is reduced to an “internal” area A and quasi-boundary C) and all instances referring to it, presented in the RNC, characterize the author’s style of writing. Of a particular interest is the construction otkryt’ vid na chto-l. ‘to open a view of smth.’102 missed in GARDL (e.g., okno otkryvalo vid na dvor 103 ‘the window opened a view of a yard’). In this case, the internal area A corresponds to an area that can be seen from a certain point. Let me illustrate these shifts from the prototypical core to the periphery with certain statistics. It is hard to develop any robust technical criteria for identifying the prototypical core, and prototypicality is likely to be an “ideal type” in Max Weber’s sense.104 In particular, linguistic frequency is a useful but not infallible pointer to the prototypicality of a certain object, action, and situation (cf. Koivisto-Alanko, 2000, pp. 47–50; Geeraerts, 2006, p. 41; Taylor, 2015). For instance, in the case of the verb otkryvat’, the constructions otkryt’ gazetu ‘to open a newspaper’ and otkryt’ shkatulku ‘to open a casket’ are of similar frequency, despite the fact that the latter construction suits the prototypical schema much better than the former one. Meanwhile, in our everyday experience we handle newspapers much more often than caskets, which influences linguistic frequency. Therefore, some additional criteria are needed to obtain a more representative picture. An onomasiological analysis can help in solving this problem. Provided that a construction is positioned on the periphery of the conceptual structure of a certain lexical complex, there could be certain “competitive” constructions that suit better the situation (action, object) and hence are preferrable in the process of lexical choice (are chosen more frequently). These data can be obtained from GBNV. Table 2 presents the comparative frequencies of constructions otkryl dver’ ‘opened a door,’ otkryl okno ‘opened a window,’ otkryl knigu ‘opened a book,’ otkryl 102. Cf. similar construction in English (Again it [sc. the ground] shelved away and opened a view of all the valley). 103. All Russian examples hereinafter in this chapter are adapted fragments of sentences taken from RNC. 104. Cf. Posner’s (1986, p. 59) insightful remark that “the concept of “prototype theory” as used in linguistics has itself a prototypical structure,” and further elaboration of this idea in Geeraerts’s (2006, pp. 9–13) study. See also Footnote 91.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

gazetu ‘opened a newspaper,’ otkryl zontik ‘opened an umbrella,’ and the most frequent “competitive” constructions denoting the same action105 (raspahnul dver’ ‘opened wide a door’; raspahnul okno ‘opened wide a window’; raskryl knigu ‘opened a book’; razvernul gazetu ‘unfurled a newspaper’; raskryl zontik ‘put up an umbrella’) for 1988, 1998, 2008.106 The results are normalized to the frequency of the least frequent construction among those examined (this is the construction otkryl zontik for all columns). In particular, the number 1476.8 for otkryl dver’ /1988 means that in 1988 the ratio of linguistic frequencies of the constructions otkryl dver’ and otkryl zontik was equal to 1476.8, based on the data of the Google Books Ngram Viewer. Table 2. Comparative frequencies of some constructions with the verb otkryt’ and certain “competitive” constructions 1988

1998

2008

otkryl dver’

1476.8

2747.8

1017.1

raspahnul dver’

 463.8

 782.8

 310.5

otkryl okno

 168.8

 342.3

 200.1

123

 157.3

62

otkryl knigu

  45.4

  89.2

  40.9

raskryl knigu

  72.3

 108.4

  32.9

otkryl gazetu

   5.8

  14.6

   7.3

razvernul gazetu

 105.5

128

  40.2

raskryl zontik

   3.7

   8.2

 2

otkryl zontik

 1

 1

 1

raspahnul okno

It is easy to see that the constructions otkryl dver’ and otkryl okno are the most frequent among both other constructions with the verb otkryt’ in this list and their “competitors” in onomasiological “competition”, which correlates with their prototypical status. At the same time, the constructions otkryl zontik and otkryl gazetu are less frequent than other constructions with the verb otkryt’ in this list, and they are totally “defeated” by their onomasiological “competitors” (thus, the ratio of razvernul gazetu to otkryl gazetu varies in the range from 5.5 to 18.2), which can

105. In the case of opening a door, e.g., this means that the construction raspahnul dver’ is the most frequent among all the constructions representing this action except the construction otkryl dver’. 106. A 3-year-smoothing option was used in the search.

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be treated as clear evidence of their peripheral position. The construction otkryl knigu occupies an intermediate position, and its relative frequencies confirm this. In addition, the prototypicality of the constructions otkryl dver’ and otkryl okno is confirmed by their metaphorical productivity. In contrast with other aforementioned constructions, they produce many metaphorical expressions, some of which are examined below.

7.2.2 The prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5a also underlies such constructions as otkryt’ kran (ventil’, klapan) ‘to open a tap (valve, flap)’ that arose later than the constructions otkryl dver’ and otkryl okno and can be considered an expansion of the prototypical schema into new daily activities. In this case, the internal area A has no defined boundaries, but it is supposed to be closed and filled with a certain substance (liquid or gas). Compared to, for example, opening a door, which may be embedded in a wide range of sociocultural situations, opening a tap has basically the only purpose – to provide access for a substance filling the area A, to the external area B.

7.2.3 The constructions otkryt’ glaza, rot, lico, grud’, ushi, lob, zuby ‘to open one’s eyes, mouth, face, breast, ears, forehead, teeth,’ etc., otkrytye glaza, rot, lico, grud’, ushi, lob, zuby ‘open eyes, mouth, face, breast, ears, forehead, teeth,’ etc. are also consistent with the prototypical schema, as they designate the actions of removing a boundary, resulted in a direct contact between an internal area A and an external area B. At the same time, in contrast with the previous cases, these constructions denote parts of human body, not objects of the external world. Their communicative meaning, therefore, is different; they are more related to the internal aspects than to the external aspects of the communicative situation (there are such internal aspects as saying or eating something, getting a piece of information from the surroundings, maintaining the homeostasis of your body, communicating something to other people through some peculiarities of your appearance, etc.).107

107. The rich variety of communicative senses produced by the lexical items associated with the complex otkryvat’ is due to the high degree of abstractness that characterizes the prototypical schema, which is a general structural frame devoid of any particular content. Such abstractness allows this schema to be applied to a wide range of communicative situations, often located far from each other. An important consequence of this productivity is the richness of metaphorical extensions, which is discussed in next sections of this chapter.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

In this conceptual cluster, the constructions otkryt’ glaza, rot, lico; otkrytye glaza, rot, lico are related to the prototypical core, whereas the constructions otkryt’ grud’, ushi, lob; otkrytaja grud’, ushi, lob are positioned on the periphery (they are both much less frequent than the former constructions and much less productive as the sources for conceptual metaphors).

7.2.4 The following conceptual clusters emerged as a result of metaphorical mappings of the prototypical schema onto two abstract domains. The first (sociocultural) domain includes sociocultural areas and boundaries, and also scenarios related to them. The second domain can be termed emotional-mental. The emotionalmental domain is defined in this book as the conceptual area which includes both mental acts, and emotional and volitional acts correlating with them. Deep links between mental and emotional states/processes are the fundamental postulate of modern cognitive science, and this allows us to consider mental and emotional spheres as parts of the whole, different elements of which can be focused on according to research tasks and objectives. The concept of emotional-mental domain is based on this postulate. The mapping of the prototypical schema onto the sociocultural domain can be illustrated with the following example taken from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: hotja svet byl otkryt dlja nego lichno, on byl zakryt dlja Anny ‘though the world was open for him personally, it was closed for Anna’. This quotation refers to a special sociocultural area confined by the boundary with several social “doors” that are open to some people (in this case, for Vronsky) and closed to others (in this case, to Karenina). The same model underlies such constructions as komulibo, dlja kogo-libo otkryty vse dveri ‘all doors are open to smb.’, komu-libo, pered kem-libo otkryty vse dorogi ‘all roads are open to smb.’, and also otkrytyj urok, sobranie ‘an open lesson, meeting’, Den’ otkrytyh dverej ‘an Open Day’, etc. The word otkrytyj in this context means that an event is allowed for people who do not belong to a certain sociocultural group (who are, so to speak, outside the boundaries of a certain sociocultural area): the construction otkrytoe sobranie designates a meeting that may be attended not only by the members of a certain organization or community but also by everyone who is interested in the subject; the construction otkrytyj urok pertains to the lesson allowed for the presence of other teachers, parents of the students, etc.; the construction Den’ otkrytyh dverej means a day in which an organization (a university, school, college, factory, etc.) invites members of the public to come in and to inform themselves about its structure, principles of functioning, and everyday life.

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7.2.5 The sense ‘To initiate the existence, activity of smth. (an institution, an enterprise, an event, etc.)’ designated by the constructions such as otkryt’ pamjatnik, vystavku, kafe, magazin, stanciju metro ‘to open a monument, exhibition, shop, underground station,’ needs special attention. In this case, an object already exists (is built) in a physical sense, but it does not function as a sociocultural entity, being closed for the public. The opening ceremony provides access to the physical object for members of the public, thereby endowing the object with new sociocultural senses and transforming it into a sociocultural object, that is, an object within the sociocultural domain. The strong correlation between physical and sociocultural boundaries is clear in the symbolic act of cutting the ribbon (another name for the opening ceremony is, as is well known, the ribbon-cutting ceremony). In this case, the act of cutting the ribbon opens a sociocultural “door” for the public (in addition, one can notice the metonymical shift similar to the shift from otkryt’ dver’ ‘to open a door’ to otkryt’ komnatu ‘to open a room’).

7.2.6 The conceptual framework of the constructions, such as otkryt’ sobranie, miting, konferenciju ‘to open a meeting, rally, conference’, is both more complex and more complicated. In contrast to the objects discussed above (such as an exhibition, monument, shop) that have a material representation in the physical world, meetings and conferences are events, that is, temporal entities devoid of a direct material representation. Furthermore, the structure of these entities differs markedly in some respects from the structure of material objects: their parts do not coexist with the whole.108 That said, events are often conceptualized as material objects or locations (e.g., Lakoff, 1993, pp. 219–228; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, pp. 170–206, Kövecses, 2000, pp. 51–58). This is also true for such events as meetings and conferences. The constructions idti (prihodit’) na miting (sobranie, konferenciju) ‘to go (come) to (lit. on) a rally (meeting, conference)’; sidet’ na sobranii, konferencii ‘to sit in (lit. on) a meeting (conference)’; stojat’ na mitinge ‘to stand at (lit. on) a rally’; sryvat’ sobranie (miting, konferenciju) ‘to break up (lit. tear off) a meeting (rally, conference)’ provide clear evidence for that. Drawing an analogy with 108. Aristotle (Phys. 217b29–218a2) was presumably the first to emphasize this: Next for discussion after the subjects mentioned is time … To start, then: the following considerations would make one suspect that it either does not exist at all or barely, and in the obscure way. One part of it has been and is not, while the other is going to be and is not yet (tr. by R. Hardie and R. Gaye; Barnes, 1991, 1, p. 68). Cf. Augustine’s (Conf., 11, 27) exploration of the nature of time (e.g., Saint Augustine, 1998, pp. 239–240).

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

a monument and exhibition, it is possible to say that a meeting (rally, conference) can be opened, if all its constituents are available (the participants are sitting in the hall or standing on the square, the chairman and the speakers are present and ready to perform their duties, etc.). At another level, unlike spatial objects, events have only two boundary points – a beginning and an end, so starting an event means openening it, that is, cutting a “temporal ribbon,” thereby transferring the event from a potential state to an actual state.

7.2.7 Another type of metaphorical construction, positioned in the sociocultural domain, is introduced by the constructions otkryt’ kredit ‘to open a loan’ and otkryt’ schet ‘to open an account.’ To clarify the conceptual structure of the former, it is worth referring to some other constructions with the word kredit ‘loan, n.,’ such as imet’ kredit ‘to have a loan,’ podderzhivat’ kredit ‘to support a loan,’ pol’zovat’sja kreditom ‘to use a loan,’ terjat’ kredit ‘to lose a loan,’ rastushhij kredit ‘a growing loan book.’ In other words, this concept is metaphorized as a material object that can change its shape and size and functions as a possession that owners can use for their needs. Given this, the construction otkryt’ kredit can be interpreted as opening access to this object for its potential owner through removing the barrier between them. Like the above constructions otkryt’ vystavku ‘to open an exhibition’ and otkryt’ sobranie ‘to open a meeting,’ this construction denotes the shift from a potential state to an actual state (a precondition for opening a loan to a potential client is the availability of certain amount of money necessary for issuing a loan). The construction otkryt’ schet ‘to open an account’ is a bit different. Such constructions as polozhit’ den’gi na schet ‘to put money on an account’ and snjat’ den’gi so scheta ‘to withdraw (lit. take away) money from an account’ draw the image of a surface on which something can be put or taken away. Given this, the construction otkryt’ schet designates the process of opening access to this surface that already exists as an object in the sociocultural domain. Summing up, the constructions otkryt’ kredit and otkryt’ schet designate the actualization of some, so to speak, social opportunity, which materializes in the first case as a certain object and in the second – as a certain surface. Such actualization is metaphorized as the removal of the boundary in the sociocultural domain, which clarifies the use of the verb otkryt’ in this context.109 109. These hypothetical conceptual shifts do not directly correlate with historical practice. Historically, the constructions otkryt’ kredit and otkryt’ schet were probably borrowed from European languages such as French and German. However, a preliminary analysis provides some evidence of the same shifts in European languages, so the proposed model may have a wider application.

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Later, these constructions began to be used beyond the domain of banking, which gave rise to such constructions as otkryt’ schet (v matche) ‘to open the score,’ otkryt’ schet zhertvam ‘to murder the first victim,’ otkryt’ schet pobed(am) ‘to gain the first victory’ with a similar logic behind them.

7.2.8 The projection of the prototype schema onto the emotional-mental domain can be illustrated with the following quotation: On uzhe est’, tol’ko eshhe ne otkryt, kak kakoj-nibud’ zakon ili ostrov ‘It has already existed, but it has not been discovered (lit. opened) yet, like a certain law or island.’ As it is clear in this example, the necessary condition for the discovery of an object is the existence of both the object itself and some intellectual obstacles that prevent from arriving at it.110 It is interesting that the author does not distinguish between material (an island) and ideal (a law) objects, because in both cases the impediments are caused by the shortage of knowledge and hence positioned in the emotional-mental domain.

7.2.9 The same model underlies such constructions as kto-l. otkryt chemu-l., dlja chego‑l. (vsemu novomu, novym idejam) ‘smb. is open to smth. (everything new, new ideas).’ The only difference is that, in this case, the boundary separates the internal space of a person from the external “container” of ideas (conceptions, approaches, etc.) available for common use. The verb otkryt’ in the passive form characterizes, in this case, the removal of the boundary, which provides an access into the internal space for these ideas. The opposite pathway from the internal space into the space outside is designated by the constructions otkryt’ sekret, tajnu, dushu, serdce ‘to open one’s secret, soul, heart,’ etc.

7.2.10 To sum up, the analysis conducted in this section demonstrates that different senses identified by GARDL and other dictionaries are more or less based on the prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5. This applies to both physical senses and their metaphorical projections onto sociocultural and emotional-mental domains. 110. Importantly, the use of the verb otkryt’ is likely to be impossible in the case of invention. It is impossible to say, e.g., * Parovoz byl otkryt v XVIII veke (‘*The steam-engine was discovered (lit. opened) in the 18th century’); cf. the correctness of the sentence Nedavno on otkryl dlja sebja sushhestvovanie parovoza (‘Recently he learned (lit. opened) the existence of the steam-engine’).

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

An important caveat must be made here. The above analysis referred to modern language; the diachronic picture is different in many respects. Thus, in Old Russian, the actions of opening the door and eyes were not designated by the constructions otkryt’ dver’ and otkryt’ glaza, which are the most frequent among those including the verb otkryvat’; they were denoted with the use of other verbs: otverzat’ and, mainly for opening the gate, otvorjat’. A few examples from Old Russian texts of the 11th to 16th centuries are quoted below:111 I prished episkop# s# 4-rmi dijakony, otverze dveri Grobnyja, i vzjasha svѣshhu u knjazja togo u Baldvina, i tako vnide v# Grob#, i vozhzhe svѣshhu knjazhju pervѣe ot svѣta togo svjatago (Hozhdenie igumena Daniila) (And having approached, the bishop with four deacons opened the doors of the Tomb, and took a candle from that prince, from Baldwin, and with it entered the Tomb, and first of all he lit the candle of the prince from that holy light). A ottuda na poludne lic’ dolѣ pod goroju est’ kupѣl’ Siloamlja, idezhe Hristos slѣpcju ochi otverze (Hozhdenie igumena Daniila) (And from there to the south, below the mountain, is the font of Siloam, where Christ opened the eyes of a blind man). On zhe malo bivsja ottudu i vidѣv, jako spѣetsja emu dѣlo, i togda otvori vrata gradnyja, i vsjade na kon’ svoj (Kazanskaja istorija) (He did not fight them for long from there, and when he saw that the time had come, he opened the city gates, and mounted his horse, and took up arms).

At the same time, the verb otkryvat’ was not applied to such actions, and its basic meaning was to communicate (to learn) something new, sometimes by removing the cover (in some cases, the act of removal was metonymically designated by the verb otkryvat’). This mainly happened in the religious context, and often brought a clear eschatological sense: Bog# chelovѣkom otkry svjatymi knigami vsja soblazhnenia lukavago d’javola, da ne prelstit# bojashhihsja ego (From "Izmaragd") (God revealed to people all the temptations of the insidious devil with holy books, so that he would not deceive those who fear God). I v# vozvrashhenie ego otkryjut’sja sokrovishha zemnaja, i vsѣ obagatѣjut’, i niktozhe nishh’ budet, i zemlja dast’ plod svoj sedmѣriceju, oruzhija ratnaja s#tvorjat serpove (Povest’ o vzjatii Car’grada turkami v 1453 godu) (And when he returns, the treasures of the earth will be revealed to people, and everyone will become rich, and no one will be poor, and the earth will give fruits seven times more, and sickles will be made from military weapons).

111. All these examples are taken from the corpus of the Library of Old Russian Literature (Lihachev et al., 1997–2020; http://lib.pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx?tabid=2070).

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The common use of the verb otkryvat’ for versatile actions, such as opening a door or window, is dated to the mid-18th century and looks like a particular sign of secularization of language in the wake of the general process of secularization of Russian culture after Peter the Great’s reforms. One of the clear signs of such secularization was the transition from sacred knowledge received from God to experimental knowledge based on sensory experience. From this perspective, known is what is seen by human eyes (Glebkin, 2021, pp. 73–74). To generalize these observations, let me now address the problem of the description of Level A0 for the complexes such as otkryvat’. We can see that at least for the complex otkryvat’ such a description is necessary despite the stability of prototypical actions that this complex designates. In this case, the complex otverzat’, which denoted this conceptual area earlier, almost completely disappeared in modern Russian, the complex otvorjat’ became much less frequent, and they both were replaced by the complex otkryvat’ that has markedly changed its denotatum (the semantic memory of the early conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’ seems not to be kept in modern Russian). To round up, the above sociocultural factors subsumed within the concept of secularisation brought about the change in the lexical units designating prototypical sociocultural practices rather than in the practices themselves (people kept opening doors, windows, eyes, and mouths basically in the same way, but used other words to name these actions). This case contrasts with the more common situation in which changes in the general sociocultural context influence changes in prototypical sociocultural practices, as is the case for the complex intelligencija, which will be examined in Chapter 9. Let me now give the above analysis of the conceptual structure of the complex otkryvat’ a more regular form, structuring it as an entry in a special type of explanatory dictionary.

7.3

A framework of the article otkryvat’ in an explanatory dictionary

Before proceeding to the description itself, a preliminary remark is needed. The description below does not pretend to cover the whole set of lexical items attributed to the complex otkryvat’, and it is not a dictionary article in the direct sense. Rather, it provides the way for organizing the observations made in the previous section in a structure that can be the basis for articles in different dictionaries depending on their size and objectives. The general idea behind the description is that the conceptual structure of the complex can be presented as a set of conceptual clusters with the derivational links between some of them. Following the definition of the lexical complex, the

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

conceptual cluster can be defined as an ordered pair (х; y), in which y is a certain subdomain within the conceptual area of the complex and x is a set of lexical items corresponding to it. To clarify this definition, it is important to stress that the conceptual area of the complex is heterogeneous, that is, it includes some subareas of different conceptual “density.” This means that the conceptual distance between certain elements within the conceptual area differs; as a result, groups of elements form, so to say, conceptual aggregations, and the whole conceptual area can be recognized as the set of such aggregations with a rarefied space between them. A conceptual cluster includes, from this perspective, such an aggregation and lexical items corresponding to it. Having said that, one can raise the question about objective criteria responsible for detecting a certain cluster within the conceptual area. It is hardly possible to create a model applicable to all lexical complexes, but some generalizations can be made. Let us address again the complex otkryvat’. The basic elements attributed to the prototypical schema presented in Figure 5 (an internal area A, an external area B, and a demarcating boundary С) have different relative sizes; purposes of actors, temporarily removing elements of the boundary, are different (they may want to come into or go out of the area A, to put something in or get it out of the object associated with this area, to provide the access to the area B from the area A in order to get a piece of information from external world or to communicate with it, and vice versa, etc.); the action of opening involves different forms of locomotor activity, and so on. Some of these discrepancies are significant for the demarcation between different clusters, while the others are not. Such significance can be recognized in peculiarities of lexical items attributed to a certain cluster, which provide some technical criteria for this demarcation. Let us itemize these criteria. First, it is the type of domain (physical, sociocultural, emotionalmental) in which the conceptual content of a certain cluster is positioned. Second, it is the make-up of a cluster. Some lexical items attributed to one cluster, are not attributed to others. Third, there are related complexes (synonymic, hypernymic, hyponymic, etc.; see a description below) associated with the cluster.112 As a rule, the set of these complexes is not the same for different clusters. Some examples of how these criteria can be applied to a concrete analysis are given below. The descriptive model includes the following sections: 112. There are different approaches to definitions of synonymy (e.g., Katz, 1972, p. 48; Kemson, 1977, p. 40; Cruse, 1986; Croft & Cruse, 2004, pp. 169–192; Glynn, 2014) but there is no time here to delve into this polemics. It should only be noted that synonymy (hyponymy, hypernymy, antonymy, etc.) is treated in this book within the scope of the onomasiological approach (e.g., Glynn 2014, pp. 11–12), and complexes are defined as synonymic (hyponymic, hypernymic, antonymic, etc.), if there are any synonymic (hyponymic, hypernymic, antonymic, etc.) pairs of the lexical items attributed to them.

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– –

–

–

– –

Basic lexical items. In this section, the basic lexical items attributed to this cluster are collected. Some information about the frequency of their use is also included. Related complexes. The objective of this section is to show the links between the conceptual area that a conceptual cluster designates and some other conceptual areas that intersect or include this area or are actualized (often subliminally) in the minds of speakers/writers and hearers/readers together with this conceptual cluster. In other words, this section lists synonymic, hypernymic, hyponymic, co-hyponymic complexes, as well as complexes that clarify the framework of a cluster (e.g., the complexes rabochij klass ‘working klass’ and krest’janstvo ‘peasantry’ clarify the framework of Cluster 1 of the complex intelligencija ‘intelligentsia’ in the Soviet time; cf. Fillmore’s, 1976, pp. 25–28, examples of contrasts between βροτός and ἄνθροπος, and between on land and on the ground). This can help both to distinguish between different conceptual domains within a complex and to show the position of a complex within a general conceptual domain. Visual image. As was highlighted above, STLC is based on the view of language as a sociocultural phenomenon. Humans learn the meaning of lexical items through their daily experience, not by reducing them to a set of “semantic primitives,” the knowledge of which is supposed to be innate. Given Fillmore’s (1985, pp. 230–252) contrast between U-semantics and T-semantics, the description of a lexical complex in the scope of STLC is conducted from the perspective of U-semantics. In this case, an exact definition representing a concept as a combination of “basic” concepts is not necessary. It can be replaced by a verbal description of prototypical situations featured in this cluster and, if possible, with a visual image (or a short video, if the structure of a dictionary admits this). The purpose of such a visual image is to actualize the day-to-day experience that the lexical items attributed to the cluster refer to. The general requirement for such an image is its simplicity and semiotic accuracy. It is worth emphasizing that the visual image is not an obligatory element of the description and appears only in certain types of clusters. The framework of the cluster. In this section, the principles for structuring the material attributed to the cluster are formulated. This includes the description of a prototypical schema or situation (a set of situations), peripheral areas and rules responsible for the shift from the center to the periphery. Examples. In this section, some instances of sentences with the lexical items attributed to the cluster are given. Commentary. This section includes a linguistic and/or sociocultural commentary to the conceptual content of the cluster, if such a commentary is needed.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

After these general remarks, let us proceed to the description itself. The word family of the complex otkryvat’ comprises the following basic lexical items: otkryvat’ (perf. otkryt’) ‘open, v.’ (26282; 90460);113 otkrytyj ‘open, adj.’ (13210; 35174);114 otkryvat’sja (perf. otkryt’sja) ‘to get (be) opened’ (9562; 20583); otkrytie ‘discovery; opening, n.’115 (7759; 18514); otkrovenno ‘frankly’116 (2969; 5640); otkryto, adv. ‘openly’117 (2285; 3912); otkrovennyj ‘unconcealed’118 (1265; 3735); priotkryvat’ (perf. priotkryt’) ‘to slightly open smth.’119 (1916; 3606); otkrovenie ‘revelation’120 (1581; 3007); priotkryvat’sja (perf. priotkryt’sja) ‘to get (be) slightly opened’121 (734; 986); pervootkryvatel’ ‘discoverer’122 (513; 658); otkryvanie ‘opening, n.’123 (210; 257); pereotkryvat’ (perf. pereotkryt’) ‘rediscover’124 (35; 36); pereotkryvat’sja ‘to be rediscovered’125 (4; 4). We can single out three basic groups in this list: the frequent forms – otkryvat’, otkrytyj, otkryvat’sja, and otkrytie; the less frequent forms – otkrovenno, otkryto,

113. The second number is the total of occurrences of a lexical item in any form in the subcorpus 1950–2020 of the main corpus of the Russian National Corpus (RNC, www.ruscorpora.ru) (this time period characterizes modern Russian, according to the authors of the corpus), and the first number is a total of documents that contain these occurrences (if applicable, both aspects are summed up). The lexical items are listed from the most frequent to the least frequent ones. RNC is chosen because it is balanced and easy to use. Other corpora (e.g., the Google Books Ngram (GBN)) may give different relative numbers, but the qualitative picture is the same. 114. The search engine of RNC cannot distinguish between an adverb and a short adjective. To work out this problem, I took 100 random instances of the word, manually calculated the percentage of the forms, and used these figures for the whole number of occurrences. In particular, for the word otkryto this procedure gave 72% for the adverb and 28% for the short adjective. The search yielded 39086 occurrences for the word otkrytyj and 5434 occurrences for the word otkryto. Therefore, the number of occurrences for the adjective otkrytyj is 39086 – 0.72 × 5434 = 35174, and for the adverb otkryto is 0.72 × 5434 = 3912. A similar procedure was applied for the number of documents that contain the adjective otkrytyj. 115. This item is attributed to the clusters from Cluster 6 to Cluster 9. 116. This item is attributed to Cluster 10. 117. This item is attributed to Cluster 1 and Cluster 10. 118. This item is attributed to Cluster 10. 119. This item is attributed to Cluster 1, Cluster 3, Cluster 4, and Cluster 10. 120. This item is attributed to Cluster 9 and Cluster 10. 121. This item is attributed to Cluster 1 to Cluster 4. 122. This item is attributed to Cluster 9. 123. This item is attributed to the clusters from Cluster 1 to Cluster 4. 124. This item is attributed to Cluster 9. 125. This item is attributed to Cluster 9. The form *pereotkryt’sja is considered incorrect, as it is presented neither in the Russian National Corpus nor in the Google Books Ngram Viewer.

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otkrovennyj, priotkryvat’, and otkrovenie; and the rare forms – priotkryvat’sja, pervootkryvatel’, otkryvanie, pereotkryvat’, and pereotkryvat’sja. Let me proceed to a detailed description.

Level A0126 In Old Russian, the actions of opening a door, window, eyes, mouth, etc. were not indicated by the constructions with the verb otkryvat’; most often they were denoted with the use of other verbs, the most frequent of which were otverzat’ and otvorjat’. At the same time, the basic meaning of the verb otkryvat’ was to communicate or learn new information, sometimes by removing the cover (in some cases, as a result of a metonymical shift, the act of removal was denoted by the verb otkryvat’). This mainly happened in the religious context, and often brought a clear eschatological sense. Another group of contexts characterizes the direct intervention of God in the life of humans. The verb otkryvat’ has changed its conceptual structure since the mid-18th century, gradually displacing the verbs otverzat’ and otvorjat’ from their area of use. The reasons for this change are rooted in the sharp grouth of secular elements in Russian culture that took place in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the associated replacement of sacred knowledge with experimental knowledge based on perceptual (in particular, visual) experience.

Level A Cluster 1 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p127 dver’ (2631, 6187),128 okno (1133, 1840), vorota (375, 464), chemodan (116, 128), korobku (103, 108) ‘to open a door, window, gate, suit126. The full description is provided in Section 7.2.10. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description. 127. If both aspects of a verb are grammatical, the imperfective verb is listed with the subscript p after the word. If only one aspect is grammatical, the verb in this aspect is listed. 128. The corpus is the same as described in Footnote 113. For bigrams with a verb, I used the search query with the lexical distance (−1, 2) between the parts of the bigram. Empirically, it happens to be the best solution to the task of both catching correct occurrences (such as Ja dver’ otkryla ‘I opened the door’ and otkryl emu dver’ ‘opened him the door’) and eliminating incorrect ones (such as Privalivshis’ spinoju k dveri, on otkryl molniju na chemodane ‘Leaning back against the door, he opened the zipper on the suitcase’). If applicable, both aspects are summed up. To distinguish between direct meanings and metaphorical ones that are attributed

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

case, box,’ etc.; otkrytaja dver’ (1816, 2583),129 okno (803, 1251), vorota (113, 125), chemodan (18, 19), korobka (18, 19) ‘an open door, window, gate, suitcase, box,’ etc.; otkrytaja scena (40, 49), jestrada (22, 22), teatr (9, 10) ‘an open stage, theatre’; otkrytoe prostranstvo ‘open space’ (255, 297); pod otkrytym nebom ‘under the open sky’ (646, 871); otkrytaja sistema (term.) ‘an open system (thermodynamics).’ Related complexes: otvorjat’p ‘open, v.’ (syn.),130 raspahivat’p ‘to open widely with a fast and sharp movement’ (hypon.), rastvorjat’p ‘open, v.’ (syn.), raskryvat’p ‘to open widely’ (hypon.), zakryvat’p ‘close, v.’ (fr.), zahlopyvat’p ‘to close with a clap’ (fr.). Visual image: See Figure 6 and Figure 7.

Figure 6. A visual image for otkryt’ dver’131

The framework of the cluster: The prototypical schema for this cluster is drawn in Figure 5. It includes the bounded internal area A, the external area B, and the boundary C. The boundary C comprises an element that can be temporally

to Cluster 5 (such as Ved’ preimushhestvennym pravom pol’zujutsja rabotniki fizicheskogo truda, tol’ko im otkryty dveri v partiju ‘After all, workers of manual labor enjoy the preferential right, the doors to the party are open only to them’), I applied a procedure similar to that described in Footnote 114. For example, the search for the construction otkryvat’с dver’ yields 6874 occurrences. The analysis of 100 random instances evidences that 10 of them are metaphorical. That gives us 0.9 × 6874 = 6187 occurrences of the construction otkryvat’с dver’ in Cluster 1. 129. For bigrams “adj. + noun” the search query with the lexical distance (−2, 2) between the elements was used. 130. Hereinafter, syn. – synonymic complex, hyper. – hypernymic complex, hypon. – hyponymic complex, co-hypon. – co-hyponymic complex, fr. – complexes clarifying the framework of a described complex. 131. Figure from 7 to 19 were drawn by Zoya Kudryavtseva.

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Figure 7. A visual image for otkryt’ okno

removed, and such possibility is inherent in its design. The protagonist P opens a part of boundary in order to have access to the source S for a specific goal G. For such constructions as otkryvat’с dver’, okno and vorota, both options (shown in Figure 5a and Figure 5b) are suitable. For such constructions as otkryvat’с chemodan and korobku, only the first schema is correct. The action of opening is designated by the verb otkryvat’ and by the noun otkryvanie, whereas the state of the internal object – by the adjective otkrytyj.

Examples:132 (1) Ja proshjol v svoju komnatu, otkryl okno i ljog spinoj na podokonnik ‘I went to my room, opened the window and lay back on the windowsill.’133 (2) On ispugalsja, otoshel, otkryl komnatu, i ja vyskochila ‘He got scared, stepped away, opened the room, and I jumped out.’134 (3) Dver’ kljuchom otkryvaju i govorju: «Mogli by hot’ pozvonit’» ‘I open the door with the key and say: “Could you at least call”.’135 (4) Na kryshe dnem mozhno zagorat’, a vecherom ona prevrashhaetsja v otkrytyj kinoteatr na 200 mest ‘You can sunbathe on the roof during the day, and in the evening it turns into an outdoor cinema with 200 seats.’136

132. In this section, all the examples are taken from RNC. Many structural elements of the complex otkryvat’ are also attributed to the complex open. Given that, appropriate English instances taken from the British National Corpus (www.english-corpora.org/bnc/), are cited to clarify the structure of a cluster. 133. Cf. The knocking annoyed me so much that I tried to open the window. 134. Cf. He opened our room. 135. Cf. However, there was no reply, so I opened the door with the key and we entered.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

(5) Prjamo pod otkrytym nebom na sklone holma u reki razmestilis’ tri nebol’shie ploshhadki, na kotoryh prohodili otborochnye tury ‘Directly under the open sky on a hillside near the river, there were three small sites where the qualifying rounds were held.’137

Commentary:138 As a rule, the lexical items attributed to this cluster designate the boundary C as an object of opening. That said, the internal area A can also be named as such an object, being a result of a metonymical shift (e.g., the construction otkryt’ dver’ ‘to open a door’ can be morphed into the constructions otkryt’ komnatu, kvartiru, saraj ‘to open a room (a flat, a shed)’, etc.). Another possibility of a metonymical shift is a model in which the entire action is represented by a part of it that is not directly linked to the removal of the boundary element (e.g., On otkryl dver’ svoim kljuchom ‘He opened the door with his key’). The above schema also underlies the construction otkryt’ knigu ‘open a book.’ The constructions otkryt’ gazetu ‘open a newspaper’ and otkryt’ zhurnal ‘open a magazine’ seem to be its derivatives, located at the periphery of the conceptual structure of the complex. The constructions otkryt’ zontik ‘open an umbrella’ and otkryt’ veer ‘open a fan’ are also positioned at the periphery of the conceptual structure. In this case, in contrast with prototypical situations, the internal area A is transformed markedly in the process of opening; nevertheless, a result of the action correlates with the prototypical model: the action provides an access to the area A from the area B. In addition, the verb priotkryvat’ is used within this cluster if the gap between separated parts of the boundary is small.

Cluster 2 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p butylku (199, 227), banku (118, 127), konservy (25, 27) ‘to open a bottle, jar, tin of canned food,’ etc., otkrytaja butylka (52, 56), banka (55, 62), konservy (5, 5) ‘an open bottle, jar, tin of canned food,’ etc. Related complexes: zakryvat’p ‘close, v.’ (fr.); for the construction otkryvat’p butylku, also otkuporivat’p ‘uncork’ (syn.) and zakuporivat’p ‘cork up’ (fr.). Visual image: See Figure 8.

136. Cf. A complimentary ticket (subject to availability) for the Caracalla open air theatre for all guests staying 5 nights or more in August. 137. Cf. For above him was an open sky. 138. The full description is provided in Section 7.2.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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Figure 8. A visual image for otkryt’ butylku

The framework of the cluster: The conceptual content of this cluster is premised on the prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5a. Unlike Cluster 1, the purpose of removing part of the boundary in this case is strongly limited (to move some stuff from the internal area A to the external area B) and only the outwardinward direction is relevant. In addition, the locomotor schemata of actions differ significantly from those basic for the Cluster 1.

Examples: (1) Ona otkryla butylku, plesnula v stakan vody i protjanula Nosovu ‘She opened the bottle, splashed water into a glass and handed it to Nosov’.139 (2) A Sofa dazhe otkryla konservy manikjurnymi nozhnicami ‘And Sofa even opened the canned food with nail scissors.’

Commentary: This cluster can be considered an expansion of Cluster 1, as the bigram otkryvat’с butylku ‘to open a bottle’, the earliest in this lexical group, has become commonly used since the 1920s, gradually replacing the bigram otkuporivat’ butylku ‘to uncork a bottle’. By that time, the constructions otkryvat’ dver’ and otkryvat’ okno had become stable prototypes for the verb otkryvat’. At another level, the list of related complexes differs markedly for Cluster 1 and Cluster 2, and some lexical items attributed to the complex (e.g., the verb priotkryvat’) are used in Cluster 1 and not used in Cluster 2.

139. Cf. She opened the first bottle of wine, and went down to the door.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

Cluster 3 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p kran (169, 201), klapan (57, 71), ventil’ (32, 52), vodu (9, 10) ‘to open a tap, valve, flap, water,’ otkrytyj kran (21, 22), klapan (17, 26), ventil’ (7, 9) ‘an open tap, valve, flap.’ Related complexes: otvertyvat’p ‘turn on’ (syn.), otvorachivat’p ‘turn on’ (syn.), zakryvat’p ‘close, v.’ (fr.), zavertyvat’p ‘turn off ’ (fr.), zavorachivat’p ‘turn off ’ (fr.). Visual image: See Figure 9.

Figure 9. A visual image for otkryt’ kran

The framework of the cluster: The conceptual content of this cluster is premised on the prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5a. In this case, the internal area A has no definite boundaries, but it is assumed to be closed and filled with a certain substance (liquid or gas). Compared to, for example, opening a door (which may be embedded in a wide range of sociocultural situations), opening a tap has basically the sole purpose of allowing the substance that fills the area A to enter the external area B.

Examples: (1) Ja otkryl kran i vymyl, kak mog, svoju misku pod struej holodnoj vody ‘I turned on the tap and washed my bowl as best I could under running cold water.’140 (2) Afanasij podoshel k rakovine, otkryl vodu, nalil sebe polnuju chashku, vypil ee, nalil eshhe, vypil, nalil eshhe odnu i vypil ‘Athanasius went to the sink, turned on the water, poured a full cup, drank it, poured another, drank, poured another and drank.’

140. Cf. Open the tap and work backwards along the pipe, warming it up until the water flows again.

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Commentary: Like Cluster 2, this cluster can be treated as an expansion of Cluster 1 into new day-to-day activities. Such constructions as otkryvat’p kran came to be widely used at the end of 19th century, and the replacement of otvorjat’p kran with otkryvat’p kran follows the replacement of otvorjat’p dver’ (okno) with otkryvat’p dver’ (okno).

Cluster 4 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p glaza (2230, 4735), rot (1098, 1490),141 lico (83, 94), lob (65, 74), grud’ (51, 56), ushi (10, 16), zuby (13, 13) ‘to open one’s eyes, mouth, face, forehead, breast, ears, teeth,’ etc., otkrytye glaza (570, 798), rot (350, 454), lico (60, 69), lob (46, 52), grud’ (40, 43), ushi (7, 7), zuby (1, 1) ‘open eyes, mouth, face, breast, ears, forehead, teeth,’ etc. Related complexes: raskryvat’p ‘to open widely’ (hypon.), raspahivat’p ‘to open widely’ (hypon.), obnazhat’ ‘bare, v.’ (syn.), zakryvat’p ‘close, v.’ (fr.); for the constructions otkryvat’p glaza and otkryvat’p rot also zahlopyvat’ ‘close, v.’ (fr.). Visual image: See Figure 10–12.

Figure 10. A visual image for otkryt’ glaza

The framework of the cluster: The conceptual content of this cluster is premised on the prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5b. In contrast to the previous clusters, the constructions attributed to this cluster designate parts of human body, not objects of the external world. Their communicative meaning, therefore, is different; they are more related to the internal aspects than to the external aspects of the communicative situation (there are such internal aspects as saying or eating something, getting a piece of information from the surroundings, main141. To distinguish between direct senses and metaphorical ones that are attributed to Cluster 11 (such as A mestnye chinovniki slushajut ego, otkryv rot, lovjat kazhdoe ego slovo ‘And local officials listen to him with their mouths open, catching his every word’), I applied a procedure similar to that described in Footnote 128.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

Figure 11. A visual image for otkryt’ rot

Figure 12. A visual image for otkryt’ lob

taining the homeostasis of your body, communicating something to other people through some peculiarities of your appearance, etc.).

Examples: (1) Devochka otkryla glaza i zevnula ‘The girl opened her eyes and yawned.’142 (2) On hotel chto-to skazat’ eshhe, no tol’ko otkryl rot i glotnul vozduh ‘He wanted to say something else, but only opened his mouth and took a sip of air.’143 (3) I hot’ u menja ruki v naruchnikah, ja razryvaju rubashku, otkryvaju grud’, a tam vse v krovi ‘And even though my hands are handcuffed, I tear off my shirt, open my chest, and everything is covered in blood.’

142. Cf. The next time the girl opened her eyes the young officer was staring straight into them, his face strained and anxious. 143. Cf. And the other silly beggar opened his mouth and pointed to a tooth you know.

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(4) Stjanutye remeshkom sedye volosy otkryvali kostistyj lob, ostrye bescvetnye glaza utopali pod nizko navisshimi brovjami ‘Strapped gray hair showed (lit., opened) a bony forehead, sharp colorless eyes sank under low drooping eyebrows.’ (5) Rjad belyh zubov, otkrytyh v ulybke alyh gub, osveshhal lico privetlivym svetom ‘A row of white teeth, open in a smile of scarlet lips, illuminated the face with a friendly light.’144

Commentary: In this conceptual cluster, the constructions otkryt’ glaza, rot, lico; otkrytye glaza, rot, lico belong to the prototypical core, whereas the constructions otkryt’ grud’, ushi, lob; otkrytaja grud’, ushi, lob are located on the periphery (they are much rarer than the previous constructions and much less productive as sources for conceptual metaphors).

Cluster 5 Basic lexical items: Х otkryvaetp У dver’ (dorogu) v/k Zph145 ‘X opens a door (way) into Z for Y’;146 dlja X-a, X-u, pered X-om otkryta dver’ (dveri, doroga, dorogi) v/k Z ph ‘the door (doors, way(s)) into Z is open for X’; dlja X-a, pered X-om otkryt Z (kompanija, dom, svet)ph ‘Z (a company, house, society) is open for X’; dlja X-a, X-u, pered X-om otkryty vse dveri (dorogi)ph ‘all the doors (ways) are open for X’; X lomitsja v otkrytuju dver’ ph ‘X breaks through the open door’; otkrytyj urokph ‘an open lesson’; otkrytoe sobranieph ‘an open meeting’; otkrytyj domph ‘an open house’; den’ otkrytyh dverejph ‘an Open Day’; otkrytoe more (morsk.) ‘the open sea (marine)’; otkrytyj list (arheol.) ‘an open sheet (archeol.).’ The framework of the cluster: This cluster is formed by a metaphorical projection of the prototypical schemata drawn in Figure 5a and Figure 5b onto the sociocultural domain. In the first case, the internal area A designates a certain social group or institution, and the boundary С represents a system of written and unwritten social rules that provide an access to this group or institution for some people and block it for others (Example 1, 2, and 3). In the second case, the direction of movement is reversed. The area A represents there a social domain whose “inhabitants” have some restrictions in their social status, and crossing the boundary С means entering another area without such restrictions (Example 4).

144. Cf. When she wanted not to reply to something, she would lift her ravishing upper lip over her opened teeth in a way that put him alarmingly in mind of a horse wanting to be bridled. 145. The subscript ph hereinafter means a phrasal construction. 146. The constructions included in this and subsequent clusters are extremely rare in RNC, so the information on the number of occurrences in this case is hardly representative.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

Examples: (1) …hotja svet byl otkryt dlja nego lichno, on byl zakryt dlja Anny ‘though the world was open for him personally, it was closed for Anna.’ (2) Cyganskim pevcam byla otkryta doroga v koncertnye zaly, luchshie restorany obeih stolic ‘Gypsy singers were given access (lit., the way was opened for gypsy singers) to concert halls and the best restaurants in both capitals.’147 (3) Ved’ preimushhestvennym pravom pol’zujutsja rabotniki fizicheskogo truda, tol’ko im otkryty dveri v partiju ‘After all, workers of manual labor enjoy the preferential right, the doors in the [Communist] party were open to only them.’148 (4) Rebjata iz nashego depo s pjati-shestiklassnym obrazovaniem cherez uskorennye kursy postupali v vuzy, i peredo mnoj tozhe byli otkryty vse dorogi: rabochij s malyh let, k tomu zhe demobilizovannyj krasnoarmeec, mog postupit’ snachala na kursy, potom v vuz, uehat’ v Har’kov, Har’kov byl togda stolicej Ukrainy ‘The guys from our depot with a five-sixth grade education entered universities through accelerated courses, and all roads were open for me too: a worker with a small age, besides, a demobilized Red Army soldier, I could start first at courses, then to enter the university, to go to Kharkov, Kharkiv was a former part of Ukraine.’ (5) Partorganizacija provodila svoi zakrytye i otkrytye sobranija, obsuzhdalis’ na nih, kak polozheno, poslednie reshenija politbjuro, no nikogda i nikto ne smel vmeshivat’sja v repertuarnuju politiku ili v raspredelenie rolej ‘The party organization held its closed and open meetings, discussed at them, as expected, the latest decisions of the Politburo, but no one ever dared to interfere in repertoire policy or in the distribution of roles.’149 (6) Segodnja zdes’ den’ otkrytyh dverej dlja vypusknikov gorodskih shkol ‘Today is an open day for graduates of city schools.’150

147. Cf.: In January 1923, France invaded the coalfields of the Ruhr in an attempt to enforce delivery of reparation coal, thereby triggering the hyper-inflation which helped to undermine the Weimar Republic and open the way for Hitler. 148. Cf.: The sweeping changes in our continent mean that the European Community that we have created will need to open its doors to new members in the near future. 149. Cf.: Legally they are only required to have one public or open meeting at which the Community Health Council is invited to attend. 150. Cf.: Following the success of the first Alumni Teachers’ Meeting at the University’s Schools’ Open Day, it is intended that such meetings will become a regular event.

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(7) U Sashi byl otkrytyj dom – i trudnee vspomnit’, kto ne prihodil k nemu tuda ‘Sasha had an open house – and it is harder to remember who did not visit him there.’151 (8) Budem vesti razvedochnye raskopki. Otkrytyj list vypravim posle. Ne polagaetsja jeto ‘We will conduct exploratory excavations and straighten the open sheet later. This is not allowed.’

Commentary: The mapping of the prototypical schema onto the sociocultural domain can be illustrated with Example 1, taken from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. This quotation refers to a special sociocultural area confined by the boundary with several social “doors” that are open to some people (in this case, for Vronsky) and closed to other people (in this case, to Karenina). The word otkrytyj in this context means that an event is allowed for people who do not belong to a certain sociocultural group (who are, so to speak, outside the boundaries of a certain sociocultural area): the construction otkrytoe sobranie designates a meeting that may be attended not only by the members of a certain organization or community but also by everyone who is interested in the subject; the construction otkrytyj urok pertains to the lesson allowed for the presence of other teachers, parents of the students, etc.; the construction Den’ otkrytyh dverej means a day in which an organization (a university, school, college, factory, etc.) invites members of the public to come in and to inform themselves about its structure, principles of functioning, and everyday life.

Cluster 6 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p vystavku (164, 188), magazin (157, 184),152 pamjatnik (115, 126) ‘to open the exhibition, shop, monument,’ etc.; otkrytie vystavki (243, 325), pamjatnika (155, 196), magazina (73, 87) ‘the opening of the exhibition, monument, shop,’ etc. The framework of the cluster: This cluster is formed by a metaphorical projection of the prototypical schema drawn in Figure 5a onto the sociocultural domain. In this case, the internal area A represents a certain object of public use that exists in a physical sense, but does not yet function as a sociocultural object, and the boundary C indicates sociocultural restrictions that are removed in the act of opening.

151. Cf.: Keeping open house for friends and families provides more fun and stimulation for residents. 152. These data are obtained as a result of manual counting of occurrences attributed to this cluster and documents containing them.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

Examples: (1) V Jermitazhe s ogromnym mezhdunarodnym rezonansom byla otkryta vystavka, posvjashhennaja kul’ture Vostoka jepohi Rustaveli, priurochennaja k 750-letnemu jubileju gruzinskogo genija ‘An exhibition dedicated to the culture of the East of the Rustaveli era, timed to coincide with the 750th anniversary of the Georgian genius, was opened in the Hermitage with great international resonance.’153 (2) K pjatnadcatiletiju Sankt-Peterburgskoj Kliniki Svjatoslava Fedorova v nashem gorode otkryt pamjatnik velikomu rossijskomu akademiku i sostojalas’ Rossijskaja nauchnaja konferencija ‘On the fifteenth anniversary of the St. Petersburg Clinic of Svyatoslav Fedorov, a monument to the great Russian academician was opened in our city and a Russian scientific conference was held.’ (3) Zato synok ee v gorode magazin otkryl ‘but her son opened a shop in the town.’154

Commentary: The opening ceremony provides access to the physical object for members of the public, thereby endowing the object with new sociocultural meanings and transforming it into a sociocultural object, that is, an object within the sociocultural domain. The strong correlation between physical and sociocultural boundaries is clear in the symbolic act of cutting the ribbon (another name for the opening ceremony is, as is well known, the ribbon-cutting ceremony). In this case, the act of cutting the ribbon opens a sociocultural “door” for the public (in addition, one can notice the metonymical shift similar to the shift from otkryt’ dver’ ‘to open a door’ to otkryt’ komnatu ‘to open a room’). At another level, it is interesting that the frequency of the constructions otkryvat’p vystavku and otkryt’p magazine is comparable with that of the constructions otkryvat’p kran and otkryvat’p butylku.

Cluster 7 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p zasedanie (131, 151),155 sobranie (58, 68), konferenciju (51, 51) ‘to open a meeting, conference,’ etc. The framework of the cluster: This cluster can be considered a metaphorical extension of the framework of Cluster 6 onto events. In this case, the internal area

153. Cf.: The Crown Princess of Jordan opened an exhibition of his work saying it captured the real colour of life. 154. Cf.: Early in the 1920s, Father opened a second shop, then a third, this time in Mansfield. 155. These and following data are obtained as a result of manual counting of occurrences attributed to this cluster and documents containing them.

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A represents an event (meeting, conference, rally, etc.), and the boundary C is reduced to the moment of time separating the event from the non-event. If so, the act of starting the event is analogous to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Examples: (1) Prezident otkryl sobranie, i ja srazu pochuvstvoval sebja ne v svoej tarelke, ibo tol’ko ja odin absoljutno ne ponimal proishodjashhego – ostal’nye byli v kurse dela ‘The President opened the meeting, and I immediately felt out of place, because only I did not understand what was happening at all – the rest were in the know.’156 (2) Otkryl konferenciju akademik Zaharov, sdelavshij obshirnyj obzor istorii Rossijskoj akademii nauk ‘The conference was opened by Academician Zakharov, who made an extensive review of the history of the Russian Academy of Sciences.’157

Commentary:158 In contrast with objects associated with Cluster 6 (such as an exhibition, monument, shop) that have a material representation in the physical world, meetings and conferences are events, that is, temporal entities devoid of a direct material representation. That said, events (and, in particular, meetings and conferences) are often conceptualized as material objects or locations. Drawing an analogy with a monument and exhibition, it is possible to say that a meeting (rally, conference) can be opened if all its constituents are available (the participants are sitting in the hall or standing on the square, the chairman and the speakers are present and ready to perform their duties, etc.). At another level, unlike spatial objects, events have only two boundary points – a beginning and an end, so starting an event means “making” it open, that is, cutting a “temporal ribbon,” thereby transferring the event from a potential state to an actual state.

156. Cf.: As chairman of the central committee, Sharon opened the meeting by reading the text of his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, Itzhak Shamir, and the other 3,000 assembled delegates. 157. Cf.: The conference opened with an address by Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzlez, followed by speeches by leaders of the conference’s sponsoring governments – US President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. 158. The full description is provided in Section 7.2.6. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

Cluster 8 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p schet (v banke) ‘to open an account (in a bank)’ (135, 215),159 otkryt’ schet (v matche) ‘to open the score’ (19, 20), otkryvat’p kredit ‘to open a loan’ (12, 13), otkryt’ schet zhertvam ‘to murder the first victim,’ otkryt’ schet pobed(am) ‘to gain the first victory.’ The framework of the cluster: As in Cluster 6 and Cluster 7, the verb otkryvat’ points here at the presence of a certain sociocultural opportunity which is actualized through the action of opening (e.g., the opportunity to open an account or a loan in a bank). In this case, such an opportunity is concerned with a more complex sociocultural model than that for a monument or a meeting, but the basic principle seems to be the same as that for the two previous clusters.

Examples: (1) M.S. prosit Kolja srochno pomoch’ – zastavit’ banki otkryt’ kredit, a takzhe dat’ den’gi vpered pod zaklad voennogo imushhestva, ostavljaemogo nashimi uhodjashhimi iz Germanii vojskami ‘M.S. asks Kohl for urgent help – to force the banks to open a loan, and also to give money in advance against the mortgage of military property left by our troops leaving Germany.’ (2) On otkryl schet v banke, lopatoj greb den’gi ottuda, no i vozvrashhal s izbytkom ‘He opened a bank account, raked money out with a shovel, but also returned it in excess.’160 (3) Na 78-j minute zashhitnik Martin Demikelis, prishedshij v chuzhuju shtrafnuju na podachu uglovogo, otkryl schet, vkolotiv mjach v setku s blizkogo rasstojanija ‘In the 78th minute, defender Martin Demichelis, who came into the competitor’s penalty area to take a corner, opened the scoring by hammering the ball into the net from close range.’161 (4) Tak morskoe chudishhe, esli ne schitat’ bednjagu, pogibshego vo vremja sborki sudna na stapele, otkrylo schet svoim zhertvam ‘So the sea monster, with the exception of the poor fellow who died during the assembly of the ship on the slipway, opened an account for its victims.’

159. These and following data are obtained as a result of manual counting of occurrences attributed to this cluster and documents containing them. 160. Cf.: You are recommended to open a British bank account as soon as possible, preferably before your arrival. 161. Cf.: In the sixty fifth minute after recovering from some heavy pressure, Bicester broke away for Mark Edwards to open the score with a low shot from twenty five yards, Whittington helping the ball over the line when he dived to save.

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Commentary:162 The conceptual content designated by the noun kredit ‘loan, n.’ is metaphorized in modern Russian as a material object that can change its shape and size, and functions as a possession that owners can use for their needs, whereas the one designated by the noun schet ‘account, n.’ is represented metaphorically as a surface on which something can be put or taken away. In other words, both constructions designate the actualization of a social opportunity that materializes in the first case as an object and in the second case as a surface. Such actualization is metaphorized as the removal of the boundary in the sociocultural domain, which clarifies the use of the verb otkryt’ in this context. Later, these constructions began to be used beyond the domain of banking, which gave rise to such constructions as otkryt’ schet (v matche) ‘to open the score’, otkryt’ schet zhertvam ‘to murder the first victim’, otkryt’ schet pobed(am) ‘to gain the first victory’ with a similar logic behind them. The dotted line between Cluster 6 and Cluster 8 means that the connection between these clusters is indirect (it is reconstructed through the European languages).

Cluster 9 Basic lexical items: otkryvat’p zakon (215, 248), mestorozhdenie (99, 114), javlenie (76, 79), ‘to discover a law, phenomenon, field,’ etc.; otkryvat’p tajnu (41, 46),163 sekret (12, 12) ‘to discover a secret’; otkryt’ X-a ‘to discover X’; otkryt’ v X-e Y ‘to discover Y in X’; otkryt’ X-u glaza na Yph ‘to open X’eyes to Y’; otkryt’ (ne otkryt’) Ameriku (Ameriki)ph ‘to reinvent the wheel’; lomit’sja v otkrytuju dver’ph ‘to force an open door.’ The framework of the cluster: This cluster is formed by a metaphorical projection of the prototypical schema shown in Figure 5a onto the emotional-mental domain. In this case, the internal area A designates a fact (phenomenon, process, event, etc.) which is unknown to certain people (social groups, human beings in general), and the boundary С represents intellectual obstacles impeding the access to this fact. The action of opening symbolizes here a removal of these intellectual obstacles.

Examples: (1) On uzhe est’, tol’ko eshhe ne otkryt, kak kakoj-nibud’ zakon ili ostrov ‘It has already existed, but it has not been discovered (lit. opened) yet, like a certain law or island.’ 162. The full description is provided in Section 7.2.7. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description. 163. These and following data are obtained as a result of manual counting of occurrences attributed to this cluster and documents containing them.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

(2) Svetochuvstvitel’nyj datchik pojavilsja blagodarja rabotam russkogo uchenogo A.G. Stoletova, otkryvshego javlenie fotojeffekta jemissii jelektronov pod dejstviem sveta ‘The light-sensitive sensor arose thanks to the work of the Russian scientist A.G. Stoletov, who discovered (lit., opened) the phenomenon of the photoelectric emission of electrons under the influence of light.’ (3) V seredine XIX veka za Poljarnym krugom, na Tajmyre, v zone vechnoj merzloty, byli otkryty mestorozhdenija mednyh rud ‘In the middle of the 19th century, copper ore deposits were discovered (lit., opened) beyond the Arctic Circle, on Taimyr, in the permafrost zone.’ (4) Pjatiletnim mal’chikom ja nikak ne mog otkryt’ tajnu perochinnogo nozha: kak on skladyvaetsja i raskryvaetsja ‘Being a five-year-old boy, I could not figure out (lit., open) the secret of a penknife: how it folds and opens.’ (5) Istinno skazat’, chto s teh por, kak Francija otkryla Shekspira, poterjala Francija son, appetit i veselost’ ‘It is true to say that since France discovered (lit., opened) Shakespeare, France has lost sleep, appetite and gaiety.’ (6) Pisatelem ego sdelal sluchaj, i otkryl v nem pisatelja drugoj narodnik i jeser, vyshedshij, kak i on, iz evrejskoj sredy … ‘Chance made him a writer, and another Narodnik and Socialist-Revolutionary who, like him, came out of a Jewish milieu, discovered (lit., opened) the writer in him…’ (7) Ja teper’ ego razdrazhal tem, chto otkryl emu glaza na bolee glubokoe ponimanie smeshnogo, i v to zhe vremja sdelal jeto narochno slishkom pozdno, chtoby on uzhe ne smog so mnoj sostjazat’sja ‘I now annoyed him by opening his eyes to a deeper understanding of the ridiculous, and at the same time I did it deliberately too late so that he could no longer compete with me.’164 (8) Ja ne otkroju Ameriki, esli skazhu, chto na pervom meste sredi prochih prichin stojat kurenie i alkogolizm ‘I will not discover (lit., open) America if I say that among other reasons, smoking and alcoholism are in the first place.’ (9) Emu v sushhnosti ne bylo nadobnosti sporit’ so mnoju v jetom punkte, no on vsetaki sporil i, kak mne kazalos’ togda, lomilsja v otkrytuju dver’ ‘He didn’t really need to argue with me on this point, but he argued all the same and, as it seemed to me at the time, was pounding on the open door.’

164. Cf.: Daughter of the Queen Igrayne and half-sister to King Arthur, she revealed to him the intrigue between Lancelot and Guinevere by giving him a magic draught which opened his eyes to the perfidy.

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Commentary: Example 1 provides a vivid illustration of the framework of this cluster. As it is clear in this example, the necessary condition for the discovery of an object is the existence of both the object itself and some intellectual obstacles that prevent from arriving at it. It is interesting that the author does not distinguish between material (an island) and ideal (a law) objects, because in both cases the impediments are caused by the shortage of knowledge and hence positioned in the emotional-mental domain. It is worth also noting that the constructions otkryt’ tajnu, sekret are attributed to both this and the next cluster. In this case, the direction of intellectual motion is from outside to inside. The opposite direction is also possible, and it is considered in Cluster 10.165

Cluster 10 Basic lexical items: H otkryt Y, dlja Y (vsemu novomu, novym idejam) ‘X is open to Y (everything new, new ideas),’ etc.; otkryt’ Y-y dushu (serdce, mysli, chuvstva i t. d.) ‘to open X’s soul (heart, thoughts, feelings, etc.) to Y’; otkryt’ (svoi) kartyph ‘to put one’s card on the table’; otkryvat’p tajnu (246, 276), sekret (166, 175) ‘to discover (lit., open) a secret’; otkrytoe lico, s otkrytym licomph ‘an open face, with an open face’(521, 607); otkrytyj chelovek ‘an open person’ (172, 193); otkrytoe serdce, s otkrytym serdcemph (157, 178) ‘an open heart, with an open heart’; otkrytaja dusha, s otkrytoj dushojph (129, 136) ‘an open soul, with an open soul’; otkryto dejstvovat’, govorit’, trebovat’ i t.d. (2021, 3859)166 ‘to act, speak, claim, etc. openly’; otkrovenno govorit’, priznavat’sja, dejstvovat’ i t.d. (1833, 3379)167 ‘to speak, admit, act, etc. frankly’; otkrovennyj razgovor (304, 356), priznanie (111, 124) ‘a straight talk, a frank confession,’ etc. The framework of the cluster: This cluster is formed by a metaphorical projection of the prototypical schema shown in Figure 5b onto the emotional-mental domain. Its framework likens that of Cluster 9, but in this case the center of activity is located in the internal area A. There are two possible scenarios for this cluster. In the first scenario, the boundary separates the internal space of a person from the external “container” of ideas (conceptions, approaches, etc.) available for common use. The verb otkryt’ in the passive form characterizes, in this case, the removal of the boundary, which provides an access into the internal space for these ideas. In 165. This is not the case for English in which two different verbs (to discover and to open) are used, to distinguish between these situations. 166. I took 100 random instances of bigrams obtained after the search query otkrytyj, ADV + V with the lexical distance (−1, 2) between the parts of the bigram, manually calculated the percentage of the forms, and used this percentage for the whole number of occurrences. 167. The calculation method was the same as described in the previous footnote.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

the second scenario, some information (facts, ideas, etc.) hidden to the world outside is transferred into area B. This scenario is represented by the constructions otkryt’ sekret, tajnu, dushu, serdce ‘to open one’s secret, soul, heart,’ etc.

Examples: (1) Oni v bol’shej stepeni otkryty novym idejam, mobil’ny v prinjatii reshenij ‘They are more open to new ideas, mobile in decision making.’168 (2) Ran’she ona vot tak zhe, kak Mila, byla gotova otkryt’ dushu pervomu vstrechnomu, obozhala svoih kratkovremennyh podrug na sudah, gotova byla vse dlja nih sdelat’, poka neskol’ko raz ne obozhglas’ ‘Previously, just like Mila, she was ready to open her soul to the first person she met, adored her shortterm friends on the ships, was ready to do everything for them, until she burned herself several times.’169 (3) Ja postaralsja otkryt’ svoi chuvstva v stihah ‘I tried to express (lit., open) my feelings in poetry.’ (4) Na minuvshej nedele novyj pretendent na shestuju knopku, telekompanija TVVI, otkryla karty ‘Last week, a new contender for the sixth button, TV-VI, put its card on the table (lit., opened the cards).’ (5) Sejchas on rasskazhet vsjo Elene, a potom vyzovet Tanju, otkroet ej tajnu otcovstva, i pust’ ona togda reshaet, chto ej delat’ s jetim nasledstvom ‘Now he will tell everything to Elena, and then he will call Tanya, reveal (lit., open) to her the secret of paternity, and then let her decide what to do with this inheritance.’170 (6) Mne ochen’ obidno, chto ja s otkrytoj dushoj, a na menja kosjatsja moi zhe doverennye. ‘I am very offended that I am with an open soul, and my trusted ones look askance at me.’ (7) Moja otkrytaja dusha pospeshno zastegivalas’ na vse pugovicy ‘My open soul hastily fastened all the buttons.’ (8) Vdohnovennye rechi, ponjatnye slova, otkrytye lica ‘Inspirational speeches, clear words, open faces.’171

168. Cf.: … the school with the most formative approach to assessment and reporting appeared to be more open to new ideas and methods. 169. Cf.: She was friendly and easy to talk to and, after a while, I opened up my heart. 170. Cf.: It is an open secret that he and Reg Pybus are bosom pals. 171. Cf.: Bragg scowled at Morton’s open, friendly face.

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Commentary: As outlined in the description of Level A0, the basic meaning of the verb otkryvat’ was to communicate or learn new information, sometimes by removing the cover, which mainly happened in the religious context, in other words, was sacred knowledge. The conceptual content of Cluster 9 and Cluster 10 is the closest among all clusters to this historical sense. That said, Cluster 9 and Cluster 10 are located far from the prototypical core of the complex otkryvat’ in modern Russian, and the direct historical sense is likely to be gradually replaced by the above frameworks based on the metaphorical projections of the prototypical schema onto the emotional-mental domain.

Cluster 11 Basic lexical items: otkryt’ rotph (442, 600)172 ‘to open the mouth’; ne otkryvaja rtaph ‘not opening the mouth’; slushat’, otkryv rot, s otkrytym rtomph ‘hang on one’s words’; zastyt’, zameret’ s otkrytym rtomph ‘to be petrified’, otkryt’ rot ot udivlenija, izumlenijaph ‘be open-mouthed with astonishment, surprise.’ The framework of the cluster: The lexical items attributed to this cluster designate two situations within the process of communication: an attempt (mainly, failed) to enter into (to begin) a conversation (otkryt’ rotph; ne otkryvaja rtaph), and the feeling of deep interest (surprise, admiration, etc.), resulting in the loss of control over one’s own body (slushat’, otkryv rot, s otkrytym rtomph; zastyt’, zameret’ s otkrytym rtomph; otkryt’ rot ot udivlenija, izumlenijaph).

Examples: (1) Kak oni pojut, mne slyshat’ ne dovodilos’ (po-moemu, na jetih urokah bol’shej chast’ju pojot dlja nih on, a oni, otkryv rot, slushajut), no oni chashhe vsego nedurny soboj, smotrjat na nego absoljutno vljublennymi glazami, hodjat za nim, kak gusyni, ochen’ gordye ‘I have never heard how they sing (in my opinion, during these lessons he mostly sings for them, and they listen with their mouths open), but they are most often not bad-looking, look at him with absolutely loving eyes, follow him, like geese, very proudly.’ (2) Marina vzjala s kolen baby Iti prikornuvshego syna i unesla ego v letnjuju kuhnju-zimovku, gosti tozhe vezhlivo nachali proshhat’sja, otodvigat’ stul’ja i pokidat’ dom Vitalii Gordeevny, tak, kazhetsja, za ves’ vecher i ne otkryvshej rta ‘Marina took her napping son from the knees of old woman Itya and took him to the summer kitchen, the guests also began to politely say goodbye, push back their chairs and leave Vitalia Gordeevna’s house, who, it seems, had not opened her mouth for the whole evening.’173 172. See Footnotes 128 and 141.

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

(3) Grjanuli «cherno-golubye», i Mario Chinechetti ispolnil pered mikrofonom neskol’ko pa tvista. «Dorogie druz’ja», kazhdyj iz kotoryh po men’shej mere raz v nedelju poseshhal jetot restoran na protjazhenii mnogih let, zamerli s otkrytymi rtami ― takogo oni eshhjo ne videli ‘The “blue-and-blacks” burst out, and Mario Chinechetti performed a few steps of twist in front of the microphone. The “dear friends”, who have each visited this restaurant at least once a week for many years, stood with their mouths open – they have never seen anything like it’.

Commentary: In contrast to all the previous clusters, the constructions associated with this cluster reflect a removal of the boundary neither in the physical domain nor in the sociocultural and emotional-mental domains. Two groups of constructions listed above (in the description of the framework of the cluster) follow the same model, which includes the metonymical replacement of the whole action with its initial part (for the construction otkryt’ rot) or with its physical representation (for the constructions slushat’, otkryv rot, s otkrytym rtomph; zastyt’, zameret’ s otkrytym rtomph; otkryt’ rot ot udivlenija, izumlenijaph), and then the metaphorical transformation of this model, in which the emotional-mental action is replaced by its (basically, only virtual, not actual) physical representation. In other words, the prototypical schema presented in Figure 5 has no direct impact on the framework of this cluster formed by secondary elements of the complex. Finally, the conceptual framework of the complex otkryvat’ is visualized in Figure 13. Each cluster is labeled by the English equivalent of the word that is a part of the basic construction attributed to this cluster. As mentioned, the conceptual content of the complex is all positioned at Level A, in which three domains (physical, sociocultural, and emotional-mental) can be distinguished. The prototypical schema presented in Figure 5 underlies Cluster 1 and Cluster 4, which are viewed as the conceptual core of the complex. Other clusters can be considered the result of conceptual transformations of the prototypical core (mainly, of its metaphorical projections onto other domains). That said, this schema has been relevant since only mid-18th century. In Old and Middle Russian, the verb otkryvat’ had another conceptual structure, some traces of which can be seen in Cluster 9 and Cluster 10. The sociocultural context behind that structure and its links with Cluster 9 and Cluster 10 are visualized as the set of ellipses on the left of Figure 13 and dotted lines between one of the ellipses and the clusters. The sociocultural factors influencing the emergence of the modern structure are visualized as the set of ellipses on the right at Figure 13.

173. Cf.: Before Corbett could open his mouth, Prince Edward came forward and took him firmly by the hand.

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Figure 13. The conceptual framework of the complex otkryvat’

7.4

Conclusion

Summing up, an analysis conducted in this chapter can be applied to a wide group of verbs characterizing static and dynamic processes (stojat’ ‘to stand,’ lezhat’ ‘to lie,’ viset’ ‘to hang,’ idti ‘to go,’ bezhat’ ‘to run,’ etc.). On average, the prototypical schemata are more complex than presented in Figure 5, but the general model forming the structure of a complex is the same. The whole set of situations covered by a complex groups into a number of clusters with conceptual links between some of them. Certain clusters form a prototypical core; others are positioned in a more or less distant periphery. The clusters themselves also have a radial structure. The main criterion for distinguishing a cluster within a complex is the conceptual closeness of constructions associated with it. How to measure such conceptual closeness is indubitably a fundamental problem which demands a special analysis. That said, the discrepancies between clusters can be partialy objectified in the peculiarities of a lexical make-up of the cluster and in the list of related complexes, as was evidenced above, in the description of the clusters. A special issue is the status of the description presented in Section 7.3. Again, this is only a draft, and many technical aspects should be taken into account to convert it into an entry in an explanatory dictionary. Nevertheless, some doubts

Chapter 7. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex otkryvat’ in STLC

can be discussed at the moment. At first glance, this description looks too voluminous to represent a real entry. However, if we sum up all entries with the words attributed to the complex otkryvat’ in GADRL, then the total size of the text will be more than the above description. In other words, this description is applicable, at least for the format of grand academic dictionaries. A set of opportunities provided by a digital format (hyperlinks, short videos instead of pictures, etc.) can significantly improve the model. At another level, this description can be taken as the basis for different dictionaries, depending on their objectives, the audiences they address, and so on. In this case, some entry sections can be expanded, while others reduced or even skipped. However, these issues need more specific discussions and are unlikely to be relevant in this context. As mentioned, the complex otkryvat’ is an example of a mononuclear complex. In the next chapter, I will address the complex kamen’, which represents a polynuclear complex, that is, a complex with several prototypical cores.

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The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC 8.0

Introduction

The conceptual structure of the complex kamen’ ‘stone’ differs in some important respects from that of the complex otkryvat’. First, the core of its word family is a noun, and prototypical models that organize the conceptual content of this complex into a system of clusters are not as abstract and formal as the prototypical scheme graphed in Figure 5, which is devoid of any concrete content. This clarifies, in particular, the fact that this complex is polynuclear, in contrast to the previous one. Such a property in not obligatory for all “noun-grounded” complexes; however, it characterizes the majority of basic-level categories of this type. Second, at the formal level, the complex kamen’ designates a natural object, not an artificial thing. In contrast to the complex otkryvat’ denoting a set of interactions between human beings and their surroundings, this complex demands, from the objectivist perspective, a definition which does not include any traces of human experience. This allows distinguishing more clearly between the objectivist view of meaning presented in traditional dictionaries and the sociocultural approach underlying the description within the scope of STLC, and sheds further light on Fillmore’s contrast between U-semantics and T-semantics. At the same time, as for the complex otkryvat’, Level B is not presented in the conceptual structure of the complex kamen’, and it is completely positioned at Level A.

8.1

The noun kamen’ and its derivatives in the dictionaries

As in the previous chapter, we first address the description in GADRL. The entry kamen’ includes five senses: 1.

‘a mass of rock or a separate piece of rock,’ with the detection of constructions dragocennye kamni ‘precious stones,’ adskij kamen’ ‘silver nitrate (lit., hell stone),’ tochil’nyj kamen’ ‘a grindstone,’ probirnyj kamen’ ‘a touchstone’; holoden kak kamen’ ‘as cold as stone,’ lico kak kamen’ ‘a straight face (lit., face like a rock)’; ‘in a figurative sense, a heartless, insensitive man’; also the following

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

2. 3.

4. 5.

figurative constructions are detected: brosat’, kidat’ kamen’ v kogo-to ‘to cast a stone at smb.’; brosat’ kamni v chej-libo ogorod ‘to make a dig at smb. (lit., to throw stones at one’s garden)’; viset’ kamnem na kom-to ‘to be a serious problem for smb. (lit., to hang as a stone on smb.)’; derzhat’ kamen’ za pazuhoj ‘to have a knife (lit., a stone) behind his back’; kamen’ pretknovenija ‘a stumbling block’; ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamne ‘to destroy smth. to the ground’; kamni vopijut ‘stones are crying out,’ etc.; ‘a gravestone, tombstone,’ also in the constructions mogil’nyj, nadgrobnyj kamen’ ‘a tombstone’; ‘about a hard, oppressive feeling, mental burden (only sing., figur.)’, also in the constructions kamen’ na dushe, na serdce ‘a burden (lit., stone) on the soul, heart’; (slovno, budto, etc.) kamen’ s dushi, serdca svalilsja, upal ‘(like) a weight off one’s mind (lit., (like) a stone fell from one’s soul (heart))’; (slovno, budto, etc.) kamen’ snjal, snjali i t. p. s dushi, s serdca ‘(as if ) smb. got the burden off one’s shoulders (lit., (as if ) smb. take a stone away from one’s soul (heart))’; ‘salt deposition or deposition of organic substances in the internals (gener. pl.)’, also in the construction kamni v pochkah ‘a kidney stone’; kamnem, adv., ‘as quickly and heavily as a falling stone.’

The complementary data are provided by the entry for the adjective kamennyj ‘stone, adj.’: 1.

‘related to kamen’ (in the 1st sense), consisting of stone,’ also in the constructions kamennaja bolezn’ ‘stone disease,’ kamennyj vek ‘the Stone Age,’ kamennyj ugol’ ‘the coal’; ‘containing a lot of stones; covered by stones; rocky’; 2. ‘made or built of stone’ (kamennaja stena ‘a stone wall’; kamennaja statuja ‘a stone statue’; kamennyj pol ‘a stone floor’); ‘unshakable, figurat.,’ also in constructions zhit’, chuvstvovat’ sebja kak za kamennoj stenoj, goroj ‘to live in safety; to feel safety; lit., to live, feel like behind a stone wall’; nadejat’sja, polagat’sja kak na kamennuju goru ‘to rely on smb. without doubt,’ etc.; 3. ‘expressing nothing; unmoved; stiff in death (figur.),’ also in constructions kamennoe ravnodushie, spokojstvie ‘an indifference, calm like that of stone,’ etc.; 4. ‘insensible’, also in constructions kamennaja dusha, kamennoe serdce ‘stonyhearted.’ In addition, the authors of GADRL separately include the adverb kamenno ‘like a stone’ with the reference to the third sense of the adjective kamennyj.174

174. As in the case of complex otkryvat’, despite some differences in detecting the set of senses, other dictionaries provide a similar picture.

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In Chapter 7 I discussed the principles that are used in explanatory academic dictionaries to tease apart different senses and some of the doubts that arise in their application. The above articles raise the same doubts. It is unclear, in particular, why the construction dragocennyj kamen’ ‘a precious stone’ is attributed to the first sense, while the construction mogil’nyj kamen’ ‘a gravestone’ is considered a separated sense: in both cases, kamen’ obtains supplementary sociocultural senses that have no direct correlation with its basic definition. At another level, the basic definition of kamen’ as ‘a mass of rock or a separate piece of rock’ and its connection with the system of senses indicated by dictionaries bring us back to the contradiction between the objectivist and the sociocultural approaches to meaning. Given the basic definition, stone is an element of objective reality devoid of any links with the experience of human beings. At the same time, all the above senses, direct and figurative, refer to various forms of such experiences: housing and road construcion, cultural practices of commemoration, sociocultural models of representation of one’s social status and wealth, attitudes towards beauty, certain medical diseases, etc. Following Gibson’s approach, outlined in Chapter 6, one can say that stones provide a set of affordances for human beings; furthermore, stones of different weight, form, size, and material provide different subsets of such affordances. It would therefore be consistent with the sociocultural perspective of the analysis to distinguish between the conceptual clusters within the conceptual area of the lexical complex kamen’ according to basic sociocultural experiences in which different types of stones are involved. This idea will be brought to life in the following sections.

8.2

The conceptual structure of the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in modern Russian

The study conducted in this and the following sections focuses on sociocultural experiences in which different types of stones were involved in the Russian culture of 11th to 16th centuries and are involved in modern Russian culture, and on the way of how these experiences have been presented in language. In other words, a stone is considered, from this perspective, a sociocultural object that provides a set of affordances for human beings and, accordingly, is engaged in a set of interactions in which these affordances are implemented. The diachronic analysis allows us to find out how such affordances have changed over time and how these changes have affected the Russian language. The description of the conceptual content of the complex kamen’ and the description of the system of clusters will follow this analysis.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

The material for the medieval part of the study is taken from the corpus of the Library of Old Russian Literature (LORL) (Lihachev et al., 1997–2020), which is the most comprehensive collection of texts of Russian literature of the 11th to 17th centuries. The words attributed to the lexical complex kamen’ (kamy(k), kamennyj, okamenelyj, okameneti) occur in the corpus 686 times. They refer to a variety of sociocultural experiences, which can be ordered as a set of conceptual clusters. The most frequent conceptual cluster175 characterizes the material from which a certain object is made or built. The most frequently mentioned object within this scope is a church, but a wall, a town, a grave, a pillar, a fence, a bridge, a cellar, a cell, a bowl, etc. also appear. The most important function of the stone as the material for these objects is to provide the defense against external factors such as rain, winds, invasions of enemies, etc., but it also helps to maintain the required temperature regime (in particular, in a cellar), to process some ritual actions, etc. There are also some conceptual metaphors associated with the first cluster, such as ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamne ‘to destroy smth. to the ground’ as a sign of a total destruction of social infrastructure. Such use of stones activates its affordances, which are caused by certain properties of the stone (strength, preservation for a long time, fire resistance, solidity, the ability not to deform and not to split under the influence of external forces, low thermal conductivity). Importantly, some stones are better suited for this use. They are unlikely to be the prototypes in the direct sense of Rosch, as they have no special name within the category, but they represent the category better than other stones, and this property is conveyed by language (if, e.g., language users hear or read the sentence The rushing wind and rain dashed against the stone walls,176 they imagine stones of more or less definite size and weight). They, therefore, can be construed as prototypes in an extended sense. A supplementary characteristic that helps us to distinguish between different clusters within the conceptual context of the complex is a set of isofunctional elements, that is, objects providing similar affordances. In this case, these elements are materials for building, mainly, wood and clay. Importantly, they are not synonyms in any sense; however, they display some properties of synonyms on a “deeper” level, so to speak: the objects, not the words, are interchangeable in certain contexts due to the similarity of their functions. In the language, isofunctional elements are represented as co-hyponyms, and under this name they will be

175. 282 occurrences (41.1% of the total of occurrences); 77 documents (53.2% of the total of documents that include the words attributed to the complex kamen’). 176. This example is taken fron the British National Corpus.

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included in the description of the conceptual cluster in the subsection of related complexes. The second conceptual cluster designates the jewel.177 The most frequent construction within this scope is kamenie dorogoe (dragoe) ‘a precious stone.’ The sociocultural semantics of the stone, its properties important for this cluster, and the prototypes differ radically from those of the previous one. In the previous case, the dominant function of the stone was to maintain the normal course of daily life, that is, to meet utilitarian needs.178 In this cluster, the symbolic function of the stone dominates: the stone is a sign of social status, but it is also endowed with certain magic properties and represents, to some extent, medieval attitudes to beauty. Such a change of function brings about a change in both the prototypes and the basic properties of the stone that are significant for this cluster. In this case, the ability to reflect light creating vibrant colors and the difficulties of mining and processing come to the fore. This entails, in particular, another set of metaphorical extensions, such as horoshaja zhena dorozhe dragocennogo kamnja (lit., ‘a good wife is worth more than a precious stone’) and isofunctional elements (gold, silver, precious vessels, etc.). The third cluster designates the stone as a tool for damaging or destroying objects and murdering people.179 This cluster includes two groups of scenarios. The first group is the siege of a city during war. In this case, both attackers and defenders use stones; the former – to destroy the walls and damage the defenders, the latter – to damage the attackers. The second group is a public condemnation or execution. The main affordance that the stone provides for people within this scope is an ability to damage or destroy other objects (it is worth noting that it is strictly opposite to the affordances of the first cluster). This cluster has its own prototypes, metaphorical extensions (such as brosat’sja slovami kak kamenijami (lit., ‘to throw words like stones’) or kljast’ i kamenie metat’ (lit., ‘to curse and throw stones’)) and a set of isofunctional elements (a spear, an arrow, a mace, a cannonball, etc.). The fourth cluster designates the stone as a support that allows someone to stand or sit firmly without staggering.180 In this cluster, the main property is the hardness of the stone, its ability to withstand a large load from above without deforming, and its steadiness. This cluster yields a new set of metaphorical exten-

177. 117 occurrences (16.9%); 55 documents (38.2%). 178. Sometimes one can find certain sacred aspects in this utilitarian use (e.g., for a church) but only as much as these aspects play a part in daily life. 179. 79 occurrences (11.5%); 36 documents (25%). 180. 47 occurrences (6.7%); 12 documents (8.3%).

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

sions, such as stojat’ na tverdem nasheja very kameni ‘to stay on the firm stone of our faith.’ The isofunctional set for this cluster is as follows: ground, a floor, a base, etc. The fifth cluster is positioned next to the previous one.181 It designates a surface on which one can move. The basic characteristic, within this scope, is the convenience or inconvenience of movement (e.g., Est’ gora ta vsja kamena, lesti zhe na nju trudno i bedno velmi po kameniju ‘There is a mountain all of stone, and it is very difficult to climb it over stones’). The sixth cluster refer to the stone as an obstacle in motion182 (e.g., I letjashhju takovomu demonu, uluchisja lbu ego na kameni i abie nacha v#piti ‘And the falling demon hit his forehead on a stone and began to scream’). This cluster also includes certain metaphorical extensions (e.g., Mnogash’dy zhe sego blazhenago knjazi i episkopi hotesha togo iskusiti, osiljajushhe slovesy, n# ne v#zmogosha i aky o kamyk# bo priraziv#shesja otskakahu ‘The princes and bishops repeatedly tried to tempt that blessed man, to overcome him in an argument, but they were unable to do so and bounced back, as if hitting a stone’). The next cluster designates the stone as a sacred object.183 It includes two subclusters: a shrine, a Christian symbol184 (e.g., I est’ tu kamen’ velik’ u morja bliz’ … i na tom kameni stojal# Hristos, i tu uchil narody ‘And there is a big rock near the sea… and Christ stood on that rock and taught the nations there’), and an amulet, an object with magical power.185 The eighth conceptual cluster designates a habitat which affects the life of a certain group of people in general rather than in specific details186 (e.g., I tu est’ bliz’ lavry mѣsto na poludne lic’ ot lavry … I sut’ gory vysoki kamenyja, i peshhery mnogy tu sut’ v gorah tѣh. I tu sut’ zhili svjatii otcy v gorah tѣh#, v pustyni toj strashnѣj bezvodnѣj ‘And there is a place near the lavra, on the south side of the lavra … And there are high rock mountains with many caves in those mountains. And there, in those mountains, in that terrible waterless desert, the holy fathers lived’). In some cases,187 the stone morphs into a source of food and water (e.g., Angeli zhe Bozhii iskupahu dѣti i povivahu, i vlozhahu v# obѣ rucѣ im# dva kameni, da iz# edinogo ssahu maslo, a iz drugago med# ‘The angels bathed the newborns and swaddled them, and put two stones in both their hands so that they would suck oil from one and honey from the other’; I paky vodu im# is kameni istochi, i hlѣby im# 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187.

34 occurrences (4.9%); 19 documents (13.2%). 18 occurrences (2.6%); 12 documents (8.3%). 17 occurrences (2.5%); 9 documents (6.3%). 9 occurrences (1.3%); 4 documents (2.8%). 8 occurrences (1.2%); 5 documents (3.5%). 14 occurrences (2%); 4 documents (2.8%). 10 occurrences (1.4%); 7 documents (4.9%).

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s# nebese darova ‘And again he poured water out of the stone, and gave them bread from heaven’). These entries illustrate the ability of God and angels to break natural laws and to endow natural objects with properties that contradict their nature. In one philosophical text, the stone is considered a category of objects among other categories188 (I kon’ bo i p’s# zhivoti sut’; takozhde zhe i vsjak# zhivot# sushtie est’, n# ne vse sushtie zhivot# est’: i kamyk# bo i drѣvo sushtie est’, jazhe ne sut’ zhivoti ‘Both the horse and the dog are animals; and in a similar way every animal is an essence, but not every essence is an animal: thus, both stone and wood are essence, but they are not animals’). Within the eleventh cluster, the stone obtains the meaning of a landmark189 (Posredѣ zhe kѣlej teh# k zapadu lic’, tu peshhera divna pod skaloju kamenoju, i v toj peshherѣ cerkvi svjatyja Bogorodica ‘Among those cells, to the west, there is a wonderful cave under a stone rock, and there is a Saint Mary’s church in that cave’). In addition, the stone can be used as a tool for measuring distance190 (I tu est’ mѣsto bliz’ peshhery toja, jako doverzhet’ chelovѣk# kamenem’ malym#, i est’ k# poluden’ju lic’ mѣsto to, idѣzhe pomolisja Hristos Otcu svoemu v noshhi ‘And there is a place near that cave (one can throw a small stone southward to get to that place), where Christ prayed to his father that night’) and a surface for writing191 (I stvorisha nad# nim# polatu krasnu i vysoku velmi, i napisasha na kameni vsja ego vojny i vse ego hrabor’stvo ‘And they built a beautiful and very high chamber over his tomb and wrote on the stone about all his wars and his courage’). Beyond that, there are several senses of the complex kamen’ that are represented by a single occurrence: a load that is put on the lid of a barrel for pickling cucumbers; burden on the body in ascetic practices; a solid formation in the kidney, etc. Along with the situations in which the stone is treated as an object providing a set of affordances for a sociocultural interaction, there are a number of metaphors based on certain properties of the stone. The most frequently mentioned property is the insensibility of the stone, caused by its inanimate nature.192 There are two contexts in which this property is instantiated: if authors endeavor to highlight the extreme degree of misfortune experienced by some characters (Ashhe bo kto okameneno serdce imat, no togda mozhet’ prosleziti ‘Even a man with a stone heart could weep when seeing that’) and if authors highlight the insensitivity of vicious people (I ne poznali Syna Bozhija Hrista, Carja nebesnago, i serdce ih# okamenelo z gordosti ‘And they did 188. 189. 190. 191. 192.

8 occurrences (1.2%). 5 occurrences (0.7%); 4 documents (2.8%). 5 occurrences (0.7%); 3 documents (2.1%). 4 entries (0.6%); 4 documents (2.8%). 16 entries (2.3%); 12 documents (8.3%).

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

not recognize the Son of God – Christ, the King of heaven, and their arrogant hearts morphed into stone’). In some cases,193 the insensibility and “dumbness” of the stone are addressed in order to emphasize the extraordinary situation in which stones exhibit anomalous properties (Ashhe bo umolchju vashego radi roptania, ugozhdaa vam# vashea radi slabosti, to kamenie v#z#piet’ ‘If I keep silent under the pressure of your murmur, pleasing you, given your weakness, the stones will cry out’). The second metaphorical cluster refers to the hardness of the stone, highlighting moral stamina, an ability to overcome all obstacles and impediments194 (Togo bo radi i terpjashe ot nih po vsja dni, zilo strazha, aki tverdyj kamen#, utverzhenyj vѣroju v tolicyh podvizѣh i iskusheniih i bѣdah, moljasja Bogu … mnogi dosady ot nih priimaja i za to ne gnѣvajasja na nja o vsѣh sih prikljuch’shihsja emu ‘For that sake, he suffered greatly from them every day, confirmed by faith in such feats, temptations and troubles, like a solid stone, praying to God … enduring many insults from them and being not angry with them for everything that happened to him’). Another metaphorical model within this cluster describes the destruction of a stone caused by a constant impact of a certain force, even a small one (I vsegdashnjaja kaplja dozhdevnaja i zhestokij kamen’ probivaet# vskorѣ, a lshhenie zhenskoe snѣdaet# premudryja cheloveki ‘A s a raindrop after a while breaks through a hard stone, so women’s flattery eats away wise people’). Let us summarize this analysis. In all the examined contexts, the stone is not ‘a mass of rock or a separate piece of rock’ as defined by GADRL. It turns out to be a material, a jewel, a murder weapon, a support, and so on. It cannot be regarded as an object that exists independently of humans and is explored through observation and experiment; it is involved in a significant number of sociocultural experiences, providing a wide range of affordances for humans within that scope.195 In other words, the data of LORL evidence that the stone is presented in language as an object of culture, not as an object of nature.196 There were no changes in this picture in the 17th century. Slight changes happened in the 18th century and more noticeable changes occur in the 19th and 20th centuries. That said, the core of the conceptual framework seems to be invariant. To be more precise, one can compare the above picture with the conceptual structure of 193. 4 entries (0.6%); 4 documents (2.8%). 194. 8 entries (1.2%); 7 documents (4.9%). 195. Cf. Langacker’s (2008, pp. 41–42) brief analysis of the concept of ostrich and its possible dictionary definition. 196. Again, this aspect is overlooked in traditional dictionaries, which confuse an “objectivist” view and the “ecological” (in Gibson’s sense) nature of a real experience represented in language.

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the complex kamen’ in modern Russian. For this purpose, a subcorpus in the main corpus of RNC was created, which includes all occurrences from 2009 to 2012.197 The words attributed to the complex kamen’ occur 593 times in 215 documents, and the main part of this array (481 entries, 81.1%) comprises the words kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ and kamennyj ‘stone, adj.’ The resulting distribution generally corresponds to that indicated above for Old Russian. The most frequent value is (a) a material from which a certain object is made or built (251 occurrences (42.3%); 112 documents (52.1%)). It is followed by (b) a surface on which one can move (70 occurrences (11.8%); 43 documents (19.5%)); (c) a tool for damaging or destroying objects or murdering people (63 occurrences (10.6%), 44 documents (20.5%)); (d) the jewel (23 occurrences (3.9%), 18 documents (8.4%)); (e) an obstacle in motion (17 occurrences (2.9%), 14 documents (6.5%)); (e) a habitat (14 occurrences (2.4%), 10 documents (4.7%)); (g) a sacred object (7 occurrences (1.2%), 7 documents (3.3%)); (h) a hard morbid concretion in the body (7 occurrences (1.2%), 6 documents (2.9%)). All other contexts make up less than 1%. Beyond that, there are certain general properties of the stone that directly give rise to metaphors. The most frequent property (22 occurrences (3.7%); 16 documents (7.4%)) is the property to keep a form unchangeable, in other words, to hold constant distances between different parts of an object. This property is referred to in the description of real or potential movement, designated by such metaphors as padat’ kak kamen’, kamnem ‘to fall like a stone,’ and, in some cases, okamenet’ ‘petrify’ (e.g., padaja kamnem vniz s ogromnoj vysoty ‘falling like a stone from a great height,’ mne pridetsja okamenet’, polozhivshis’ na nesposobnost’ nekotoryh hishhnikov obnaruzhit’ nepodvizhnyj ob#ekt ‘I will have to petrify, hoping for the inability of some predators to detect a stationary object’). Another property caused by constant distances between different parts of a stone is its hardness, which makes it impossible to properly use an object with such properties (10 occurrences (1.7%); 7 documents (3.3%)) (otkrytaja nedoedennaja banka s okamenevshimi konservami i torchashhej iz nee lozhkoj ‘open half-eaten jar with petrified canned food and a spoon sticking out of it’). The next property is the insensibility of stone (11 occurrences (1.9%); 6 documents (2.7%)). It is mainly presented by the word okamenet’ ‘petrify’ attributed to the previous cluster, but in a different sense (e.g., Okamenevshaja ot gorja mama plachet, otec pytaetsja uspokoit’ ee ‘Mother petrified with grief is crying, father tries to calm her down’).

197. The time period for the subcorpus was chosen randomly. The sole purpose of this was to obtain reliable data that can provide representative statistics.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

The last property to refer to within this scope is the high density of the stone, leading to the view of the stone as a heavy object (5 occurrences (0.8%); 5 documents (2.3%)): (e.g., … Klim uzhe tjanul ee, zhivuju ili mertvuju, razbituju, tjazheluju, kak kamen’, i legkuju, kak strekozinoe krylo ‘…Klim was already pulling her, dead or alive, broken, as heavy as a stone, and light as a dragonfly’s wing’). Comparative results for the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in modern Russian are presented in Table 3 and Table 4, in which the column Instances includes the percentage of occurrences associated with a certain cluster in ratio to the total of occurrences, and the column Documents includes the percentage of documents in which this cluster occurs, in ratio to the total of texts containing any words attributed to the word family kamen’. Table 3. The frequency of the conceptual clusters attributed to the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in modern Russian Conceptual cluster

Old Russian language Instances Documents (%) (%)

Modern language Instances (%)

Documents (%)

Material

41.1

 53.2

42.3

52.1

Jewel

17.1

 38.2

 3.8

 8.4

Tool for damaging or destroying objects or murdering people

11.5

25

10.6

20.5

Support

 6.9

  8.3

 0.8

 1.8

Surface

5

 13.2

11.8

20

Obstacle

 2.6

  8.3

 2.8

 6.4

Sacred object

 2.5

  6.3

 1.2

 3.2

2

  4.5

 2.4

 4.7

Source of food and water

 1.5

  4.9

0

0

Category of objects

 1.2

  0.7

 0.2

 0.5

Solid formation in the body or on the body

 0.1

  0.7

 1.2

 2.8

Habitat

Although the figures presented in the tables cannot be considered an exact quantitative description of the structure of the complex, they provide the basis for certain qualitative assessments. On the one hand, we can see a meaningful correlation between the framework of the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in Modern Russian: the set of clusters is almost the same, and the cluster centered around the stone as a material for building dominates in both cases. On the other hand, a closer look at the two tables reveals a few interesting discrepancies between the frameworks.

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Table 4. The frequency of metaphorical extensions of the complex kamen’ in Old Russian and in modern Russian Conceptual cluster

Old Russian language Instances (%) Documents (%)

Modern language Instances (%)

Documents (%)

Insensibility

 2.3

 8.3

 1.9

 2.7

Hardness

 1.2

 4.9

 1.7

 3.3

Dumbness

 0.6

 2.8

0

0

Heaviness

 0.3

 1.4

 0.8

 2.3

0

0

 3.7

 7.4

Immutability of form

A. The salience of metaphorical extensions in the conceptual structure increases in Modern Russian. This concerns both qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The percentage of metaphors in the ratio to the total of entries is 13.3% in the corpus of LORL and 27.1% in the subcorpus 2009–2012 of RNC;198 in other words, the figures are more than double. Furthermore, a qualitative variety of metaphors increases significantly. In LORL, there are 16 conventional metaphorical models, which are mainly of biblical origin, as one could see above. In the RNC 2009–2012 subcorpus, there are 27 conventional metaphorical models, that is 1.7 times more than in LORL. How can we interpret these data? Alice Deignan (2003) has found that the frequency and qualitative variety of metaphors associated with the lexeme horse increased in the 20th century, whereas the use of horses in transport, farming and cavalry rapidly declined during that period. Meanwhile, metaphors produced with the concept of car are extremely rare in the language of 20th century, even though cars have a huge advantage over horses in everyday use (Deignan, 2003, pp. 267–270). Given these data, the author concluded that, at least in certain cultures for certain periods, the frequency of metaphors associated with a particular social segment increases along with the decrease of its actual role in everyday life. As long as the actions that the horse is engaged in are relevant to the culture, they are performed out of habit, without focusing on them. At the same time, if they lose their relevance and turn into a fact of the past, they become more visible, which results, in particular, in the set of conceptual metaphors, so Deignan. Let us see what the above analysis gives to confirm or refute this hypothesis. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, the stone has not been widely used in 198. To avoid misunderstanding, these figures are the total of metaphors presented in the clusters listed in Table 3 and Table 4.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

some areas relevant to the past: it is much less in demand in construction, it is almost never used in military affairs, it is coming to be less and less relevant as a surface on which we move, replaced by other materials. In modern culture, the stone is associated with childhood experiences and entertainment (throwing stones into the water, stuffing your pockets with stones of an unusual shape, etc.). The only area in which the cultural significance of stones is preserved is jewelry. Interestingly, in this area, the metaphors associated with stones are absent in RNC 2009–2012, and the only metaphor from LORL (dorozhe kamnja dragocennogo ‘more expensive than a precious stone’) has no equivalent in this subcorpus. In other words, one can see the emergence of many metaphors rooted in social experiences that were more or less important in pre-modern Russia but are not relevant today, which correlates with Deignan’s observations. However, a more precise look reveals some complementary details that make the picture more complex. First, many biblical metaphors from LORL are present in the subcorpus of RNC (e.g., ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamne ‘to destroy smth. to the ground’).199 Second, new areas (e.g., related to the development of science and technology) emerge in the conceptual framework of the complex, which pave the way for new metaphors. For instance, the metaphor probnyj kamen’ (a touchstone, e.g., Pojetomu «Vojna i mir» est’ takzhe prevoshodnyj probnyj kamen’ vsjakogo kriticheskogo i jesteticheskogo ponimanija ‘Therefore, “War and Peace” is also an excellent touchstone for any critical and aesthetic understanding’) borrows its meaning from a touchstone, which is used for the determination of the weight content of the main noble metal (gold, silver, platinum, palladium, etc.) in an alloy by various analytical methods.200 With this clarification, Deignan’s hypothesis seems to be confirmed by the above data for the complex kamen’. B. An important difference between a modern view of stone and that held between the 11th and the 16th century is an aesthetic attitude towards stone, which appears in some modern texts. Moreover, in certain texts the stone is considered a living being with its own worldview, inaccessible to humans (No nam – ljudjam – proshhe ponjat’ i prinjat’ smert’, chem postich’ vosprijatie mira kamnem, dazhe priblizitel’no ‘But for us, people, it is easier to understand and accept death than to comprehend, even approximately, the percep199. Interestingly, the biblical context clearly acknowledged in the texts of LORL is mostly lost in modern Russian. 200. To avoid misunderstanding, the touchstone has been known in this function since Antiquity, but in Russian culture it became an element of common knowledge only in the 19th century.

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tion of the world by a stone’). These changes are a local consequence of the global transformations characterizing the Russian culture of the 18th to 20th centuries, which, in turn, emerge in the wake of similar processes in the Western culture in the Modern Era. These transformations concern the view of nature. In contrast to the Middle Ages, when nature was considered an unanimated creature of God, in the modern time, it has often been regarded as a living being endowed with soul and mind. Initially, such conception developed in philosophical texts and in “high” literature (mainly within the scope of romanticism), but gradually has been covering new domains, penetrating in everyday language. C. According to Table 3, the cluster associated with precious stones loses its importance in modern language. This change indicates another cultural shift taking place from pre-Petrine Russia to the modern time. The Old Russian culture was the culture of political and cultural elites, and the everyday life of ordinary people, with rare exceptions, was not represented in literature. In contrast, RNC includes a broad spectrum of texts representing the life of a wide variety of social and cultural groups and comprising a number of actions with stones performed within these groups, which were not represented in the Old Russian literature. While the cultural practices associated with precious stones remain important in modern times, they are not as salient as they used to be.

8.3

The framework of the article kamen’ in an explanatory dictionary

Let us proceed to the description of the article kamen’ in an explanatory dictionary. The description follows the model presented in the previous chapter. The main lexical items subsumed within the complex kamen’: kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ (6942, 31492);201 kamennyj ‘stone, adj.’ (4214, 14051); kameshek (kamushek) ‘a little stone’ (1498, 2863); kamenet’p ‘petrify’(1174, 1982); kamenistyj ‘rocky’ (791, 1379); gal’ka ‘pebble’ (508, 1218);202 bulyzhnik ‘cobblestone, n.’ (687, 1213); bulyzhnyj ‘cobblestone, adj.’ (278, 381).

201. As for the lexical items subsumed within the complex otkryvat’, the second number is the total of occurrences of a lexical item in any form in the subcorpus 1950–2020 of the main corpus of RNC, and the first number is a total of documents that contain these occurrences. The date of the use of RNС is 07/09/2022. 202. To distinguish between relevant and irrelevant occurrences, I applied the procedure reported in Footnote 114.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Level A0 Lexical items attributed to the lexical complex kamen’ designate stone as an element of a set of sociocultural practices (construction, damaging enemies, magic, etc.), which have not markedly changed over time. Even though some of them have become extremely rare in modern life, they are preserved in historical memory and, hence, are presented in texts (each practice is referred to in the corresponding conceptual cluster and is visualized as an ellipse in Figure 19; intersected ellipses represent the intersection of social practices). For this reason, in contrast with the lexical complexes otkryvat’ and intelligencija described in other chapters, sociocultural changes subsumed within Level A0 do not cause significant qualitative changes in the conceptual structure of the complex kamen’ (almost all changes are quantitative).

Cluster 1203 Basic lexical items: kamennyj ‘stone, adj.,’ kamen’ (‘stone, n.’ ) (in particular, in constructions iz kamnja ‘made of stone,’ v kamne ‘in stone’), bulyzhnik ‘cobblestone, n.,’ bulyzhnyj ‘cobblestone, adj.,’ gal’ka ‘pebble,’ ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamneph ‘to destroy smth. to the ground.’ Related complexes: material for building (hyper.), wood (co-hypon.), clay (co-hypon.).204 Visual image: See Figure 14.

Figure 14. A visual image for stone as a material for building 203. The data on the statistical weights of each cluster are presented in Table 3 and Table 4, so they are omitted from this description. 204. Hereinafter, co-hyponyms, as mentioned above, designate isofunctional elements, that is, objects that provide similar set of affordances for humans in a specific sociocultural context.

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The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, stone is featured as a material from which an object (house, church, wall, etc.) is made.

Examples: (1) No na sej raz nichego ob#jasnjat’ emu ne prishlos’: peredo mnoj razvernulas’ arkada s pirshestvom takogo razmaha, chto duh zahvatyvalo; skvoz’ vysokie arki mramornoj kolonnady prazdnichno sijali vdali nebo Venecii, rozovyj kamen’ ee cerkvej i kolokolen, okruglye chalmy ee kupolov, balkony i baljustrady ee palacco ‘But this time he did not have to explain anything: an arcade unfolded in front of me with a feast of such magnitude that it took my breath away; through the high arches of the marble colonnade, the sky of Venice shone festively in the distance, the pink stone of its churches and bell towers, the rounded turbans of its domes, the balconies and balustrades of its palazzo.’205 (2) On mog celuju ulicu kamennymi domami zastroit’ ‘He could build up a whole street with stone houses.’206 (3) I nechego vorotit’ nos, ssylat’sja na svoe istoricheskoe chut’e i poslednjuju vojnu, vo vremja kotoroj sojuzniki vo mnogih gorodah Germanii ne ostavili kamnja na kamne ‘And there is nothing to turn up your nose, refer to your historical instinct and the last war, during which the allies destroyed many German cities to the ground (lit., in many German cities left no stone unturned).’

Commentary: This cluster is the most frequent one in both Old Russian and modern Russian. This fact highlights the importance of sociocultural factors for the language use (stones as the material in construction had a marked advantage over other sociocultural practices exploiting stones in the Middle Ages, and the stone constructions (churches, castles, stone walls, stone pavements, etc.) are an important part of modern culture). The construction ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamne ‘to destroy smth. to the ground’ can characterize actions in both the physical and the sociocultural domain. In this cluster, physical actions are referred to (Example 3). Actions in the sociocultural domain are presented in Cluster 1.1.

205. Cf.: Chepstow is unusual among British castles in that it was built largely of stone from the first with no primary timber phase. 206. Cf.: He pulled up and we could look down through the grey cloud-mist to the centre of the village where an old stone bridge and several houses were crumbling into the river.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Cluster 1.1 Basic lexical items: ne ostavit’ kamnja na kamneph ‘to destroy smth. to the ground’, za X kak za kamennoj stenojph ‘to feel safety close to smb.; lit., X is like a stone wall which defends smb.’ The framework of the cluster: This subcluster includes two idioms based on the analogy between physical and social interactions. The first idiom designates a complete victory in a game, competition, dispute, battle, etc.; the second idiom depicts a carefree life provided by the efforts of X who protects the subject from all life problems.

Examples: (1) No i vtoroj jeshelon rossijskogo tennisa ne ostavil kamnja na kamne ot ispanskoj sbornoj ‘But the second tier of Russian tennis also destroyed the Spanish national team to the ground; lit., did not leave a stone unturned from the Spanish national team.’ (2) Po staroj pamjati ona eshhe vyrezala fotografii ljubimyh artistov iz gljancevyh zhurnalov, odnako gody shli, neznakomyh zvezd stanovilos’ vse bol’she, i Tomka vse otchetlivee ponimala, chto za Stepanom i za ego «KamAZom» ona kak za kamennoj stenoj ‘From old memory, she still cut out photos of her favorite artists from glossy magazines, but the years went by, there were more and more unfamiliar stars, and Tomka understood more and more clearly that behind Stepan and behind his KamAZ she felt completely safe (lit., was like behind a stone wall).’

Cluster 2 Basic lexical items: kamen’ ‘stone, n.,’ kamenistyj ‘rocky,’ po kamnjam ‘on stones,’ kameshek ‘a little stone,’ gal’ka ‘pebble,’ kamennyj ‘stone, adj.’ Related complexes: estestvennaja poverhnost’ ‘natural surface’ (hyper.), zemlja ‘ground’ (co-hypon.), pesok ‘sand’ (co-hypon.). Visual image: See Figure 15.

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Figure 15. A visual image for stone as a surface

The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, a stone is an element of a natural surface on which a person or other living being moves.

Examples: (1) Myslenno on sbegal sejchas po gorjachim kamnjam v lazur’ Jegejskogo morja. ‘In his thoughts, he was now running down over hot stones into the azure of the Aegean Sea.’ (2) Skvoz’ kamni pod nogami probivajutsja rostki zhizni: belye socvetija tysjachelistnika, nezhnye kolokol’chiki proshhajutsja s severnym svetilom do sledujushhego dnja ‘The sprouts of life break through the stones underfoot: white yarrow inflorescences, tender bluebells say goodbye to the northern luminary until the next day.’207 (3) Tropinki ne zhgli, a laskovo shhekotali melkimi kameshkami i gal’koj ogrubevshuju kozhu stupnej ‘The paths didn’t burn, but tenderly tickled the coarse skin of the feet with small stones and pebbles.’ (4) Desjat’ kvadratnyh kilometrov neftjanyh polej na kamenistom ostrove, soedinennom s beregom Apsheronskogo poluostrova dvuhkilometrovoj damboj ‘Ten square kilometers of oil fields on a rocky island connected to the coast of the Absheron Peninsula by a two-kilometer dam.’

207. Cf.: They went in single file, stooping frequently, clutching a handrope to prevent themselves slipping on the wet stones underfoot, exchanging brief whispers of warning to each other to beware of pothole here or a slimy boulder there.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Cluster 3 Basic lexical items: kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ Related complexes: metatel’nyj snarjad ‘projectile’ (hyper.), jadro ‘cannonball’ (co-hypon.), strela ‘arrow’ (co-hypon.), kop’e ‘spear’ (co-hypon.), etc. Visual image: See Figure 16.

Figure 16. A visual image for stone as a weapon for damaging and destroying objects or murdering people

The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, the stone is used as a weapon for damaging and destroying objects or murdering people.

Examples: (1) Izvestie o tret’ej otstavke Berluskoni s posta predsedatelja soveta ministrov rimljane vstretili demonstracijami, tancami i kamnjami, broshennymi v avtomobil’ jeks-prem’era ‘The news of the third resignation of Berlusconi from the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers was met by the Romans with demonstrations, dances and stones thrown at the ex-prime minister’s car.’208

Cluster 3.1 Basic lexical items: brosit’ kamen’ v Хph ‘to blame X openly; lit., to throw a stone in X,’ brosat’ (kidat’) kamen’ (kamni) v ogorod Хph ‘to blame or express dissatisfaction with X; lit., to throw a stone in X’ garden.’ The framework of the cluster: This subcluster is formed by metaphorical mappings of the basic actions attributed to Cluster 3 onto the sociocultural 208. Cf.: At one point, a crowd ten thousand strong was involved in the clashes, petrol bombs and stones were thrown.

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domain. Brosit’ kamen’ v Хph means ‘openly blame or insulte X, expressing indignation at X’s words or actions’; brosat’ (kidat’) kamen’ (kamni) v ogorod Хph means ‘(mostly indirectly) blame or express dissatisfaction with X.’

Examples: (1) No hotel by ja posmotret’ na togo, kto brosit kamen’ v cheloveka, pytajushhegosja kak-to reshit’ nereshaemye problemy v smutnoe vremja, kogda neobhodimyh zakonov net, a prochie prosto ne dejstvujut ‘But I would not like to look at someone who will throw a stone at a person who is trying to somehow solve unsolvable problems in a troubled time, in which there are no necessary laws and other laws simply do not work.’209 (2) Jeti slova prezidenta, kak predstavljaetsja, javilis’ svoego roda kamnem v ogorod Ahmada Kadyrova i oznachali bukval’no sledujushhee – nesmotrja na to, chto naselenie ChR vyskazalos’ za mir, vypuskat’ vozhzhi na skaku federal’nyj centr ne nameren, i finansovye potoki po-prezhnemu budut zhestko kontrolirovat’sja iz Moskvy ‘These words of the president, it seems, were a kind of stone in the garden of Akhmad Kadyrov and meant literally the following – despite the fact that the population of the Chechen Republic spoke out for peace, the federal center is not going to loosen the reins, and financial flows will continue to be tightly controlled from Moscow.’ (3) Mnogie kidali v vash ogorod kamni, mol, vy v CSKA svoim druz’jam vremja na ploshhadke davali bol’she, chem ostal’nym ‘Many people threw stones at your garden, saying that in CSKA you gave your friends more time on the playground than the rest.’

Commentary: The first metaphor has its origin in the words of Christ “The one among you who is sinless should be first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Nowadays, however, this biblical context is lost. The second metaphor is likely to be a copy of the French metaphor Jeter une pierre dans le jardin d’X ‘Throw a stone in the garden of X’ known since the 15th century.

Cluster 3.2 Basic lexical items: derzhat’ kamen’ za pazuhojph ‘to have a knife behind your back; lit., to hold a stone in your bosom.’ The framework of the cluster: This subcluster is formed by the metaphorical mapping of certain actions associated with Cluster 3 onto the emotional-mental domain. A person holds a stone in his bosom in order to throw it at the right 209. Cf.: It’s easy to be wise in retrospect and to throw stones at those who negotiated the lease in 1974.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

moment, which determines the sense of this metaphor: to plot something bad against someone, not showing this in a direct communication.

Examples: (1) Ih zadacha verbovat’ podhodjashhih po nravu, otseivat’ teh, kto derzhit kamen’ za pazuhoj (lit., ‘Their task is to recruit those who are suitable for their temper, to weed out those who hold a stone in their bosom’). (2) Dlja teh, kto shastaet v zalah demokratii s kamnem za pazuhoj i nozhom v karmane, pobeda SShA v Irake – zheltaja kartochka (lit., ‘For those who roam the halls of democracy with a stone in their bosom and a knife in their pocket, a US victory in Iraq is a yellow card’).

Commentary: This metaphor has emerged in the literary language in the second quarter of 19th century, being rooted in certain Russian proverbs with the meaning ‘be careful’. The emergence of the meaning ‘to have a knife behind your back’ is dated to the beginning of the 20th century.

Cluster 4 Basic lexical items: dragocennyj kamen’ ‘a precious stone’; kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ Related complexes: dragocennost’ ‘jewel’ (hyper.); zoloto ‘gold’ (co-hypon.); serebro ‘silver’ (co-hypon.); zhemchug (‘pearl, n.’ ) (co-hypon.), etc. Visual image: See Figure 17.

Figure 17. A visual image for precious stones

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The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, the stone is considered a jewel and, unlike in previous clusters, represents a certain symbolic value largely devoid of any pragmatic sense.

Examples: (1) Kto-to skazal nashim, chto u mestnyh est’ obychaj prjatat’ tam zoloto i dragocennye kamni ‘Someone told < our soldiers > that the locals have a custom to hide gold and precious stones there.’ (2) U Aninoj mamy est’ celaja shkatulka ochen’ krasivyh kolec, sereg, brasletov s takimi kamnjami, kotorye v juvelirnom magazine stojat stol’ko, chto Nastja dazhe ne mozhet podschitat’ nuli okolo rublej, potomu chto vse vremja sbivaetsja, a poprosit’ prodavca pokazat’ ej kol’co, tol’ko dlja togo chtoby pal’chikom prizhat’ razbegajushhiesja nuli, nelovko ‘Anya’s mother has a whole box of very beautiful rings, earrings, bracelets with such stones that cost so much in a jewelry store that Nastya cannot even count the noughts against rubles, because she gets confused all the time, but she is ashamed to ask the seller to show her the ring in order to just press the running zeros with her finger’.

Commentary: The cluster associated with precious stones is less common compared to other clusters in modern Russian than it used to be in Old Russian. This change is likely to be caused by the important sociocultural change that took place from pre-Petrine Russia to the modern time. The Old Russian culture was the culture of political and cultural elites, and the everyday life of ordinary people, with rare exceptions, was not represented in literature. In contrast, modern texts represent various aspects of life of different sociocultural groups, comprising a number of actions with stones performed within these groups, which were not relevant for Old Russian literature. Although cultural practices related to precious stones remain important in modern time, they are not as salient as they used to be.

Cluster 5 Basic lexical items: kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ Related complexes: prepjatstvie ‘obstacle’ (hyper.); kochka ‘bump, n.’ (cohypon.); bugorok ‘tubercle, n.’ (co-hypon.); bar’er ‘barrier, n.’ (co-hypon.), etc. Visual image: See Figure 18.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Figure 18. A visual image for stone as an obstacle

The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, the stone is considered an obstacle for moving or for contacting with a certain object.

Examples: (1) Smotri, vot edet koljaska. Naezzhaet na kamen’. Rebenok vypal. ‘Look, here comes the carriage. It runs over the stone. The child fell out.’ (2) Ja nashel v biblioteke zachitannuju knizhku pro raznyh velikih magov, gipnotizerov i fokusnikov – mne nravilos’, chto cheloveka mozhno polozhit’ v grob, zakopat’, zavalit’ mogilu kamnem, a potom grob okazyvalsja pustym! ‘I found a read book in the library about various great magicians, hypnotists and conjurers – I liked that a person can be put in a coffin, buried, filled up with a stone, and then the coffin turned out to be empty!’

Cluster 5.1 Basic lexical items: kamen’ pretknovenijaph ‘a stumbling block’; podvodnye kamni (podvodnyj kamen’)ph ‘pitfalls, lit. underwater rocks’; nashla kosa na kamen’ph ‘diamond cut diamond, lit. the scythe clashed on stone.’ The framework of the cluster: This cluster is formed by a metaphorical projection of the conceptual content of Cluster 5 onto the sociocultural and emotionalmental domains. The first construction designates an obstacle, and the second construction pertains to some problems or obstacles not taken into consideration. Example 1 and Example 3 characterize a mapping onto the sociocultural domain, while Example 2 and Example 4 refer to the emotional-mental domain. The last construction designates a conflict of subjects with opposite attitudes in which

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each subject firmly insists on his/her position. The target domain of this construction is the sociocultural domain.

Examples: (1) Vopros primenenija cen pri ischislenii i uplate nalogov javljaetsja kamnem pretknovenija v sporah mezhdu nalogoplatel’shhikami i nalogovymi organami ‘The issue of applying prices in the calculation and payment of taxes is a stumbling block in disputes between taxpayers and tax authorities.’ (2) Buduchi dolgoe vremja ob#ektom bezuspeshnyh usilij, kamnem pretknovenija mnogih velikih matematikov, vkljuchaja Lagranzha, N’jutona i Lejbnica, ona byla v principe reshena mal’chikom, francuzskim shkol’nikom Jevaristom Galua… ‘Having been the subject of unsuccessful efforts for a long time and a stumbling block for many great mathematicians, including Lagrange, Newton, and Leibniz, it was essentially solved by a French schoolboy named Évariste Galois.’ (3) I vot teper’, pereterpev vse nevzgody i preodolev podvodnye kamni zhitejskogo morja, obitel’ vozrozhdaetsja ‘And now, having endured all the hardships and overcome the pitfalls of the sea of life (lit., getting through underwater rocks of life’s sea), the monastery rises.’ (4) Kto hochet, teorieju znanija, uberech’sja ot podvodnyh kamnej, o kotorye, kak my postaraemsja pokazat’ jeto dal’she, razbilas’ teorija Kanta, tomu nuzhno podgotovit’ k jetoj rabote svoj um putem analiza predshestvujushhih filosofskih uchenij i vskryt’ vse predposylki ih, imenno vse polozhenija, lezhashhie v osnove ih, no ne vyskazyvaemye javno… ‘Those who want to protect themselves from pitfalls (lit., underwater rocks) in the theory of knowledge, which, as we will try to show further, was shattered by Kant's theory, need to prepare their mind for this work by analyzing previous philosophical teachings and uncovering all the assumptions underlying them, specifically all the positions that are not explicitly expressed.’ (5) No nashla kosa na kamen’ – kovarstvo i hitrost’ Berii natknulis’ na krepkuju muzhickuju smekalku Hrushheva ‘But diamond cut diamond (lit., the scythe clashed on stone) – the deceit and cunning of Beria stumbled upon the strong peasant ingenuity of Khrushchev.’

Cluster 6 Basic lexical items: kamennyj ‘stone, adj.’; kamenistyj ‘rocky’; kamennye dzhungliph ‘a concrete jungle.’

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Related complexes: sreda obitanija ‘habitat’ (hyper.); lesistyj ‘wooded’ (cohypon.); peschanyj ‘sandy’ (co-hypon.); travjanoj ‘grassy’ (co-hypon.). The framework of the cluster: This cluster designates habitat, that is, a territory that people live in or travel to. The construction kamennye dzhungli means infrastructure of a modern metropolis with many skyscrapers.

Examples: (1) Priehali pod vecher, a na rassvete ja vyshla na balkon i – vidimo, nash balkon vyhodil na oborotnuju storonu schast’ja – pod utrennim, eshhe bescvetnym nebom uvidela skudnyj pejzazh Samarii: kamenistye holmy, redkie jevkalipty i sosenki na nih vperemeshku s kakimi-to koljuchimi kustami ‘We arrived in the evening, and at dawn I went out onto the balcony and – apparently, our balcony went to the other side of happiness – under the still colorless morning sky, I saw the meager landscape of Samaria: rocky hills, rare eucalyptus and pine trees on them mixed with some kind of thorny bushes.’ (2) Pered nami otkrylsja kamennyj bassejn, prostorno opravlennyj vokrug zavodi ‘A rock basin spaciously framed around a backwater opened ahead of us.’ (3) Gorod – kamennye dzhungli. Samyj strashnyj hishhnik zdes’ – chelovek ‘The city is a concrete jungle. The most terrible predator here is a man.’

Cluster 7 Basic lexical items: kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ Related complexes: sakral’nyj ob#ekt ‘a sacred object’ (hyper.); obereg ‘amulet’ (co-hypon.); amulet ‘amulet’ (co-hypon.); svjatynja ‘shrine’ (co-hypon.). The framework of the cluster: This cluster designates stone as a sacred object, a memorial object, and as an object associated with a significant personal experience.

Examples: (1) Prihodjat i ljudi, chtoby uvidet’ Shaman-kamen’ – odnu iz izvestnejshih prirodnyh dostoprimechatel’nostej Bajkala ‘People also come to see the Shaman Stone, one of the most famous natural sights of Lake Baikal.’ (2) Tut belye shary, vernee, oni – tam, a ty kupaesh’sja tut, potomu chto v more est’ zavetnyj kamen’ ‘There are white balls here, or rather, they are there, and you swim here because there is a sacred stone in the sea.’

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Cluster 8 Basic lexical items: kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ Related complexes: polip ‘polyp’(co-hypon.); narost ‘concretion’ (co-hypon.); nalet ‘scurf ’ (co-hypon.). The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, stone is presented as a hard morbid concretion in the body (mainly, in the kidney, in the urinary bladder or gallbladder, and on the tooth).

Examples: (1) On ogranichilsja vskrytiem obshhego zhelchnogo potoka i izvlecheniem kamnja bez udalenija zhelchnogo puzyrja ‘He limited himself to opening the common bile duct and removing the stone without removing the gallbladder.’ (2) Razlichajut nemineralizovannye zubnye otlozhenija – zubnoj nalet i mineralizovannye – zubnoj kamen’ ‘There are non-mineralized dental deposits – plaque – and mineralized – tartar.’

Cluster 9 Basic lexical items: padat’ kamnem ‘to drop like a stone’; kak kamen’ ‘like a stone’; okamenet’ ‘petrify.’ The framework of the cluster: In this and the next clusters, certain properties of stone become the basis for metaphors. In this cluster, it is the property of stone to keep its form unchangeable, in other words, to keep constant distances between different parts of an object. Within this cluster, metaphors denoting this property are applied to the description of real or potential movement. The expressions padat’ kamnem and kak kamen’ designate the swift translational motion (technically, they mean that all points move along parallel trajectories), while the expression okamenet’ purports to the absence of surface changes in a resting object.

Examples: (1) Byla lunnaja noch’ togo bol’shogo holoda, kogda dyhanie, kazhetsja, srazu ledeneet i kogda pticy, zamerzaja na letu, padajut vniz kamnjami ‘It was a moonlit night of that great cold, when the breath seems to freeze at once, and when the birds, freezing in flight, fall down like stones.’210 (2) Okamenevshij Jurka ne svodil s devochki nepodvizhnogo vzgljada ‘Petrified Yurka never took his eyes off the girl.’ 210. Cf.: Zhukov dropped like a stone.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Cluster 9.1 Basic lexical items: slova ( frazy i t.d.) padajut kak kamni ‘words (phrases, etc.) fall down like stones’. The framework of the cluster: The construction associated with this subcluster is based on the same property of stone as that for Cluster 9, but its target domain is positioned in the sociocultural area. This construction characterizes tensions in communication that destroy its natural rhythm and make it awkward and painful for participants.

Examples: (1) Emu kazalos’, chto slova padajut kak kamni – i ego sobstvennye, i jetogo paren’ka ‘It seemed to him that the words were dropping like stones – both his own and this boy’s’.211 (2) Ego korotkie frazy padali, kak kamni, i, skazav chto-nibud’, on vskidyval na menja glazami ‘His short phrases were dropping like stones, and, having said something, he looked up at me.’

Cluster 9.2 Basic lexical items: (byt’) kamnem, kak kamen’ ‘to be like stone’; okamenet’ ‘petrify.’ The framework of the cluster: The construction associated with this subcluster is based on the same property of stone as that in Cluster 9, but its target domain is positioned in the emotional-mental area. The expressions attributed to this cluster designate internal states characterized by loss of sensitivity, emotional numbness, and lack of emotional reaction to a situation.

Examples: (1) Okamenevshaja ot gorja mama plachet, otec pytaetsja uspokoit’ ee ‘The griefstricken mother (lit., the mother, petrified with grief ), is crying, and the father tries to calm her down.’ (2) Kamnem, beschuvstvennym kamnem nado byt’, chtoby serdce ne razbilos’ ljudskoj neblagodarnost’ju! ‘The heart does not break with human ingratitude, only if you are a stone, an insensitive stone!’

211. Cf.: The words were like stones in his mouth.

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Cluster 10 Basic lexical items: okamenet’ ‘petrify’; kak kamen’ ‘like a stone’; kamen’ ‘stone, n.’ The framework of the cluster: The constructions attributed to this cluster, are based on another property caused by constant distances between different parts of stone. It is its hardness resulting in the impossibility of the practical use of an object with similar characteristics.

Examples: (1) Dostaju iz jashhika trjapki i okamenevshie kedy – odnu nikchemnuju veshh’ za drugoj ‘I take rags and petrified sneakers, one worthless thing after another, out of the drawer.’ (2) Ulozhiv vosem’ rjadov, pora pristupat’ k rasshivke shvov, poka rastvor ne prevratilsja v kamen’ ‘After having laid eight rows, it’s time to start grouting until the mortar has turned to stone.’

Cluster 11 Basic lexical items: kak kamen’ ‘like a stone’. The framework of the cluster: In this cluster, the property of stone, on which metaphors are based, is its high density, which entails the view of stone as a heavy object.

Examples: (1) Ubitye lezhali v jame v tri tjazhelyh sloja, i Sonja ochutilas’ mezhdu, pridavlennaja trupom prinjavshego dvojnoj udar otca, i Klim uzhe tjanul ee, zhivuju ili mertvuju, razbituju, tjazheluju, kak kamen’, i legkuju, kak strekozinoe krylo, vsju chernuju i lipko-mokruju, budto mladenec v materinskoj skazke ‘The dead lay in the pit in three heavy layers, and Sonya found herself in between, crushed by the corpse of her father, who had taken a double blow, and Klim was already pulling her, alive or dead, broken, heavy as a stone, and light as a dragonfly’s wing, all black and sticky-wet like a baby in a mother’s fairy tale.’

The conceptual framework of the complex is presented in Figure 19. Each cluster is labeled by the English equivalent of the word that characterizes the functions of the stone, basic for this cluster. As for the complex otkryvat’, conceptual clusters attributed to the complex kamen’ are positioned in three conceptual domains. Having said that, the framework of this complex includes more than one prototypical cluster; therefore, this type of complexes can be called polynuclear.

Chapter 8. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex kamen’ in STLC

Figure 19. The conceptual framework of the complex kamen’

8.4

Summary

In this chapter, the description of a polynuclear complex within the scope of STLC was presented using the example of the lexical complex kamen’ ‘stone’. After examining the dictionary entries for basic words attributed to the complex, the diachronic analysis of the complex in Old Russian and modern Russian was conducted. The analysis revealed basic conceptual clusters in the physical, sociocultural, and emotional-mental domains, as well as connections between them. Although no tangible difference was found between the conceptual structure of the complex in the 11th to 17th centuries and that at the beginning of the 21st century, some discrepancies were identified. Importantly, these discrepancies are deeply connected with the changes in everyday life of people in Russia from the Middle Ages to the modern time. It is worth noting that this and the previous chapter provide the description of different versions of lexical complexes positioned at Level A, while Level B has not yet been involved in the analysis. A full version of the description of lexical complex in STLC is presented in the next chapter that examines the complex intelligencija.

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The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC 9.0

Introduction

The complex intelligencija ‘intelligentsia’ differs substantially from the complexes presented in the two previous chapters. First, it designates an “object” within the sociocultural domain, not a natural thing. The prototypical clusters of the complexes examined in the previous chapters are positioned in the physical domain, and the sociocultural and emotional-mental domains provide only room for metaphorical extensions. In the case of the complex intelligencija, all the clusters are positioned in the sociocultural domain. This leads to the second difference of this complex from the previous ones: its conceptual structure has a closer connection with sociocultural context and reacts faster and more noticeably to its change. This means, in the scope of STLC, a deeper correlation between Level A0 and Level A and a more detailed description of Level A0 and its change over time. Third, given that the basic meanings of the dominant words attributed to the complex are not as clear as it was the case for the complexes otkryvat’ and kamen’, a number of interpretations of the category intelligencija have emerged, which have brought about certain transformations of the complex at Level A. In other words, for a correct representation of the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija, its diachronic description at Level A0, Level A, and Level B is necessary. Taking this into account, the scope of this chapter is as follows: the first section addresses the description of the words attributed to the complex intelligencija in dictionaries; the second section provides a synopsis of the prehistory of the complex from Antiquity to the mid-19th century; the next sections provide a coherent description of Level A, Level B, and, if necessary, Level A0 in various historical periods, up to the present day.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

9.1

The noun intelligencija and its derivatives in dictionaries

As in the previous chapters, the description in GADRL is the reference point for the present analysis. The word intelligencija is defined in GADRL as ‘a social group of people professionally engaged in mental, mainly complex, creative work, in the process of development and dissemination of culture; people belonging to this social group’; the word intelligent – as ‘the one who belongs to the intelligentsia’ with the inclusion of the construction mjagkotelyj intelligent (lit.,‘softhearted intellectual; the one who is not capable of decisive actions’); the word intelligentnyj – as ‘attributed to the intellectual, intellectuals, intelligentsia; educated, spiritually enriched, knowledgeable in many domains of science and culture; peculiar to the intellectual, the intelligentsia; distinguished by spirituality, high culture’; the word intelligentskij – as ‘attributed to the intellectual, intellectuals, intelligentsia; peculiar to the intellectual, the intelligentsia, and also people with a mindset, behavior characterized by inaction, indecision, etc.’ The above construals clearly indicate the uncertainty of the conceptual framework of the complex intelligencija and the “internal tensions” within it. Importantly, these tensions do not reduce the “sociocultural productivity” of the complex, but, on the contrary, contribute to its increase. In this context, it is worth addressing again the substantial discrepancies between a complex and a scientific concept sketched in Section 6.1 and Section 6.2. It seems that blurred boundaries of a complex and certain tensions within its framework are significant factors for its sociocultural productivity, since they pave the way for the emergence of competing interpretations, which often bring about new changes in the conceptual structure of the complex at Level A. This, in turn, entails the emergence of new interpretations, and so on. The history of the word being (τὸ εἶναι or τὸ όν), introduced into the Ancient Greek language by Parmenides, who just substantivized the verb to be, provides a good example for such a conceptual evolution. Although Parmenides’ definition of being seemed strange for his contemporaries (he defined it as the timeless unchanging thinking sphere devoid of any perceptual properties), the issue he explored was of great importance for them, and they elaborated different construals of this concept, enriching it with new conceptual lines. This process has continued through the Middle Ages and the Modern Era to nowadays. As a result, a correct definition of the concept of being has become more and more problematic, but at the same time, its “conceptual weight” has markedly increased, and being has morphed into one of the basic categories in philosophy. It is worth noting that this kind of “conceptual biography” is impossible for scientific terms, such as triangle, which have an exact definition, leaving no room for different construals.

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As will be argued below, a conceptual biography of the complex intelligencija resembles the biography of the concept being, sketched above. Let me proceed to a detailed analysis. The basic lexemes attributed to the complex are intelligencija ‘intelligentsia’; intelligent ‘the one who belongs to the intelligentsia’; intelligentnost’ ‘intelligence’; intelligentnyj ‘attributed to the intelligentsia’; intelligentskij ‘attributed to the intelligentsia’; intelligentka ‘the women who belong to the intelligentsia’;212 intelligentik, intelligentishka (these two words, like the word intelligent, denote the one who belongs to the intelligentsia, but, unlike the word intelligent, they have a pejorative meaning); intelligentshhina (this word denotes a mode of behavior characterizing a representative of the intelligentsia and also has a pejorative meaning). That said, the lexemes intelligencija, intelligent, intelligentnost’, intelligentnyj, intelligentskij are considerably more frequent than the others, therefore, in the next sections we will refer mainly to them.

9.2

The prehistory of the complex intelligencija (up to the 1860s)

The complex intelligencija has its origin in the Latin concept intellegentia, which means ‘the power of discerning or understanding, discernment, understanding, intelligence’. Cicero (Inv., 2, 53) defined this concept as follows: “Intelligence is that by which the mind perceives what exists at present”. Later, in the philosophy of Boethius (Cons. Phil., V. 4) and then in the scholastic tradition intellegentia was considered an element of the contrast between intuitive and discursive cognition coming from Plato (νόεσις vs. διάνοια, in the Latin tradition intellectus or intelligentia vs. ratio) and designated the divine mind that comprehends both the foundations of things and its own foundations in an instant cognitive act. This construal remained important for the European philosophy of the Modern Era, consciously or unconsciously relying in this respect on the medieval tradition. A new insight into the problem was arrived at within the scope of Protestant theology, and then in the German philosophy and French historiography of the first third of the 19th century, which had a noticeable impact on Russian thought. Thus, Schelling defined Intelligenz as “the notion of everything subjective”.213 For Hegel,

212. This word may need a special comment. It occurs notably later then the word intelligent (according to RNC, the first occurrence of the word intelligent dates back to 1880 and the word intelligentka to 1906; in GBNV the former first occurs in 1868 and the latter in 1900). Almost always, the word intelligent designates the male member, although the collocations intelligentnaja zhenshhina ‘an intelligent women’ and intelligentnaja dama ‘an intelligent lady’ appear in texts before 1990.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

Intelligenz was associated with the ability of Mind to get through the surface layers of the structure of the universe and come to self-knowledge. The French historian and politician Francois Guizot tackled another aspect of the problem and linked the progress of civilization, which he interpreted as the development of the human mind and social development, to the will of Providence, similar, to some extent, to Hegel’s development of Mind. Such a construal of civilization, which emphasized the interrelation between intellectual and social change, was in demand for conceptual transformations of the complex intelligencija, although Guizot himself did not use the concept l’intelligence as a term. It should be mentioned that in the 1840s and 1850s in Prussia, Austria, and Poland the concept of Intelligenz (inteligencja) could designate a social group that was the “bearer” of a collective mind, and this might have had a certain impact on Russia. In Russian culture, the word intelligencija has been used, apparently, since the first quarter of the 18th century, and until the 1860s it meant ‘thought’, ‘intellect’, ‘self-awareness’, leaving aside some uncommon senses. A meaning of intelligencija as a specific social group was not relevant for that period (there are some isolated cases of use of the word intelligencija that allow for such a construal, but even in these cases, the sociological meaning is doubtful).

9.3

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1860s and 1870s

9.3.1 The sociocultural context of emergence of the complex intelligencija (Level A0) The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija changed radically in the second half of 1860s in the wake of sociocultural transformations dating back to the 1850s and 1860s. These transformations had something in common with those of the Western culture of the Enlightenment. The result of these transformations was a sharp expansion and structural change of a social group responsible for the creation and reproduction of knowledge and cultural values. Before the mid-19th century, this function was assigned to the nobility; in other words, the political elite

213. “The intrinsic notion of everything merely objective in our knowledge, we may speak [this is a quotation] of as nature. The notion of everything subjective is called, on the contrary, the self, or the intelligence. The two concepts are mutually opposed. The intelligence is initially conceived of as the purely presentative, nature purely as what can be presented; the one as the conscious, the other as the nonconscious” (tr. by P. Heath; Schelling, 1993, p. 5).

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coincided with the cultural elite. Since 1850s, a new social group called raznochincy (children of merchants, priests, and so on; in general, intellectuals not of gentle birth) began to compete with nobles in that. As a result, the cultural elite began to differ from the political elite, and this process needed to be reflected in language. For a better understanding of the reflection of this change in language, it is worth addressing a comparison of the conceptual changes of the words intelligencija and civilizacija ‘civilization.’ The complex civilizacija was discussed intensively in many texts of the late 1860s and often used together with the complex intelligencija. The shift from civilization as a property of society (social group) (civilizovannoe obshhestvo ‘civilized society,’ civilizovannyj klass ‘civilized class,’ nachalo civilizacii ‘the origin of civilization’) to civilization as a certain type of society or social group (evropejskaja civilizacija ‘European civilization,’ russkaja civilizacija ‘Russian civilization,’ narodnaja civilizacija ‘the civilization of poor people’) paved the way for a similar shift from the general concept of intelligencija as collective mind to a social concept (russkaja intelligencija ‘Russian intelligentsia,’ francuzskaja intelligencija ‘French intelligentsia,’ etc.). At another level, at that time, the idea of civilization was often considered to be opposite to the “state” view of history as the history of politicians and state institutions. From the new perspective, the contrast between the authorities and the people was replaced by the contrast between the civilized society and the people, which made it possible to move from political history to the history of civilization, including political history as one of its components. The framework of the complex intelligencija was constructed on this ground. Importantly, the intelligentsia was not initially opposed to the authorities and the government (as we will see below, the authorities were often called the intelligentsia), but rather this category introduced a different sociocultural perspective: in contrast to the authorities who make political decisions, the intelligentsia makes “civilizational” decisions, that is, determines the direction of cultural development. In other words, its function is similar to that of the authorities, but in a broader sociocultural domain.

9.3.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) Although the noun intelligencija and the adjective intelligentnyj in the meaning of a social group occurred in certain texts of the first half of the 1860s, the more or less frequent use of the complex intelligencija dates to the end of the 1860s. It was used, mainly, by left-wing authors grouping around the journals Delo and Otechestvennye zapiski, such as Michael Saltykov-Shchedrin, Alexander Skabichesky, Nikolay Mihajlovskij, Afanasy Shchapov, Grigory Eliseev, and Pyotr Boborykin.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

During that period, along with the above meaning of intelligencija as ‘intellect, intellectual activity,’ new senses emerged that determined the further development of the category. Intelligentcija obtained the meaning of a well-educated social group that was considered the mind of society responsible for its social, political, and cultural development (e.g., vse jeto stanovilos’ delom raznyh komissij, komitetov i reglamentov pravitel’stva, kotoroe postojanno dumalo za narod, predstavljalo soboj ego golovu, intelligenciju (lit., ‘all this became a matter of different commissions, committees and regulations of the government, which constantly thought for the people, represented their head, the intelligentsia’ (Alexander Pyatkovsky)). That said, the social boundaries of this group were extremely vague: they ranged from the government to doctors, teachers, lawyers, and even technicians, artisans, pharmacists, veterinarians, and so on (e.g., S 1855 goda uchen’ja soldat prinjali sovsem drugoj harakter: vse bylo napravleno k tomu, chtoby obrazovat’ intelligentnogo, dumajushhego i sposobnogo soldata, dlja kotorogo chest’ i zashhita rodnoj strany javljalis’ vovse ne pustoj frazoj (lit., ‘Since 1855, the training of the soldiers took on a completely different form: everything was aimed at educating an intelligent, thinking and skillful soldier, for whom the honor and defense of his native country were not at all an empty phrase’ (Alexey Suvorin)).

9.4

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1880s and 1890s

9.4.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B) In the 1880s, the first interpretations of the complex were developed, based on the semantic shifts at Level A that took place in the previous period. Ultimately, these early interpretations provided the framework for later interpretations and set the stage for discussions about the intelligentsia for years to come. Let me emphasize the main issues that have been widely discussed within this scope: what are prototypical properties for the members of this category; when did the intelligentsia arise; and whether it is a universal or exclusively Russian phenomenon. An interpretation along the lines of Guizot’s approach was elaborated in the liberal camp. Thus, Alexander Gradovskij (2001, p. 480) defined intelligencija as sovokupnost’ takih umov, v kotoryh, kak v fokuse, sosredotochivaetsja razumenie vseh potrebnostej celoj strany, ot verhnego ee sloja do nizhnego, vseh ee stremlenij i zadach, kotorye umejut dat’ razumnuju formulu vsjakomu dvizheniju, ukazat’ ishod vsjakomu zameshatel’stvu i nravstvennomu vlijaniju kotoryh podchinjajutsja

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vse dejstvujushhie sily strany … (lit., ‘the totality of such minds, in which, as in the focus, the understanding of all needs, aspirations and demands of the entire country, from the upper stratum to the lower one, is concentrated, the totality of minds that are able to present any movement in a reasonable formula, to solve any confusion; minds, moral influence of which is recognized by the whole country’)

Gradovskij emphasized that the intelligentsia should not be confused with society, but it can be likened to the soul of society, to the force that determined its development. In the Middle Ages, the clergy, whom Gradovskij called the medieval intelligentsia, was considered in his book as such a soul. Then it was replaced by another intelligentsia, which gradually broke the medieval order and laid the foundations for a new European society (p. 481). Gradovskij stressed that the new intelligentsia did not identify itself with any social class (nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie), but it could deeply understand and present the needs and requests of the peasants and the factory workers as well as the interests of the upper classes, and, moreover, find a balance between the interests of all social groups, resulting in the harmony of the whole (p. 482). Other interpretations arose within the social group called narodniki (the Russian populists). One of them was developed by the so-called narodnikipochvenniki (Vasilij Voroncov, Iosif Kablic (Juzov), etc.) and clearly formulated in Kablic (1886). For Kablic, everyone who is engaged in various forms of intellectual activity (not only writers and scientists, but also teachers, engineers, priests, military men, merchants, officials, etc.), belongs to the intelligentsia. The main asset of the intelligentsia, according to Kablic, is the possession of certain knowledge that society uses, rewarding the intellectual with a fee or salary. Importantly, this definition of the intelligentsia was included in the framework of a general model based on the contrast obrazovannye klassy ‘well-educated classes’ vs. narod (in this context, peasants). The intelligentsia, engaged in mental labor, was opposed to the people who earned their livelihood by hard physical work. This contrast is as universal, for Kablic, as the division of the organic life into plants and animals. According to Kablic (pp. 41–42), the acquisition of knowledge does not make people more moral, so the intelligentsia should not teach morality to the peasants, but learn from them; it should not follow their “interests,” as it understands them, but listen to their opinions and expressed needs, and bear these in mind, trying to be as moral as they are. At another level, Kablic posited that the intelligentsia had much in common with the bureaucracy. In his opinion, the Russian intelligentsia and Russian bureaucracy had been completely inseparable from each other, and only recently did this separation begin (pp. 53–54), since there had been almost no highlyeducated professions independent of the bureaucracy (p. 57).

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

Despite the ill-conceived and contradictory structure of Kablic’s approach (both his definition of the intelligentsia and its relationships with other social groups, such as the nobility and bourgeoisie, are not clear), it paved the way for the socioeconomic construal of the intelligentsia. From this perspective, the intelligentsia is not an exclusively Russian phenomenon; it exists in all cultures that use any form of intellectual labor. However, the intelligentsia in Russian society has some peculiar properties, in particular, its relationships with the peasants and the bureaucracy are important. Another interpretation of the intelligentsia was developed by Nikolaj Mihajlovskij, who was one of the leaders of another group of narodniki. Like Kablic, Mihajlovskij includes the concept of ‘intelligencija’ in two contrasts: intelligencija vs. narod (the intelligentsia vs. the peasants) and intelligencija vs. burzhuazija (the intelligentsia vs. the bourgeoisie). However, his construal of the concept of ‘intelligencija’ and his treatment of these contrasts differ markedly from those of Kablic in many respects. First, in contrast to Kablic, an intellectual (in this context, a representative of the intelligentsia) for Mihajlovskij is not a person of a certain socioeconomic status, but rather a person of certain ideological attitudes and lifestyle. Second, unlike Kablic, he draws a sharp demarcation line between the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie. He considers the intelligentsia an opponent of the bourgeoisie and posits that its mission is to struggle against the development the bourgeoisie in Russia (Mihajlovskij, 1897, pp. 514–515). Third, this determines his view of the intelligentsia as an exclusively Russian phenomenon, because Western intellectuals, in contrast to the intelligentsia, coincide almost completely with the bourgeoisie (p. 540). Summing up, one can see that the three above interpretations, despite staying on common semantic ground, differ markedly from each other. Each of them is premised on a semantic intuition formed by everyday language (see Section 9.3.2), but at the same time, each of them transforms visually a heterogeneous conceptual structure of the complex at Level A, taking different elements of this structure as the basis. Gradovsky might have been closest to the original semantic intuition. In his interpretation, intelligencija pertains to the collective mind that understands and finds a solution for needs and demands of the whole society in the same way as the human mind does for the human being. Kablic focuses on the social characteristics of a group of people called intellectuals, developing the concept of obrazovannyj klass ‘educated class’ into a specific sociological term. Mihajlovskij highlights the components of mindset and lifestyle in his construal. The two last interpretations had a significant impact on the conceptual changes of the complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A).

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9.4.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) During the 1880s and 1890s, words attributed to the complex intelligencija started to appear more and more, often not only in political and economic texts, but also in literature and in everyday speech. The conceptual structure of the complex, which had been quite fuzzy in the 1860s and 1870s, acquired a clearer outline. One can recognize two load-bearing structural elements in its framework. The first one is associated mainly with the nouns intelligencija and intelligent ‘the one who belongs to the intelligentsia,’ although the adjective intelligentnyj ‘attributed to the intelligentsia’ can also be used in this context. Within this scope, intelligencija is considered an antonym of narod (peasants and artisans). The contrast intelligencija vs. narod concerns not only social background and education, but also appearance, habits, and other features of everyday life. An interesting example of this is given below: …ubijstvo … soversheno chelovekom intelligentnym … – Iz chego zhe vy jeto zakljuchaete? – K moim uslugam shvedskaja spichka, upotreblenija kotoroj eshhe ne znajut zdeshnie krest’jane. Upotrebljajut jetakie spichki tol’ko pomeshhiki, i to ne vse. ‘…the murder … was committed by an intellectual … – From what do you conclude this? – I found a Swedish match, the use of which is still unknown to the local peasants. Only landowners use such matches, and even then not all.’ (Anton Chekhov. A Swedish match)

Sometimes the mention of narod and intelligencija is enough to characterize the life of Russia or any region of Russia. For example, Rossija takaja zhe skuchnaja i ubogaja strana, kak Persija. Intelligencija beznadezhna; po mneniju Pekarskogo, ona v gromadnom bol’shinstve sostoit iz ljudej nesposobnyh i nikuda ne godnyh. Narod zhe spilsja, oblenilsja, izvorovalsja i vyrozhdaetsja ‘Russia is just as boring and miserable a country as Persia. The intelligentsia is hopeless; in Pekarsky’s opinion, it mainly consists of people who are incompetent and worthless. The peasants are drunk, lazy, they steal and degenerate.’ (Anton Chekhov. The story of an unknown person)

This sense is positioned along the lines of the socioeconomic approach illustrated above by Kablic’s interpretation. The second sense appeared later, and it was mainly associated with the adjective intelligentnyj ‘attributed to the intelligentsia.’ It represents a certain lifestyle that was inherent in the best noble families and treated by the authors using the adjective intelligentnyj as an ideal norm. Such a lifestyle was formed in early child-

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

hood and manifested itself in such features as appearance, voice, gestures, facial expressions, and so on: Pered ot#ezdom, kstati skazat’, ja byl na repeticii “Fedora Ioanovicha”. Menja prijatno tronula intelligentnost’ tona, i so sceny povejalo nastojashhim iskusstvom, hotja igrali i ne velikie talanty (lit., ‘By the way, before leaving, I was at the rehearsal of “Fyodor Ioanovich.” I was agreeably touched by the heartfeltness (intelligentnost’) of the tone, and it was a real art on the stage, even though not great talents were playing’); (Anton Chekhov. The letter to Alexander Suvorin, 8.10.1898) Irkutsk prevoshodnyj gorod. Sovsem intelligentnyj. Teatr, gorodskoj sad s muzykoj, horoshie gostinicy … Net urodlivyh zaborov, nelepyh vyvesok i pustyrej s nadpisjami o tom, chto nel’zja ostanavlivat’sja ‘Irkutsk is an excellent city. Very nice (intelligentnyj). A theater, a city garden with music, good hotels … There are no ugly fences, ridiculous signs and wastelands with interdictions to stay on’ (Anton Chekhov. The letter to Maria Chekhova, 6.06.1890)

Here intelligencija is opposite to meshhanstvo (‘philistinism,’ that is, a social group and lifestyle characterized by an obsession with money, lack of artistic taste, aesthetic sense, sensitivity, and tact in relationships with others). This meaning seems close to Mihajlovskij’s interpretation, but having said that, such a lifestyle for Mihajlovskij is underpinned by a certain set of ideas, whereas this is not mandatory for the meaning at Level A. Now it is time to return to the difference between the conceptual structure of a complex at Level A and that of a scientific term. As one can see, there are two conceptual lines at Level A, formed by the contrasts of intelligencija vs. narod and intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo. These lines do not correlate with each other, and this leads to visible tensions within the conceptual structure of the complex. However, such tensions do not impede the conceptual development of the complex, but, on the contrary, turn out to be a strong trigger for this development and, in particular, for the emergence of new interpretations. Evidence for this will be given below.

9.5

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija at the beginning of 20th century (before 1917)

9.5.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B) The beginning of the 20th century was most productive for new interpretations. Furthermore, certain authors developed typological models by distributing all

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existing interpretations into a few classes. In this regard, one should mention Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik (1911), who distinguished two such classes that he called the socioeconomic and socio-ethical approach to the definition of the intelligentsia. The socioeconomic approach is positioned along Kablic’s lines and was developped, in that period, in the texts of Marxists. Leaving aside the details, the intelligentsia, from this perspective, includes everyone who is engaged in intellectual work; in other words, the criterion, in this case, is the type of activity. The socio-ethical approach was represented by the interpretations close to Mihajlovskij’s one. In that period, it was developed by personalist thinkers belonging to different ideological groups, who shared the belief that the development of personality is the basic vector of the historical process. Within this scope, the intelligentsia includes people of certain ideological attitudes; that is, the criterion of ideology is more important than that of social status. It is easy to notice that the first approach corresponds to the contrast of intelligencija vs. narod, while the second approach refers to the contrast of intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo at Level A. The Marxists’ socio-economic interpretation of the complex intelligencija was embedded in the general ideological scheme of Russian Marxism. Russian Marxists (Alexander Bogdanov, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), Anatolij Lunacharskij, Alexander Potresov, etc.) defined the intelligentsia (along the lines of Kablic’s construal) as people engaged in intellectual labor, including doctors, lawyers, writers, engineers, accountants, officials, teachers, etc. Although the intelligentsia, according to the Marxists, has existed in in any historical period, (Lunacharskij, 1924, p. 14, recognized the intelligentsia in Ancient Egypt and even called a shaman a kind of intellectual), only the intelligentsia of the capitalist period was of real interest to Marxists. Their approach to the contemporary intelligentsia differed radically from that of Kablic. For them, the intelligentsia was not an independent category, and the contrast of intelligencija vs. narod was not relevant. The core of the Marxist model was the contrast of proletariat vs. bourgeoisie, and all other social groups were positioned within this frame of reference. The categories of class struggle and class interests provided the main criterion for social stratification within this scope. The intelligentsia was considered a stratum, and the main question in that regard was whose interests (those of the bourgeoisie or of the proletariat) it defended. There was no clear answer to this question. On the one hand, the position of the intelligentsia viewed as similar to that of the proletariat (both the intelligentsia and the proletariat sell their labor to the bourgeoisie); on the other hand, the life style and social circle of the intellectuals likened them to the bourgeoisie. Ultimately, the position of the intelligentsia in “the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat” frame of reference was uncertain, and it depended on the origin,

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

social status, and income level of a particular social group or particular person. Having said that, even declaring to be an “ally” of the proletariat, the intelligentsia was an unreliable ally. Individualism, instability of social position, and lack of discipline were claimed to be properties of the intelligentsia, arising from its social practice. The individualism of the intelligentsia was opposed, within the Marxist framework, to the collectivism of the proletariat. One of the key tasks of the working class was to create a new “proletarian intelligentsia,” who would express and structure its interests. Importantly, this construction had a visible flaw, for which the Russian Marxists were criticized by their opponents. Despite treating the intelligentsia from a socioeconomic perspective, they picked out a small group of intellectuals (according to Lunacharskij, 1924, p. 5, a “handful of righteous people”), for which the entire Russian intelligentsia would not only be forgiven, but also honored. These “righteous people” are able to go beyond their class interests and lead the struggle of the proletariat for liberation. For this group, the ideology is the dominant criterion for identification, and the socioeconomic definition morphs in this case, as Ivanov-Razumnik (1910, pp. 17–24) notes, into a socio-ethical one. The socio-ethical approach was implemented in a much wider range of interpretations. One of them was elaborated by Ivanov-Razumnik himself. He defined the intelligentsia as a social group, characterized by the creation of new ideas and approaches that serve to liberate the individual from any form (intellectual, social, etc.) of slavery, and bringing these ideas and approaches to life (IvanovRazumnik, 1911, p. 12). In accordance with Mihajlovskij’s views, he argued that Belinsky and Granovsky were intellectuals (more precisely, representatives of the intelligentsia), and Bulgarin and Nikitenko were not; in other words, any technical social criteria (level of education, social background, etc.) was not relevant for him to determine whether a particular person belonged to the intelligentsia. As a result, the boundaries of the category were blurred, and an act of categorization was subjective (an assessement of a particular subject was the only criterion for that). According to Ivanov-Razumnik, the intelligentsia is a Russian phenomenon that had no counterparts in the Western societies, and that it appeared in the second half of the 18th century, in the reign of Catherine the Great (Fonvizin, Novikov, Radishchev were considered by Ivanov-Razumnik its first representatives), although some intellectuals had come about earlier (Kurbskij, Ivan the Terrible, Theodosius Kosoy, etc.). Other interpretations within the scope of the socio-ethical approach arose in the wake of radical shifts in Russian culture in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Caused by the crisis of populist and positivist ideas, these shifts led to a new worldview, opposite to those of populism and positivism. This worldview was

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based on a special type of religiosity, characterized by clear eschatological expectations, breaking with both the authority of the church and the authority of the state. This type of religiosity became manifest in the figure of the creator-artist who arrived at an existential truth in mystical experience. Dmitrij Merezhkovskij (1991) was one of the first to represent this outlook. The mindset of the intelligentsia was interpreted by Merezhkovskij in religious categories: he stressed its mystical atheism, positing that the strength of the Russian intelligentsia was not in the mind, but in the heart and conscience (p. 43). He claimed the unity of the intelligentsia and the peasants should be in mystical experience and contrasted these social groups to official authority (autocracy) and the official church (Orthodoxy) (pp. 43–44). Somewhat unexpectedly, this mystical construal of the intelligentsia correlated with Merezhkovskij’s view of Peter the Great as the first Russian intellectual. As if forgetting that Peter the Great had oppressed the Russian Orthodox church and transformed it into an element of the regular state, Merezhkovskij likened him to Christ, arguing that the intelligentsia followed the pathway indicated by Peter the Great, i.e., that of Western enlightenment, which the author considered to be the pathway from autocracy to freedom, opposite to that of the Russian state (p. 59). Of special interest is the collection of seven essays Vehi (lit., ‘Landmarks’) published in 1909, which had a strong influence on the further development of the complex intelligencija. The authors of the collection (Nikolaj Berdjaev, Sergej Bulgakov, Semen Frank, and others) construed the complex within the scope of the socio-ethical approach, but in contrast to Ivanov-Razumnik and Merezhkovskij, they associated the intelligentsia with left-wing intellectuals and strongly criticized the mindset of the intelligentsia. Sergej Bulgakov (1991) found the roots of the moral crisis of the intelligentsia in its shift away from the Orthodox church, from which it borrowed its best properties (asceticism, rigorism, etc.). In his article, the main property of the intelligentsia was considered “a heroic maximalism,” that is, the desire for a feat that would make humanity happy. The reverse side of such a heroic maximalism was, for Bulgakov, the inability to be decent and responsible in everyday life. Bulgakov opposed such an attitude leading to selfdeification to the ideal of a true Christian who serves God and people with daily monotonous work. Sharing Bulgakov’s attitude to the intelligentsia, Nikolaj Berdjaev (1991) and Semen Frank (1991) complemented it with the claim that the main fault of the intelligentsia was the religious aberration resulting in the replacement of the cult of God by the cult of the peasants. Berdyaev’s view was developed in his later works, primarily in the book The Origin and Meaning of Russian Communism (1955). He stressed that the Russian word intelligencija had no equivalents in the Western languages and the social group called the intelligentsia did not coincide

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

with the intellectuals, that is, people engaged in intellectual work and creativity. He argued that the intelligentsia was not a professional and economic group, but rather an ideological one resembling a monastic order or a religious sect with its special morality, very intolerant, with its rigid outlook on the world, with its own norms and customs, and even with a peculiar appearance, by which one could always recognize representatives of the intelligentsia and distinguish them from other social groups (p. 17). He also emphasized the groundlessness of the Russian intelligentsia and its intention to live exclusively with ideas, mostly, taken from the West and transformed into dogmata (p. 18). Similar to Ivanov-Razumnik, he dated the emergence of the Russian intelligentsia back to the second half of the 18th century and called Alexander Radishchev the first Russian intelligent. The interpretation of Gregory Fedotov (1991) is positioned along these lines. In the essay “The Tragedy of the Intelligentsia,” written in the 1920s as an émigré, but based on the ideas discussed in the first decades of the 20th century, he opposed the intelligentsia to intellectuals in socioeconomic meaning and considered the intelligentsia a kind of religious order, such as medieval chivalry (p. 68). In his opinion, the key properties of the Russian intelligentsia were a special, ethically colored kind of rationalism, which was a far cry from critical philosophical reasoning, and separation from national culture, national religion, and from all national traditions and customs (pp. 70–71). Fedotov dated the emergence of the intelligentsia back to the time of Peter the Great, arguing that the intelligentsia was a child of Peter the Great, a child that developed his legacy. For Fedotov, the Russian intelligentsia was a result of a strange interplay between traditional Russian culture and Western rationalism, and its main properties could be deducted from this symbiosis of heterogeneous elements (p. 79). Other interpretations intelligentsia can be treated as a combination of the socioeconomic and socio-ethical approaches. Let me address Pavel Miljukov’s (1991) interpretation to illustrate this. Miljukov represented the intelligentsia and the educated class as two concentric circles, the inner designating the intelligentsia, that is, the group of the most creative and initiative people within the educated class. He did not consider the intelligentsia an exclusively Russian phenomenon and found its counterpart in the European tradition, but at the same time he dated the emergence of the Russian intelligentsia back to Peter the Great, who, in Miljukov’s opinion, attracted a group of self-taught intellectuals in order to help him in the establishment of a new model of state (p. 295).

9.5.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) Shifts of meaning at Level A during that period were less significant than structural transformations at Level B, because the conceptual structure of the complex

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had been basically formed in the 1880s and 1890s. Nevertheless, certain semantic shifts took place, having been caused by the increasing impact of interpretations. The need for a clear distinction between two senses intertwined in the complex intelligencija – a certain ideology and a certain lifestyle – led to the emergence of new words in the complex and to the complication of its conceptual structure. In particular, in addition to the adjective intelligentnyj mainly characterizing a certain lifestyle (intelligentnaja vneshnost’ (lit., ‘an appearance of a representative of the intelligentsia’), intelligentnoe povedeние (lit., ‘a behavior of a representative of the intelligentsia’)), the adjective intelligentskij appeared in that period to designate ideological constituents of the complex (intelligentskaja filosofija (lit., ‘a philosophy of the intelligentsia’), intelligentskoe soznanie (lit., ‘a consciousness of the intelligentsia’)). Having said that, the word intelligentskij acquired pejorative connotations associated with the complex, which came about in that period: …intelligentskaja mysl’ holopstvovala pered avtoritetom i hamski ljagala svalivshegosja vcherashnego bozhka (lit., ‘the thought of the intelligentsia groveled before the authority and boorishly kicked the fallen recent god.’ ) (M. Artsybashev. Writer’s Notes)

The pejorative attitudes to the intelligentsia were also realized in certain derivatives of the word intelligencija, such as intelligentshhina.

9.6

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1920s to 1950s

9.6.1 The sociocultural context of the complex intelligencija (Level A0) During the Soviet period, a significant change in the structure and status of the educated stratum took place, which had an impact on both the framework of the complex at Level A and the emergence of new interpretations. First, the educated stratum (the intelligentsia) in the Soviet Union mostly consisted of people called the intellectuals in the first and second generations. This was caused by a system of benefits for applicants from families of workers and peasants and restrictions for those of the intelligentsia for admission to universities. In contrast, the backstory of the intelligentsia in Russia of the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century included several generations, which formed a special subculture associated with a well-established and long reproduced tradition. Second, the curriculum and education system for universities changed markedly. In the Soviet time, the emphasis was put on technical and natural science disciplines, whilst humanities and social sciences were mainly represented by the study of the

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

classics of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Meanwhile, the education system in the 19th and early 20th century Russia had been more balanced, and humanities and social sciences were studied from a wide range of perspectives. Thirdly, almost all intellectuals in the Soviet Union were state employees or members of professional associations controlled by the state (Volkov, 1999), whereas in the 19th and the early 20th century Russia they had been mainly freelancers devoid of direct responsibility to the state. These social shifts brought about certain changes in the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija.

9.6.2 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B) Leaving aside the approaches of Russian scholars in emigration that were outlined in Section 9.5.1, I will now analyze the perspective of the intelligentsia in the official Soviet ideology. Basically, this view was formed by the Marxist model presented above; the socio-ethical and other versions of the socioeconomic approach were not relevant in that scope. The intelligentsia was considered a social group that had no independent status and, depending on circumstances, might support either bourgeoisie or proletariat. According to Soviet ideology, the pre-Soviet intelligentsia was infected with bourgeois ideology and, as a social group, should be abolished along with the bourgeoisie. A tactical alliance was possible with a small part of specialists in natural and technical sciences until the new Soviet intelligentsia can replace them in their function. The new Soviet intelligentsia, recruited from former workers and peasants, was considered a necessary element of the social structure of the Soviet state. It was viewed as an ally of workers and peasants and expresses their interests. To be demarcated from the pre-Soviet intelligentsia, it was called trudovaja intelligencija (lit., ‘the labor intelligentsia’). This process of replacement of bourgeois intelligentsia with the new Soviet intelligentsia was basically over in the mid-1930s, which was stated in Joseph Stalin’s report “On the draft constitution of the USSR” on November 25, 1936. The Soviet leader distinguished three key social groups of Soviet society: workers, peasants, and labor intelligentsia. He did not recognize the intelligentsia as a fully-fledged class, but repeatedly stressed in his report that it was a necessary, independent element of the Soviet society, which was equal, in many respects, to the working class and peasantry. The contrast of intelligencija vs. narod began to correlate with the contrast of burzhuazija ‘bourgeoisie’ vs. proletariat ‘proletariat,’ which entailed the emergence of new blends, such as burzhuaznaja intelligencija (lit., ‘bourgeois intelligentsia’), trudovoj narod (lit., ‘working people’), klassovoe soznanie intelligencii (lit., ‘class consciousness of the intelligentsia’). These constructions penetrated gradually into language at Level A.

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9.6.3 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) The above changes at Level B had an impact on everyday language. First, the contrast of intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo ‘philistinism’ lost its relevance. Furthermore, in certain respects, the new attitude towards the intelligentsia likened it to the social group designated by the word meshhanstvo. They both were considered to resist the creation of a new world and to think only about their own rest and safety. Thus, Vasisualy Lokhankin, a character from the novel Zolotoj telenok ‘The Golden Calf ’ by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, is constantly reflecting on the importance of the Russian intelligentsia, while being totally incapable of any action taking him out of his comfort zone. This case characterizes the general trend. People attributed to the intelligentsia were featured with properties such as weakness, inactivity, empty philosophizing, and spinelessness. The adjective intelligentskij with clear negative connotations replaced the word intelligentnyj. In addition, some derogatory words appeared to designate the intelligentsia, such as inteljagushka (the portmanteau word which is the combination of the words intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia’ and ljagushka ‘frog’), inteliguzija, antiligent, prishlepa intelligentskaja, etc. These processes characterize mostly what took place in the 1920s, but they are also relevant in the 1930s to 1950s. That said, they were gradually weakening in the wake of the change in the official ideology emphasized in the abovementioned report by Joseph Stalin, and the semantics of the late 19th century began to gradually revive in the mid-20th century.

9.7

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the 1960s to 1980s

9.7.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B) The interpretation of official Soviet ideologists did not visually change in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, but the sociocultural change taking place in the wake of Nikita Khruschev’s condemnation of Stalin’s personality cult in 1956 revealed the gap between the pre-revolutionary and Leninist-Stalinist construals of the intelligentsia. This gap was emphasized, primarily, in the interpretations of dissidents comparing the Russian intelligentsia with the Soviet one. Articles of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1991) and Vladimir Kormer (1989) are representative examples of such a shift of interpretations. Thus, Solzhenitsyn stressed the properties of the Russian intelligentsia, lost in the Soviet era, such as the thirst for faith; social repentance, a feeling of guilt towards the poor and uneducated people; personal asceticism, complete selflessness; readiness for self-sacrifice. In the Soviet

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

time, these features, in his opinion, were replaced by tired cynicism, selfishness and narcissism, resentment against the average people who underestimate the status of the intelligentsia and its significance for sociocultural life, and the desire for a career and material well-being. Finally, resuming his analysis, Solzhenitsyn (p. 32–37) stated that the Soviet intelligentsia was unworthy of the name of intelligencija and introduced the pejorative word obrazovanshhina (roughly, welleducated people desiring exclusively material well-being) to designate this social group. As one can see, the main criterion for his definition of the intelligentsia is ideology and a certain lifestyle, and his interpretation can be treated as a harsh criticism of the socioeconomic approach from the socio-ethical perspective. Just as Ivanov-Razumnik refused to call Nikitenko an intellectual, so does Solzhenitsyn towards a Soviet engineer or academic. Vladimir Kormer’s attitude to the intelligentsia is positioned along these lines. He compares the Soviet intelligentsia with the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia and emphasizes the schizoid nature of the Soviet intelligentsia, or its double consciousness, that is, its criticism of the authorities and servility towards the authorities; their preaching spiritual values and striving for material well-being; their search for freedom and voluntary refusal from freedom. It is worth noting that Solzhenicyn and Kormer’s views were based on the change in the lifestyle and social function of the “educated class” in the Soviet time referred to in Section 9.6.1, but they interpreted this change within the conceptual framework of the complex intelligencija formed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. At another level, it is not entirely clear to whom these and other authors in that period referred as the Soviet intelligentsia. Their approaches look like a mixture of the traditional sociological definition (people engaged in the intellectual labor) and the socio-ethical conception of the intelligentsia as people of a certain mindset and system of values. The construal of the Soviet intelligentsia depended on which of these views dominated. In particular, an emphasis on the second conception brought the Soviet intelligentsia close to the Russian intelligentsia. Thus, Grigorij Pomeranc, the moderate opponent of Solzhenicyn, divided the Soviet intelligentsia into two groups: “inanimate intelligentsia” and “animate intelligentsia,” the latter of which adhered to the ideals of the Russian intelligentsia (Pomeranc, 1995, p. 120). A similar view was presented in Jurij Glazov’s (2001) book. For Glazov, only the people who read Solzhenitsyn, protested against Brodsky’s trial, rethought their earlier nihilistic attitude towards the Orthodox Church, and so on, could be assigned to the intelligentsia.

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9.7.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) During that period, there was a distinct shift towards the construal of the complex, formed at the end of the 19th century, although the influence of the Soviet culture of the previous period also remained significant. A sign of this is, in particular, the increase in the “semantic weight” of the adjective intelligentnyj and the decrease in the “weight” of its “rival” intelligentskij. As stated above, the adjective intelligentnyj mainly designates a certain lifestyle. At the end of the 19th century, this lifestyle had been associated with the traditions of upbringing, featuring the best noble families, and had been opposed to the style of life designated by the word meshhanstvo ‘philistinism,’ while in the 1960s to 1980s both this association and the opposition to meshhanstvo became much less distinct. Concepts of meshhanstvo and narod ‘people’ intertwined, and this process resulted in the image of a common man, often unrestrained and rude, even immoral, but at the same time whole, decisive, preferring action to words. The style of behavior attributed to the intelligentsia at the end of the 19th century was partly mixed with the official style, which requires keeping a distance and following formal rules in communication, while a familiar style of behavior was attributed to the common man. Two illustrations of this are given below: Ja obratil vnimanie, chto ona ne skazala vrat’, skazala lgat’ – chitaet knigi; intelligentna ‘I noticed that she did not say “to cheat”, she said “to deceive”, hence, she reads books; she belongs to the intelligentsia’; (V. Makanin. Underground, or a Hero of Our Time) Milicioner udovletvorenno krjaknul i intelligentno skazal: – Poluchite vashi dokumenty i k sledujushhemu razu proshu privesti vashe transportnoe sredstvo v porjadok, tovarishh voditel’ (lit., ‘The policeman grunted with satisfaction and said intelligently: – Get your documents and next time I ask you to put your vehicle in order, comrade driver.’ ) (V. Kunin. Kysya)

Another interesting aspect is that the norms of behavior for people associated with the intelligentsia became more primitive: I eshhe odin, pravda uzhe p’jan, polezhival na divanchike v polnoj otkljuchke, no intelligentno, to bish’ snjav obuv’ i demonstriruja krasivye noski (lit., ‘And one more, though already drunk, was lying on the sofa completely out, but intelligently, that is, taking off his shoes and showing beautiful socks.’ ) (V. Makanin. Underground, or a Hero of Our Time)

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

One of the key factors behind this change is a gap in tradition: the culture of Russian nobles was formed for at least two centuries and was deeply rooted in the system of home education, whilst the Soviet intellectuals of the 1960s to 1990s were intellectuals of the first or second generation who did not form their own lifestyle and, furthermore, were forced to suit their lifestyle to that of average Soviet people. Educated people at the end of the 19th century identified themselves as nobles or intelligentsia, while Soviet educated people were considered a special case of Soviet people in general. In addition, at the end of the 19th century, the intelligentsia could be distinguished from poorly educated people by appearance (clothing, haircut, the presence or absence of a beard), whereas in the second half of 20th century this criterion became much less relevant, and the most significant factor was the contrast of “formal” vs. “informal,” which formed a new framework for the conceptualization of the lifestyle of the intelligentsia. To round up, in that period, the contrasts intelligencija vs. narod and intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo ceased to form the backbone of the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija. They were replaced by the idea of a cultural norm. From this perspective, intelligentsia subsumes the people who preserve cultural norms and, in this sense, perform a social function close to that of intellectuals (it is worth noting that in a number of texts in that period the words intelligent and intellektual ‘intellectual’ were used as synonyms). Although both the idea of sacrifice for the people and the idea of service to the people can be found in the texts, representing the mindset and system of values of the intelligentsia, they were associated with the past rather than the present, gradually losing their significance.

9.8

The conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija in the post-Soviet era

9.8.1 Theoretical interpretations of the complex intelligencija (Level B) In the 1990s and early 2000s, the number of studies that addressed the intelligentsia increased sharply. The reason for that was the general process of rethinking the heritage of the Russian culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. Intellectuals in post-Soviet Russia were making great efforts to build an ideological framework corresponding to the new sociocultural situation and they referred to some key concepts of Russian culture in order to use them as underpinnings for this. In particular, new interpretations emerged within the scope of the socioeconomic and socio-ethical approaches to the complex intelligencija.

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Thus, Boris Uspenskij (1999, p. 10), adhering to the socio-ethical approach, developed the view of the intelligentsia as the bearer of a certain worldview and emphasized the radical criticism of dominant ideology as its distinctive property. Given that, the author transferred the emergence of the intelligentsia from the second half of the 18th century to the 1830s and 1840s, since opposition to the dominant ideology arises, in his opinion, only when this ideology acquires a rigid structure implemented in the set of laws. Michael Gasparov’s (1999; 1999a) interpretation was positioned within the scope of the socio-economic approach. For him, the Russian intelligentsia was a counterpart of the Western intellectuals, but one grown up in a leaner soil and in a harsher climate. Besides, he explored how the basic meaning of the concept of intelligencija changed in time and indicated the following evolution: in the beginning, the intellectual component had dominated, then, in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, it was replaced by the image of the intelligentsia as a “guardian of conscience,” which gradually morphed in Soviet times into the image of the intelligentsia as a “guardian of education and good manners” close to the concept of humanitas in the Classical Era. Ultimately, the discussion of the 1990s and early 2000s explored the relationships between the intelligentsia and power and examined the view of the intelligentsia as a guardian of ethical and cultural norms. The main problem behind that was how to suit the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija to a new sociocultural situation. Along with the rethinking of traditional views, positioned within the scope of the socioeconomic and socio-ethical approaches, a new approach to the intelligentsia was introduced in that polemic. The authors developing this approach proclaimed the end of the intelligentsia as a sociocultural phenomenon and suggested to replace it with the concept of middle class (Gudkov & Dubin, 1994; Kurennoj, 2006; Saburov, 2006).

9.8.2 The complex intelligencija in everyday language (Level A) In the texts of this period, in general, the erosion of the framework of the complex intelligencija, characteristic of the everyday language in the previous period, continued and intensified. A vivid illustration of this is given below: Cherez pjat’ minut porjadok byl vosstanovlen, vsja ugolovnaja intelligencija rasstavlena po ranzhiru (lit., ‘Five minutes later, the order was restored, and the entire criminal intelligentsia was ranked.’ ) (E. Sartinov. The Last Empire)

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

9.9

The framework of the article intelligencija in an explanatory dictionary

Finally, the above description can be summarized as of a set of clusters for the entry intelligencija in an explanatory dictionary. Basic lexical items attributed to the complex intelligencija: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia’ (2489, 8384);214 intelligentnyj ‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adj.’ (1830, 4089); intelligent ‘a representative of the intelligentsia’ (1658, 4462); intelligentskij ‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adj.’ (655, 1141); intelligentno ‘a characteristic of actions of a representative of the intelligentsia, adv.’ (219, 245); intelligentik ‘a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (37, 47); intelligentshhina ‘a mode of behavior characterizing a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (24, 31); intelligentishka ‘a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (5, 6).

Pre-complex meaning215 The complex intelligencija is rooted in the Latin concept intellegentia with the meaning of ‘the power of discerning or understanding, discernment, understanding, intelligence.’ In the scholastic tradition intellegentia designated intuitive cognition in contrast to discursive cognition. Such intuitive cognition was considered to be the capacity of the divine mind to comprehend both the foundations of things and its own foundations in an instant mental act. The European philosophy of the Modern Era by and large followed the medieval tradition in that construal. In the 1840s and 1850s in Prussia, Austria, and Poland, the concept of Intelligenz (inteligencja) could denote a special group of people that considered to be the representative of a collective mind, which might have had a certain influence on the use of this word in Russian. In the Russian culture, the word intelligencija first occured, apparently, in the first quarter of the 18th century, and until the 1860s, its basic meaning was ‘thought,’ ‘intellect,’ ‘self-awareness.’

214. As in the previous chapters, the second number is the total of occurrences of a lexical item in any form in the subcorpus 1950–2020 of the main corpus of RNC, and the first number is a total of documents that contain these occurrences. The date of the use of RNS for all statistics in this chapter is 25/09/2022. 215. The full description is provided in Section 9.2. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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Level A0216 Until the mid-19th century, the nobility was the social group responsible for the creation and reproduction of knowledge and cultural values in Russian culture; that is, there was no difference between the political and cultural elite. Since the 1850s, a new social group called raznochincy (children of merchants, priests, and so on; in general, intellectuals not of gentle birth) became another significant force carrying out the process of creation and reproduction of Russian culture. In other words, the cultural elite and the political elite no longer coinsided, and this formed the sociocultural change that needed to be represented in language. For a deeper understanding of the reflection of these changes in language and thought, it is useful to compare the conceptual changes of the words intelligencija and civilizacija ‘civilization.’ The transition from civilizacija as a characteristic of society or social group to civilizacija as a particular type of society (social group) was likely to pave the way for a similar transition from the general concept intelligencija as collective mind to a social concept. At another level, at that time, the idea of civilization was often seen as being in opposition to the "state-centric" view of history as the history of politicians and state institutions, and this contrast was also important for the complex intelligencija: unlike the authorities who made political decisions, the intelligentsia was supposed to make “civilizational” decisions, that is, to determine the direction of cultural development. During the Soviet period, there were significant changes in the structure and status of the educated stratum. First, the educated stratum (the intelligentsia) in the Soviet Union was mostly composed of people referred to as the intellectuals in the first and second generations. In contrast, the background of the intelligentsia in Russia during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century comprised several generations, forming a distinct subculture that was rooted in a well-established and long-standing tradition. Second, the curriculum and education system for universities changed markedly in the Soviet time. The humanities and social sciences were reduced to the reading of the classics of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, and the education was mainly reduced to the technical and natural sciences. In contrast with that, the education system in the 19th and early 20th century Russia had been more balanced, and the humanities and social sciences were studied from a variety of perspectives. Third, in the Soviet Union, almost all intellectuals were either state employees or members of professional associations controlled by the state, whereas in 19th and early 20th century Russia, they were mainly freelancers with no direct responsibility to the state. 216. The full description is provided in Section 9.3.1 and Section 9.6.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

Level A Cluster 1 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia’ (2365, 7546);217 intelligent ‘a representative of the intelligentsia’ (1056, 2186); intelligentnyj ‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adj.’ (164, 347); intelligentskij ‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adj.’ (144, 251). The framework of the cluster: The words attributed to this cluster designate people who are engaged in mental activity and have received the necessary education for this, as opposed to people engaged in manual labor. The words intelligencija, intelligent and intelligentnyj (the last one is not typical for this cluster) are neutral, while the word intelligentskij can be used both in neutral and pejorative registers.

Examples: (1) Odnako tihaja sut’ skromnogo kabinetnogo intelligenta razumno tormozila ego poryv (lit., ‘However, the quiet essence of a modest armchair intellectual reasonably slowed down his impulse’). (2) Moj vzgljad – ne glazami zhertvy jepohi, ni v koem sluchae ne vzgljad predstavitelja intelligentskogo klassa, no iz tolpy narodnoj (lit., ‘My gaze is not one through the eyes of a victim of the era and by no means not one of a representative of the intelligentsia, but one from the crowd of the people’).

Commentary:218 Although the noun intelligencija and the adjective intelligentnyj in the meaning of a social group can be found in a few texts of the first half of the 1860s, the more or less frequent use of the complex intelligencija in written texts features in the late 1860s. During that period, along with the pre-complex meaning of intelligencija as ‘intellect, intellectual activity’, intelligencija acquired the sense of a well-educated social group with indistinct boundaries, which was viewed as the mind of society responsible for its social, political, and cultural development. In other words, at that time it was impossible to clearly distinguish between Cluster 1 and Cluster 2. In the period from 1880 to 1900, after the emergence of the first socioeconomic interpretations (Cluster 4), the conceptual structure of Cluster 1 acquired a

217. Here and later in this chapter, in order to distinguish between Cluster 1 and Cluster 2, I took 100 random instances of a word, manually calculated the percentage of the senses, and used these figures for the whole number of occurrences. 218. The full description is provided in Sections 9.3.2, 9.4.2, 9.5.2, 9.6.3, 9.7.2, 9.8.2. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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clearer outline: replacing the construction of privilegirovannye klassy ‘privileged classes,’ the complex intelligencija came to be considered an antonym of narod ‘peasants and artisans,’ not only in the aspect of social background and education, but also in appearance, habits, and other features of everyday life. This meaning was mainly represented by the nouns intelligencija and intelligent ‘the one who belongs to the intelligentsia.’ Meanwhile, the adjective intelligentnyj ‘attributed to the intelligentsia’ could also be used in this context. In the period from 1900 to 1917, there were no significant changes of the conceptual structure of the cluster, and the next radical change dates from the 1920s and 1930s. This change was influenced by the Marxist socioeconomic approach adapted to the Soviet ideological model (Cluster 6). The contrast of intelligencija vs. narod was influenced by the contrast of burzhuazija ‘bourgeoisie’ vs. proletariat ‘proletariat,’ which caused the occurrence of new blends, such as burzhuaznaja intelligencija (lit., ‘bourgeois intelligentsia’), trudovaja intelligencija (lit., ‘working intelligentsia’), klassovoe soznanie intelligencii (lit., ‘class consciousness of the intelligentsia’). Formed by the end of the 1930s, the conceptual structure of the cluster generally remained unchanged until the end of the Soviet era. In the postSoviet era, this structure is noticeably influenced by the Western model of the “middle class,” and traces of this influence are apparent in contemporary Russian.

Cluster 2 Basic lexical items: intelligentnyj (‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adj.’ ) (1950, 3087); intelligent (‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, n.’ ) (1100, 2276); intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia’ (249, 838); intelligentno (‘a property of a representative of the intelligentsia, adv.’ ) (219, 245); intelligentik ‘a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (37, 47); intelligentshhina ‘a mode of behavior characterizing a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (24, 31); intelligentishka ‘a representative of the intelligentsia, pejor.’ (5, 6). The framework of the cluster: Most words attributed to this cluster are also attributed to Cluster 1. That said, within this scope, they mainly feature a lifestyle that is opposed to “philistine” values, a lifestyle in which ethical virtues are complemented by a subtle aesthetic taste. This style is manifested in appearance, intonation, gestures, manner of communication, etc. Along with this sense, there is another one, according to which the intelligentsia is a kind of subculture with particular models of self-presentation and communication (see Example 3). The words intelligentik, intelligentshhina, and intelligentishka have strong negative connotations that stress the alleged lack of fortitude of the representatives of the intelligentsia as well as their excessive reflection and disconnection from reality.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

Examples: (1) On takoj utonchennyj, sil’no otlichajushhijsja ot bolee pozdnih brovastyh i rumjanyh obrazov moskovskogo pis’ma, intelligentnyj, tonkij, jel’grekovskij (lit., ‘It is so refined, so different from the later browned and ruddy images of Moscow writing, intelligent, subtle, that of El Greco’). (2) Ej let sorok. Vygljadit oprjatno, intelligentno ‘She is forty years old. She looks neat and civilized.’ (3) Po istoricheskoj biblioteke prohazhivalis’ sedye intelligenty v meshkovatyh dzhinsah, slovno ukradennyh u detej, iz-pod pidzhakov torchali svitera (lit., ‘Gray-haired intellectuals in baggy jeans, as if stolen from children, strolled through the historical library with sweaters stuck out from under their jackets’).

Commentary:219 As with Cluster 1, the conceptual structure of Cluster 2 took shape between 1880 and 1900. This process correlates with the emergence of the first socio-ethic interpretations (Cluster 5). In that period, the conceptual structure of the cluster was mainly designated by the adjective intelligentnyj ‘attributed to the intelligentsia,’ which denotes a certain lifestyle. This lifestyle was inherent in the best noble families, formed in early childhood and characterized by such features as appearance, voice, gestures, facial expressions, and so on. From this perspective, the lifestyle of intelligencija considered an ideal norm and viewed as opposite to that of meshhanstvo (‘philistinism,’ that is, a social group and lifestyle characterized by an obsession with money, lack of artistic taste, aesthetic sense, sensitivity and tact in relationships with others). In the period from 1900 to 1917, the conceptual structure of the cluster acquired new details. As a complement to the adjective intelligentnyj, which mainly characterizes a certain lifestyle (intelligentnaja vneshnost’ (lit., ‘an appearance of a representative of the intelligentsia’), intelligentnoe povedeние (lit., ‘a behavior of a representative of the intelligentsia’)), the adjective intelligentskij came about in that period to denote ideological constituents of the complex intelligencija (intelligentskaja filosofija (lit., ‘a philosophy of the intelligentsia’), intelligentskoe soznanie (lit., ‘a consciousness of the intelligentsia’)). In addition, the word intelligentskij took on pejorative connotations associated with the complex, which arose in that period. The pejorative view of the intelligentsia was also implemented in certain derivatives of the word intelligencija, such as intelligentshhina.

219. The full description is provided in Sections 9.3.2, 9.4.2, 9.5.2, 9.6.3, 9.7.2, 9.8.2. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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In the 1920s and 1930s, Cluster 2 lost its significance in culture. The contrast of intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo ceased to be relevant. Moreover, in certain respects, the new view of the intelligentsia likened it to the social group denoted by the word meshhanstvo. They both were believed to resist the creation of a new world and to think only about their own comfort and safety. People attributed to the intelligentsia were characterized by such properties as weakness, inactivity, empty philosophizing, and spinelessness. The adjective intelligentskij with clear negative connotations replaced the word intelligentnyj. In addition, some derogatory words appeared to designate the intelligentsia, such as inteljagushka (the portmanteau word, which is the combination of the words intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia’ and ljagushka ‘frog’), inteliguzija, antiligent, prishlepa intelligentskaja, etc. These processes took place until the 1950s. In the period between the late 1950s and the 1980s, the conceptual structure of the cluster returns, to some extent, to that of the end of the 19th century, but the contrast to meshhanstvo becomes much less distinct. Concepts of meshhanstvo and narod ‘people’ intertwine, and this process results in the image of a common man, often unrestrained and rude, even immoral, but at the same time, whole, decisive, and preferring action to words. The style of behavior attributed to the intelligentsia at the end of the 19th century is partly mixed with the official style, which requires keeping a distance and following formal rules in communication, while a familiar style of behavior is attributed to the common man. In general, this view has remained relevant up to the present time.

Level B Cluster 3 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:220 This interpretation was developed by Alexander Gradovskij, who considered the intelligentsia to be the soul of society, the force that determined its development. In the Middle Ages, the clergy, whom Gradovskij called the medieval intelligentsia, was viewed as such a soul. Then, another intelligentsia replaced it, gradually breaking the medieval order and laying the foundations for a new European society. Gradovskij emphasized that the new intelligentsia did not align itself with any social class (nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie), but could comprehend and articulate the desires and demands of the peasants and factory workers as well as the interests of the upper classes, and, fur-

220. The full description is provided in Section 9.4.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

thermore, discover a balance between the interests of all social groups, leading to the harmony of the whole. Commentary: This interpretation has remained isolated and has had no apparent impact on the further development of the complex intelligencija.

Cluster 4 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:221 This interpretation was developed by the socalled “narodniki-pochvenniki” (Vasilij Voroncov, Iosif Kablic (Juzov), etc.). For Kablic, the category of “the intelligentsia” subsumes all those who are engaged in various types of intellectual activity (not only writers and scientists, but also teachers, engineers, priests, military men, merchants, officials, etc.). The main asset of the intelligentsia, as Kablic asserted, is the possession of a certain knowledge that society utilizes, compensating the intellectual with a fee or salary. It is important to note that this definition of the intelligentsia was included in a general model based on the contrast between obrazovannye klassy ‘well-educated classes’ and narod (in this context, peasants). The intelligentsia, who were engaged in mental labor, were opposed to the people who earned their livelihood through hard physical work. This contrast, according to Kablic, was as fundamental as the division of the organic life into plants and animals. Commentary: This interpretation has formed the framework of the socioeconomic approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 5 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:222 This interpretation was developed by Nikolaj Mihajlovskij, who included the concept of intelligencija in two contrasts: intelligencija vs. narod (the intelligentsia vs. the peasants) and intelligencija vs. burzhuazija (the intelligentsia vs. the bourgeoisie). Importantly, Mihajlovskij considered a representative of the intelligentsia to be not someone of a certain socioeconomic status, but rather someone of certain ideological attitudes and a way of life. He viewed the intelligentsia as an adversary of the bourgeoisie and contended that its mission was to fight against the growth of the bourgeoisie in Russia, which brought about his opinion of the intelligentsia as a purely Russian phenomenon. In the view of Miha-

221. The full description is provided in Section 9.4.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description. 222. The full description is provided in Section 9.4.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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jlovskij, Western intellectuals, in contrast to the intelligentsia, were almost completely aligned with the bourgeoisie. Commentary: This interpretation has formed the framework of the socioethical approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 6 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:223 This interpretation was developed by Russian Marxists (Alexander Bogdanov, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), Anatolij Lunacharskij, Alexander Potresov, etc.). The authors defined the intelligentsia (in accordance with Kablic’s interpretation) as those engaged in intellectual work, such as doctors, lawyers, writers, engineers, accountants, officials, and teachers, among others. Marxists were only interested in the intelligentsia of the capitalist period, despite the fact that an intelligentsia has existed in any time. From that perspective, the contrast of proletariat ‘the proletariat’ vs. burzhuazija ‘the bourgeoisie’ determined the frame of reference, and the category of intelligentsia was positioned within this framework. Having said that, the intelligentsia was considered a heterogeneous group, the worldviews and value system of which depended on its origin, social status, and income level. In the 1920s and 1930s, this framework was supplemented by the contrast between the pre-Soviet and Soviet intelligentsia. The former was viewed as the “bearer” of bourgeois ideology, while the new Soviet intelligentsia, recruited from former workers and peasants, was a basic element of the social structure of the Soviet state and an ally of workers and peasants, as Joseph Stalin stated in his report “On the draft constitution of the USSR” on November 25, 1936. Commentary: This interpretation is positioned along the lines of the socioeconomic approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 7 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:224 Two versions of this interpretation were developed by Razumnik Ivanov-Razumnik and Dmitrij Merezhkovskij, respectively. Ivanov-Razumnik characterized the intelligentsia as a social group that creates new ideas and approaches in order to liberate the individual from any form of intellectual, social, and other slavery and puts these ideas and approaches into 223. The full description is provided in Section 9.5.1 and Section 9.6.2. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description. 224. The full description is provided in Section 9.5.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

practice. It is important to note that no technical social criterion (level of education, social origin, etc.) mattered to him for determining whether a person belonged to the intelligentsia. The boundaries of the category were thus blurred, and categorization was based solely on the opinion of a particular subject. IvanovRazumnik considered the intelligentsia to be a Russian phenomenon that has no counterparts in the Western societies. According to him, it arose in the second half of the 18th century, in the reign of Catherine the Great. Dmitrij Merezhkovskij, on the other hand, interpreted the mindset of the intelligentsia in religious categories: he emphasized its mystical atheism and argued that the strength of the Russian intelligentsia was not in the mind, but in the heart and conscience. Importantly, the heart and conscience, in his opinion, were deeply connected with mystical experience that had to unite the intelligentsia and the peasants and resist the lifless rationalism represented by official authority (autocracy) and the official church (Orthodoxy). That said, Merezhkovskij viewed Peter the Great, who had oppressed the Russian Orthodox church and transformed it into an element of a regular state, as the first Russian intellectual and likened him to Christ. According to him, the intelligentsia followed the pathway of Western enlightenment that was indicated by Peter the Great. Commentary: This interpretation is positioned along the lines of the socioethical approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 8 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster:225 This interpretation was developed by the authors (Nikolaj Berdjaev, Sergej Bulgakov, Semen Frank, and others) of Vehi (lit., ‘Landmarks’), a collection of seven essays. Like Ivanov-Razumnik and Merezhkovskij, these autors reject the socioeconomic approach to the intelligentsia and posit the worldview and value system to be the main criteria to distinguish the intelligentsia from the non-intelligentsia. Nevertheless, in contrast to Ivanov-Razumnik and Merezhkovskij, they assess the worldview and value system of the intelligentsia in a negative way, emphasizing its idiosyncrasies, such as the lack of critical thinking and “a heroic maximalism.” Another version of this interpretation was proposed in the writings of Gregory Fedotov who considered the intelligentsia a kind of religious order, similar to medieval chivalry. In his opinion, the defining characteristics of the Russian intelligentsia were a distinct, ethically-driven form of rationalism, which was far removed from critical philosophical reasoning, and a detachment from the nation’s culture, 225. The full description is provided in Section 9.5.1. The text of this subsection is a synopsis of that description.

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religion, and all its traditions and customs. Like Merezhkovskij, Fedotov states that the intelligentsia emerged in the time of Peter the Great, being his “child” and developing his legacy. This entailes Fedotov’s view of the Russian intelligentsia as a product of a unique combination of traditional Russian culture and Western rationalism, which provides the key to understanding its basic properties. Commentary: This interpretation is positioned along the lines of the socioethical approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 9 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster: This interpretation was developed by Pavel Miljukov, who combined the socioeconomic and the socio-ethical approach to the intelligentsia. In his model, the intelligentsia and the educated class can be visualized as two concentric circles, the inner one designating the intelligentsia that he defined as the group of the most creative and enterprizing people within the educated class. In his opinion, the intelligentsia were not an exclusively Russian phenomenon and had its counterpart in the European tradition, which is along the lines of the socioeconomic approach. Meanwhile, in line with the socio-ethical approach, he dated the time when the Russian intelligentsia had come to existence with the reign of Peter the Great, who, according to Miljukov, drew a circle of selftaught intellectuals to aid him in setting up a new model of government. Commentary: This interpretation is the result of an interplay between the socioeconomic and socio-ethical approaches to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 10 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster: Two versions of this interpretation were developed by Alexander Solzhenicyn and Vladimir Kormer. Both thinkers compared the Soviet intelligentsia with the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia and stressed a noticeable difference between them. Kormer recognized the specifics of the Soviet intelligentsia in its schizoid nature, or its double consciousness, in his terms, providing a list of specific illustrations: its criticism of the authorities and servility towards the authorities; preaching spiritual values and striving for material prosperity; the pursuit of freedom and voluntary renunciation of it. Solzhenitsyn represented the difference between the pre-revolutionary and Soviet intelligentsia in a set of contrasts: the thirst for faith vs. tired cynicism; social repentance vs. selfishness and narcissism, a feeling of guilt towards the poor and uneducated people vs. resentment against the average people who underesti-

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

mate the status of the intelligentsia and its significance for sociocultural life; personal asceticism, complete selflessness, readiness for self-sacrifice vs. the desire for a career and material well-being. His analysis resulted in the statement that the Soviet intelligentsia is unworthy of the name of intelligencija and his designating it with the pejorative word obrazovanshhina (roughly, well-educated people desiring exclusively material well-being). Commentary: This interpretation was positioned along the lines of the socioethical approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 11 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster: The interpretation presented by this cluster has been developed by Boris Uspenskij and is characterized by two main features. First, its author recognizes the radical criticism of dominant ideology as the distinctive property of the intelligentsia. Second, he posits that the intelligentsia emerged in the the 1830s and 1840s, arguing that opposition to the prevailing ideology arose only when this ideology acquired a rigid structure established in the set of laws. Commentary: This interpretation is positioned along the lines of the socioethical approach to the intelligentsia.

Cluster 12 Basic lexical items: intelligencija ‘the intelligentsia.’ The framework of the cluster: This interpretation was developed by Michael Gasparov, who considered the Russian intelligentsia a counterpart of the Western intellectuals, however, one raised in harsher environments. An important feature of this interpretation, which distinguishes it from others, is a diachronic analysis of the the basic meaning of the concept intelligencija. Gasparov recognized three basic meanings: before the mid-19th century the intellectual component had formed the structure of the complex, at the next stage (in the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century), the image of the intelligentsia as a “guardian of conscience” replaced it. In the final stage (in Soviet times) this image, in turn, was gradually replaced by the image of the intelligentsia as a “guardian of education and good manners” likened by the author to the concept of humanitas in the Classical Era. Commentary: This interpretation is positioned along the lines of the socioeconomic approach to the intelligentsia. The conceptual framework of the complex is graphed in Figure 20. Each cluster is labeled by the author of the interpretation associated with this cluster or

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with the main criterion that determines its boundaries. As highlighted above, the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija differs from those of the complexes otkryvat’ and kamen’, which causes certain differences in the graphical representation of the complex. Thus, the timeline appears to represent diachronic changes, and the graph includes Level B that was redundant in the graphs for the complexes otkryvat’ and kamen’. Moreover, previous (so to speak, pre-complex) meaning is situated at Level B and it influences the emergence of the interpretations at Level B, which, in turn, bring about the formation of conceptual clusters at Level A. The pre-complex meaning (PM) is depicted by the dotted rectangle in Figure 20, and its influence on the early interpretations is represented by the dotted arrows. In other words, unlike the more common model of semantic evolution, in this case interpretations at Level B bring about the emergence of conceptual clusters at Level A, and not vice versa. In addition, only the sociocultural domain is relevant, in this case, for Level A; the physical domain and the emotional-mental domain, important for the previous complexes, are not covered by the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija. In order to make the links between the clusters clearer, the clusters correlated with the socioeconomic approach are depicted in dark blue, the clusters correlated with the socio-ethical approach in light blue, and the clusters that emerged through the interaction of these approaches in yellow. As for complex otkryvat’ and complex kamen’, the sociocultural domain that influenced the emergence and conceptual change of the complex intelligencija is visualized as a set of ellipses at Figure 20. If this sociocultural domain did not notably change over time, this set of ellipses is a single ellipse shifted along the timeline, as it is between the 1860s and 1930s and between the 1930s and 1990s. Sociocultural changes that took place in the early Soviet era are visualized by changing the size and position of the ellipse.

Chapter 9. The conceptual structure of the lexical complex intelligencija in STLC

Figure 20. The conceptual framework of the complex intelligencija

9.10

Summary

Summing up the above analysis of the conceptual structure of the complex intelligencija, one can notice that, in contrast to the complexes of otkryvat’ and kamen’, this complex has been markedly changing over time. Its emergence was influenced by certain sociocultural processes, and other sociocultural processes noticeably changed its structure during the transition from the pre-revolutionary era to the Soviet period. The interplay between everyday use of the complex (Level A) and its interpretations (Level B) was another important source for these changes. The backbone of the conceptual structure at Level A is formed by the contrasts of intelligencija vs. narod and intelligencija vs. meshhanstvo. These contrasts are not coherent, and they create some tensions within the conceptual structure of the complex, which have determined its conceptual development and, in particular, the emergence of new words (such as an adjective intelligentskij as a complement to intelligentnyj). The interpretations at Level B are underpinned by one of these contrasts (the contrast of intelligencija vs. narod correlates with the set of socioeconomic interpretations, whereas the contrast of intelligencija vs. meshhanstvо is linked to the set of socio-ethical interpretations).

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Regularity in semantic change A view from a sociocultural perspective 10.0

Introduction

The final chapter of this book can be considered a kind of synthesis of Part I and Part III. It focuses on the problem of semantic change and the factors that cause such change, which is one of the main issues in cognitive semantics. FLTCD and STLC provide methodological tools to explore various aspects of this issue.

10.1

Basic approaches to the analysis of semantic change in cognitive linguistics and historical linguistics

The view that, in contrast with other diachronic processes in language, semantic change is mostly unpredictable or hardly predictable at the micro-level and can only be characterized by certain tendencies, not general laws at the macro-level, is likely to be a common place for modern historical semantics and cognitive semantics (e.g., Anttila, 1989, p. 147; McMahon, 1994, pp. 175–176; Traugott & Dasher, 2001, pp. 3, 87; Győri, 2002, p. 131; 2005, pp. 172–173; Hock & Brian, 2019, p. 222). Some researchers use the “invisible hand” metaphor to account for peculiarities of the changes of this type. The “invisible hand” approach was elaborated by Rudi Keller (1985, 1989, 1994) for “phenomena of the third kind,” such as a traffic jam or market processes, which “have features of natural phenomena, besides having features of artefacts” (Keller, 1994, p. 59). Although such “phenomena of the third kind” are unpredictable at the level of micro-interactions and individual decisions, they demonstrate a consistent regularity at the macro-level. Language is also treated by the author as a phenomenon of the third kind, and this concerns, in particular, the process of semantic change (cf. Anttila, 1989, pp. 408–409). That said, at least, in a few cases, the “invisible hand” approach seems to give only an illusion of explanation and sweeps real factors influencing semantic change under the rug (cf. Geeraerts, 1997, pp. 107–109, 2010, pp. 232–233, 239).226 In this chapter, 226. The evolutionary approach to language change (see, e.g., Croft, 2000, as a thorough theoretical description, and Landsbergen et al., 2010, as an application of the theoretical tenets to

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

it will be demonstrated that factors, invisible from the linguistic perspective, not rarely take a firm visible shape if the perspective changes and sociocultural aspects come to the forefront. Let us move on to an overview of basic approaches in this research area. Semantic change includes two main stages based on distinct mechanisms: innovation and propagation (Croft, 2000, pp. 8–9) or entrenchment (Langacker, 1987, pp. 59–60). Innovations occur in the course of local interactions to work out certain communicative tasks, which can be characterized by the concepts of ‘expressivity’ and ‘efficiency.’ According to Dirk Geeraerts (1997, pp. 104–105), expressivity pertains to the speakers’ need “to express something for which they have no adequate means of expression”, and efficiency to the wish to avoid misunderstanding in communication, implemented, in particular, in the “one form, one meaning” principle (ibid., pp. 105–110). Such innovations mostly disappear beyond the scope of a local interaction or become an element of an idiolect of a particular speaker, but a few of them get entrenched in language and make a step from the pragmatic level to the semantic level, becoming a part of the semantic system of language. It is worth distinguishing between mechanisms of semantic change (such as specialization, generalization, metonymy, and metaphor; see, e.g., Geeraerts, 2010, pp. 26–31, for a detailed classification) and factors influencing semantic change (causes, motivations, forces behind semantic change, etc.). In this chapter, we will focus on the latter factors. Although the forces behind a step from the pragmatic level to the semantic level are not clear, the main trend in this regard seems to consider them an interplay of speaker-based and hearer-based perspectives introduced as a contrast between opposite maxims, such as “make your contribution sufficient. say as much as you can” vs. “make your contribution necessary. say no more than you must”, in Horn’s (1984, p. 13) version (cf. Zipf, 1949, pp. 19–209, and Grice, 1991, pp. 22–57; see also Traugott & Dasher, 2001, pp. 100–103 for a review). Not stressing this overtly, the authors seem to posit that the more balanced an innovation is,227 the more chances it has to go beyond the boundaries of a local communication and be entrenched in language. Importantly, different parts of a conceptual system of language have different potential for a particular type of an analysis of some aspects of semantic change) looks like a counterpart of the “invisible hand” approach. Croft (2000, pp. 59–61) considers the “invisible hand” theory as one within the evolutionary paradigm. However, in my opinion, they have an equal “methodological weight,” being based on the same fundamental idea framed by economic categories, in one case, and by biological categories, in the other one. Therefore, further criticism on the “invisible hand” theory is also relevant for the evolutionary approach. 227. It is worth highlighting that, in this context, balanced does not mean ‘equal.’ As Traugott & Dasher (2001, p. 103) put it, the speaker-based heuristics “predominates in semantic change.”

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innovations, and some words and constructions are better suited for the above pragmatic tasks than others; in other words, an innovation occurs at the interface between semantic and pragmatic constituents of language (cf. Bartsch, 1987, Ch. 4, and Győri, 2002, pp. 144–146).228 Another aspect of the above issue is touched by Geeraerts’s (2010, pp. 232–233) problematizing the “invisible hand” metaphor and distinguishing between two types of processes that enable a shift from micro- to macro-level: processes working in parallel and serial ones. The former type takes place when “a number of people face the problem of giving a name to the new thing in their native language,” while the latter one characterizes the situation “when the members of a speech community imitate each other.” Also, Geeraerts’s (pp. 254–258) typology of basic sociosemantic relations (cooperation, compliance with authorities and conflict) should be mentioned. I will come back to these ideas later. The last thing to be addressed here is three general tendencies of semantic change examined in more detail in the next section (Traugott, 1989, pp. 34–35; cf. Traugott & Dasher, 2001, pp. 94–99): Tendency I: Meanings based in the external described situation > meanings based in the internal (evaluative/perceptual/cognitive) described situation. Tendency II: Meanings based in the external or internal described situation > meanings based in the textual and metalinguistic situation. Tendency III: Meanings tend to become increasingly based in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition.

Ultimately, an impressive work has been done to explore extralinguistic causes of semantic change and reveal regularities in this process, but the overall picture is still far from clear. The above approaches are mostly based on considerations of common sense and supported by relatively scanty body of experimental data. Sometimes they seem to oversimplify real processes, and the “invisible hand” metaphor provides a convenient tool for such an oversimplification. In this chapter, a more complex approach to motivations for semantic change will be introduced, which is premised on the ideas presented in the previous parts 228. Elizabeth Traugott’s Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change (e.g., Traugott & Dasher, 2001, pp. 34–40; Traugott, 2004, pp. 552–560) should also be mentioned in this context. Although its basic tenets seem relevant and the idea of invited inference might be productive, the theory is too abstract to be applied to a concrete situation. In particular, when explaining the process of entrenchment of certain pragmatic micro-innovations, Traugott & Dasher (2001, p. 35) posit that if such innovations “do acquire social value and therefore become salient in a community they are likely to spread to other linguistic contexts and to other SP/Ws.” However, it stays unclear what factors cause such an acquisition of social value, why some pragmatic innovations obtain this value, and others do not obtain.

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

of this book. To be more precise, two groups of extralinguistic factors influencing semantic change should be distinguished. Factors of the first group cause the large-scale semantic changes spanning hundreds or even thousands of years. As will be shown in the next section, they are positioned along the lines of cognitive development from pre-theoretical to early theoretical cultures and then from early theoretical to modern industrial cultures, as outlined in Chapter 1, a process that strongly correlates with the emergence of cognitive levels C and D. The second group of factors is responsible for semantic change in languages in the modern era. These factors have another origin and their links with semantic change are of another nature. They are explored in Section 10.3.

10.2

The large-scale semantic changes and sociocognitive processes underpinning them

Let us dwell on Tendency 1. Traugott and Dasher (2001, p. 95) specify it as follows: “Tendency I subsumes many changes from concrete > abstract, most especially from physical to mental, e.g. OE felan “touch” > “experience mentally,” or agan to “have for” > “obligation,” “ought” … In MdJ [Middle Japanese] kowai means both “be (physically) stiff, tough” as in kowai gohan “hard boiled rice,” and “fearsome, be fearful.” This adjective developed from OJ [Old Japanese] koFasi “(physically) stiff ””. Although it is difficult to generalize from these random examples, the motivations underpinning Tendency 1 seem to correlate with the emergence of abstract domains at Level С in early theoretical cultures and the elaboration of new concepts to form conceptual frameworks of these domains. This triggered, in turn, a wide range of lexical and semantic change. I will illustrate this process with an example, close to those outlined above and, at the same time, more suited for clarifying this correlation. The Old Greek ὕλη, as reported in Chapter 2, in the texts of Homer and then before Aristotle, meant mainly ‘forest, woodland,’ and in some contexts ‘wood cut down’ and ‘firewood, fuel.’ When developing his philosophical system, Aristotle needed new category to represent the idea that the emergence of primary substances (individual objects) is a result of the transformation of a potential state into an actual state. From this perspective, he treated the material of a thing as ‘a thing potentially’ and, in particular, used the word ὕλη to designate the primary matter, the material for the four primary elements (earth, fire, water and air), which is the total potentiality without any actual status. It is easy to see that Aristotle was both based on the conceptual structure of the word ὕλη in general language and decidedly changed this structure. Ultimately, he morphed the concept of ὕλη with the concrete meaning into the abstract philosophical term. This change, in turn, had a strong impact on the conceptual structure of the word

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ὕλη in literature and everyday language, influencing the occurrence of different senses, such as ‘matter for poem or treatise’ and ‘materia medica.’ To round up, semantic changes subsumed in Tendency I, seem to be (at least, partially) a result of the interplay between general language and special languages developed for the needs of certain theoretical domains. We will return to this process in the following sections. The evidence of Tendency II presented by Traugott and Dasher (2001, p. 95) (e.g., grammaticalization of while as the basic example) shows that the authors mean, in this case, the development of written language in which some elements lose direct links with external reality and obtain text-linking (or discourse marker, as in the case of anyway mentioned by the authors) functions. If this is so, Tendency II, like Tendency I, correlates with the emergence of theoretical and quasitheoretical domains (domains with their own internal structure) at Level C in early theoretical cultures, which entails a request for formal language to correctly represent causal relationships within these domains. At the same time, according to the wording of Tendency II, it also covers certain semantic shifts into abstract domains positioned at Level D (e.g., the shift of the meaning of disjunction in general language to that in modern mathematical logic).229 Tendency III is considered the dominant tendency by Traugott and Dasher (p. 96). Although the concept of “subjectification” in their interpretation is too broad and needs specification, in its basic meaning, it correlates with the mainstream of Western cultural development. The increasing level of subjectivity is likely to be a dominant feature of this development from antiquity to the modern era. According to Aristotle, man is by nature a πολιτικὸν ζῷον (political animal) (Pol.,I,1253a2), and human beings in classical Greece were considered a set of social roles, in the grand scheme of things. Christianity markedly changed this perspective, and a direct contact between God and man paved the way for the development of the subjective attitude. St. Augustine’s Confessions is a clear example of this shift. The subjective attitude comes to the forefront in the modern era, being implemented in philosophy (from Descartes’s introspection to Sartre’s authenticity), religion (Protestantism), literature (e.g., psychological realism), and politics (e.g., the social contract theory) among other domains. This attitude has needed new lexical resources to be represented in language, and the semantic changes subsumed in Tendency III seem to be a language response to this sociocultural request.230 229. There are no examples in Traugott & Dasher (2001) that support this construal. 230. It is worth noting that Traugott and Dasher (2001, p. 96) also discuss social subjectification, taking examples from the Japanese language. From the sociocultural perspective, different types of subjectification correlate with the contrast between independent and interdependent self-construals (see Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 of this book), which, in turn, feature the contrast between cultural paradigms of the East and the West.

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

Summing up, Traugott’s tendencies should be considered in the purview of the process of sociocultural development posing new communicative and cognitive tasks for human beings. Importantly, these tendencies are not an attribute of autonomous language development. They mostly characterize the emergence of Level C and new cognitive and communicative requests triggered by this; however, in some cases, they are also relevant for the representation of the structure of cognitive domains located at Level D. The perspective presented in FLTCD makes it possible to clarify a set of factors underpinning Traugott’s tendencies and to elaborate a more accurate taxonomy for such factors, but this would need another book. Let me just outline here the main semantic implications of the emergence of cognitive levels С and D. The emergence of Level С entails serious changes in vocabulary and semantics. First of all, this concerns the occurrence of abstract vocabulary. Lacking the space to dwell on the notion of abstractness,231 I will consider abstract concepts to be cognitive rather than purely linguistic phenomena and denote by this term emotional states, mathematical objects, general ideas characterizing qualities of humans, social relationships, and other entities which have neither spatial nor temporal representations in the physical world.232 As a reminder, before I proceed to the analysis of specific data, from a cognitive perspective, as was evidenced in Section 2.1 with the example of Soviet peasants “defining” abstract concepts, some categories that are abstract for one group of people can be concrete for another group. In other words, the recognition of any concept as abstract in the cognitive sense is not a stand-alone theoretical process, but rather is dependent on the particular context including the individual who is using the concept. The notion I will argue below is that abstract concepts (in a cognitive sense, i.e., concepts that are treated as abstract not only by linguists, but at least by a group of native speakers) originated in early theoretical cultures, such as Ancient Greece, and had hardly existed before. This notion contradicts the popular belief among linguists that abstract vocabulary exists in non-written languages, not to mention ancient Egyptian or Sumerian. However, such a belief seems to be a result of an inappropriate transfer of modern cognitive models to cognitive operations of people of the remote past (see, e.g., Wray & Grace, 2007, for a critique of this belief ).233 Let me explore this issue in more detail with the example of Sumerian. 231. See, e.g., the criticism of a conventional view of abstract nouns as those that do not designate elements of the physical world, which can be perceived by our senses, in Lyons (1977, pp. 443–447) and Schmid (2000, pp. 63–67), and a conception of first, second, and third-order entities that they develop. 232. That is, the third-order entities, in Lyons and Schmid’s model.

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The most interesting group in the context discussed here is Sumerian noun compounds with the prefix nam-, which are likened to English nouns formed by suffixes ‑hood, ‑ship, and ‑scape (Thomsen, 1984, p. 57; Edzard, 2003, p. 24). However, there are certain objections to considering these nouns as abstract from the cognitive perspective. Consider, for instance, the well-known Sumerian word nam-a-zu (Akkadian asūtu), translated as ‘the craft of the physicians’ (from azu ‘doctor’) in the electronic version of the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD2234) and as ‘médecine, art du médecin’ in the glossary to the Sumerian literary texts compiled by Pascal Attinger (2021, p. 758), and examine its use in particular texts. Thus, in a hymn to Ninisina, the tutelary deity of the city of Isin and a healing deity (Ninisina A, lines 12, 15f, 27f = ETCSL 4.22.1;235 Römer, 1969, 2001, pp. 107–142; cf. Lambourg, 2019), the word nam-a-zu occurs five times in two constructions: me nam-a-zu and niĝ2 nam-a-zu. The first construction is translated as ‘the divine powers of medicine’ by ETCSL (‘les pouvoirs divins de la médecine’ by Lambourg, 2019, p. 39), while the second one – as ‘everything medical’ by ETCSL (‘tout ce qui est médical’ by Lambourg, 2019, p. 39). It is clear that the first and the second translation actualize different cognitive models, different mindsets. An analysis of the text reveals that nam-a-zu is a specific divine substance that can be transferred from one person to another and is understood in a materialistic way, rather than medical arts as an abstract category.236 The noun nam-lugal (Akkadian šarrūtu) is another example of such a misinterpretation. It is defined as ‘kingship’ in the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (ePSD2) and as ‘royauté’ in Attinger’s glossary (Attinger, 2021, p. 766).

233. This remark applies to grammar as well. Linguists who study unwritten languages often assume that the grammar of such languages is as complex as, say, ancient Greek. However, grammar is a theoretical construction created by modern linguists to systematize a variety of “language facts” within a specific language. To the best of my knowledge, there is no conclusive evidence that native speakers recognize this grammar and consciously use the grammar rules reconstructed by linguists. Ultimately, the complexity of grammar of unwritten languages characterizes the modern linguistic theory rather than the actual practice of language use by native speakers. 234. http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/index.html 235. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk, the electronic text corpus of the Sumerian Literature. 236. This can be evidenced, e.g., by the following quotation: “Ninisina, joyously fresh, ……, gathering up the divine powers, she announces the rites. ……Ninisina …… with intricate skill. ……, ministering with intricate skill, she gathers up the divine powers; Ninisina, ministering with intricate skill, she gathers up the divine powers. She takes in her hands the august divine powers. … She has made perfect the divine powers of medicine, and hands them over to her son, the king of Ĝirsi, the kindly Damu” (Ninisina A, lines 3–14; translation from ETCSL 4.22.1)

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

At the same time, a look at specific texts (for instance, at such constructions as aga nam-lugal-la2 ‘crown of kingship,’ e.g., in a royal hymn “Šulgi D”, line 390 = ETCSL 2.4.2.04; or e2-nam-lugal ‘royal house,’ e.g., in Gudea Cylinder A, col. xi, line 4 = ETCSL 2.1.7, line 280) shows that among the Sumerians, nam-lugal designates a special material substance rather than an abstract entity in the modern sense. The two examples of the use of the noun nam-lugal illustrate another important feature of the constructions with nam- – they are often part of constructions that designate physical objects, that is, have a concrete meaning. Ultimately, all the occurrences I found allow for a concrete interpretation. I could not find in the Sumerian texts signs of understanding any nouns as abstract in a cognitive sense. The situation changes markedly in Ancient Greek culture. This change was demonstrated above with the example of the word ὕλη, which was morphed into a philosophical term by Aristotle. However, this applies not only to Aristotle and even not only to philosophy, but also to historiography, medicine, literature, etc. Ancient Greek tragedy provides an impressive illustration for that. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in their plays use more than 500 abstract nouns based on “abstract” suffixes ‑sis, ‑tis, ‑ma, ‑mos, ‑ia, and ‑eia, most of which were created by the playwrights themselves (Long, 1968, pp. 29–60). Not all of them denote entities that can be considered abstract from the cognitive perspective, but a significant part of them does. Some of these nouns designate mental states and actions, others emotional states, still others social abstract concepts, such as αναρχία ‘anarchy’ (pp. 138–139). Unlike Aristotle’s ὕλη, these nouns do not denote elements of a specific theoretical system, but are used systematically and can be considered important elements of the literary style of the authors (pp. 163–164). In contrast to Sumerian, the authors are well aware of the abstract nature of the entities denoted by these words. For instance, Sophocles repeatedly uses the personification of abstract nouns to represent a mental or emotional state of a character in a more impressive way (e.g., ἄλεκτρ᾽ ἄνυμφα γὰρ ἐπέβα μιαιφόνων γάμων ἁμιλλήμαθ᾽ οἷσιν οὐ θέμις (El. 492–493) ‘For an unwed, unbetrothed passion for a marriage polluted by murder seized the pair’ (tr. by R. Jebb), cf. Long, 1968, p. 64). Such a personification is a clear conceptual metaphor, which is possible only if the author is well aware that the direct meaning of a concept is abstract. Ultimately, the emergence of Level С implies the emergence of various abstract conceptual domains that require a special abstract, in the cognitive sense, vocabulary. The arising of a wide range of abstract nouns in general language is a direct consequence of this process. In contrast to that, the emergence of Level D does not entail strong changes in the vocabulary and semantics of general language. Its contribution to language is the arising of special systems of terms, which are part of highly abstract theoretical domains, such as quantum mechanics and differential geometry. Some of these terms may find their way into general language and take

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on new meanings at Level C, but this is not the rule (an illustration of properties of concepts at Level D was given in Section 2.3 using philosophical terminology as an example). Returning to Traugott’s tendencies, it is worthwhile to highlight that they subsume the large-scale semantic changes that accompany sociocultural changes from pre-theoretical to early theoretical and then modern industrial and postindustrial cultures. Along with this, there are other factors influencing semantic changes in the languages of modern industrial and postindustrial cultures (and, to some extent, early theoretical cultures), which have nothing in common with the pragmatic rules outlined in Section 10.1. These factors will be examined in the following section.

10.3

Sociocultural factors influencing semantic change in modern language

Now it is time to return to the quotation from Traugott & Dasher (2001, p. 25), in which they explain the process of entrenchment of certain pragmatic microinnovations, arguing that if such innovations “do acquire social value and therefore become salient in a community they are likely to spread to other linguistic contexts and to other SP/Ws.” Again, the authors do not specify how this or that innovation acquires social value, and the factors behind this process are unclear. In this section, I will attempt to identify some of these factors. It is worth beginning with a quotation from the insightful – and, in my opinion, underrated – Antoine Meillet’s (1906, p. 43) article Comment les mots changent de sens: Ces exemples … permettent de se faire une idée de la manière dont les faits linguistiques, les faits historiques et les faits sociaux s’unissent, agissent et réagissent pour transformer le sens des mots ; on voit que, partout, le moment essentiel est le passage d’un mot de la langue générale à une langue particulière, ou le fait inverse, ou tous les deux, et que, par suite, les changements de sens doivent être considérés comme ayant pour condition principale la différenciation des éléments qui constituent les sociétés. (These examples … allow us to get an idea of how linguistic facts, historical facts, and social facts unite, act, and react to transform the meaning of words; we can see that in all these cases the essential moment is the shift of a word from the general language to a special language, or the reverse shift, or both of them, and that, consequently, the changes of meaning should be considered as having the main condition in the differentiation of the elements that constitute societies.)

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

The point that semantic change can be the result of an interplay between general language and special languages is not a novelty (cf., e.g., Geeraerts’s (2010, p. 254–256) remarks on Putnam’s, 1975, approach); however, after Meillet, to the best of my knowledge, this interplay has not been taken as the basic principle for a theory of semantic change which explores this process systematically. STLC can be viewed as an example of such a theory, but before arguing this, it makes sense to examine a few types of the abovementioned interplay.

10.3.1 An interplay between an idiolect and general language as a trigger for semantic change First, one needs to specify the concept of ‘special language.’ Meillet almost entirely referred to professional languages in his analysis, but, in my opinion, the concept of special language can be treated more broadly, comprising idiolects and various sociolects. I will start with an interplay between idiolects and general language as a cause of semantic change. The above case of the word ὕλη is an instance of such an interplay. Aristotle changed its meaning when developing new categories for his philosophy. In doing so, he relied on the general meaning of the word. Later, the meaning of the word in Aristotle’s idiolect, in turn, brought about a change in general meaning. Such an interplay is quite common, and the significance of this scenario for semantic change is usually underestimated by linguists. Some examples are given below. About 1700 English words are considered plausible Shakespearean inventions and about half of them entrenched in general language (see, e.g., the review of this issue in David Crystal’s (2008, pp. 8–10) famous book). Technically speaking, this is evidence of lexical change, not semantic change, but it is a matter of agreement whether or not the emergence of a word with a new meaning is a change in its meaning from zero position.237 Pure cases of semantic change are much more difficult to recognize, due to the flexibility of the sematic structure of the written language at that time; however, certain innovations in general language that can plausibly be attributed to Shakespeare can be detected (e.g., the use of dear in certain constructions, such as dear life, heart, and blood, with the meaning ‘smth. dear to one’). An even more impressive example is the case of Dante, who is often supposed to be the inventor of the “general” Italian language (e.g., Migliorini, 1966, Ch. 5). 237. Cf. Geeraerts’s (2010, p. 26) contrast between semasiological mechanisms of semantic change, including the emergence of a new reading of an existing lexical item, and onomasiological mechanisms involving “changes through which a concept, regardless of whether or not it has previously been lexicalized, comes to be expressed by a new or alternative lexical item.”

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His theoretical views were presented in the treatise De vulgari eloquentia and implemented in the famous Divine Comedy. In this case, it is possible to talk about the close proximity of Dante’s idiolect and the general language (at least, its written form). More recent evidence is taken from modern Russian. A few examples were outlined in Section 6.1. Let me dwell on them. The first instance is a semantic story of the lexical complex poshlost’ (basic words are poshlyj, pόshlo, and poshlost’) (Glebkin, 2007a; cf. a similar analysis of the complex meshhanstvo ‘lower-middle class; philistinism’ in Glebkin, 2007). In Old and Middle Russian the word poshlyj meant ‘long-standing, genuine, real’ (e.g., A zoloto by bylo poshloe ‘And gold would be genuine’ Bogatova, 1992, p. 87). The word poshlost’ had not yet been recorded. In the 18th century, the word poshlyj was extremely rare in written texts, and it was Alexander Pushkin who both brought the lexical complex poshlost’ again to life and decidedly changed its meaning in the first third of the 19th century. For Pushkin’s construal of this concept, the key construction might have been that of poshlye poluistiny (‘trite semi-truths’). In Pushkin’s idiolect, poshlyj means a property of an opinion (idea, notion, attitude, etc.) that looks like a commonplace, but, in fact, is a persistent and dangerous delusion. Such a construal can be viewed in different domains: philosophical doctrines (materialism, although fashionable in society, but depriving life of a higher meaning and purpose, and therefore extremely dangerous in essence), manner of behavior (the case of a person who reproduces a commonly used way of communication, which contradicts the internal logic of a situation, requiring different actions and words), etc. After Pushkin, these changes came to penetrate into general language, which, in turn, brought about new interpretations of the concept (Gogol’s one, Merezhkovsky’s one, and Nabokov’s one among others),238 also triggering 238. In contrast to Pushkin, Gogol’s construal of poshlost’ is determined by the parameter of magnitude. Poshlyj for him measns “insignificant, primitive, petty” (Glebkin, 2007a, p. 243). This constual markedly influenced those of Merezhkovsky and Nabokov. Merezhkovsky immerses Gogol’s construal in a religious context, treating poshlost’ as the highest evil, which is implemented in “a too prudent middle” (pp. 243–244). Nabokov (2011, pp. 52–55) states that the concept of poshlost’ is specific for Russian and provides some examples that specify his treatment of Gogol’s approach: “The Russian language is able to express by means of one pitiless word the idea of a certain widespread defect for which the other three European languages I happen to know possess no special term. The absence of a particular expression in the vocabulary of a nation does not necessarily coincide with the absence of a corresponding notion but it certainly impairs the fullness and readiness of the latter’s perception […]Open the first magazine at hand and you are sure to find something of the following kind: a radio set (or a car, or a refrigerator, or a table silver – anything will do) has just come to the family: mother clasps her hands in dazed delight, the children crowd around, all agog, Junior and the dog strain up to the edge of the table where the Idol is enthroned; even Grandma of the beaming wrinkles

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

changes in general language. As a result, by the second half of the 20th century, the category of poshlost’ morphed into one of the strongest pejorative socio-ethical categories of Russian culture. It is easy to notice that there is some correlation between this case and the above case of Aristotle’s ὕλη. Although not being a philosopher and not striving to develop a philosophical system, Pushkin had his own view of the world and needed concepts to represent it in the most accurate way. This engendered semantic innovations that proved to be productive for general language. A more precise analysis shows that linguistic and communicative reasons, such as the ones outlined in Section 10.1, are not likely to have played a role in ensuring the success of this process, but rather it was, so to say, the sociocultural significance of Aristotle and Pushkin. In other words, a success of a semantic innovation, at least, in certain cases, is determined by sociocultural status of the inventor.239 The following example provides clear evidence of this. This example refers to the semantic history of the word family of avantjura ‘adventure, gamble’ (basic words are avantjura, avantjurist, avantjurnyj, avantjurizm, and avantjuristicheskij) in Modern Russian (Glebkin, 2019). This word family is considered a loan of French aventure, and according to the Russian National Corpus, Google Books Ngram Viewer (GBNV ), and the corpora of the most significant Russian writers, the words attributed to it were extremely rare in the texts of the 19th century. The two most frequent words in the family in that period were avantjurist and avantjura, the latter of which meant, firstly, a love adventure, and, secondly, a reckless military or political action, while the former designated a person who embarked on such an adventure or performed such an action. In the first half of the 20th century, the frequency of use of the words attributed to the family avantjura rises markedly (according to GBNV, up to 22 times for avantjura, up to 2.1 times for avantjurist, and up to 9.8 times240 for avantjurizm). peeps out somewhere in the background (forgetful, we presume, of the terrific row she had that very morning with her daughter-in-law); and somewhat apart, his thumbs gleefully inserted in the armpits of his waistcoat, legs a-straddle and eyes a-twinkle, stands the triumphant Pop, the Proud Donor.The rich poshlust emanating from advertisements of this kind is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.” 239. In this context, certain observations made by Anne Wierzbicka (2010, pp. 6–22) are interesting, although her interpretation is based on different grounds. She examined semantic discrepancies between English empirical and French empirique and reveals the impact of Locke and Descartes’ philosophies on these discrepancies. 240. These numbers represent the ratio of the maximum annual frequency of the words in the first half of the 20th century and in the 19th century.

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Along with that, the meanings of the words came to be generalized. Thus, avantjurizm came to be used as a name for a mindset and model of behavior, which are not underpinned by a self-consistent set of tenets and a long-term strategy based on a rational calculation; actions defined as avantjurizm are spontaneous and emotional, and the only factor that brings them to bear is a short-term situation. It is clear from the context that this meaning is strongly pejorative. Importantly, this assessment contradicts the deep-seated attitudes of Russian culture, in which the refusal to plan any action and, so to say, “context thinking” are considered a characteristic feature of Russian culture and usually are positively assessed (Gogol and Leo Tolstoy, among others, posited this quite clearly).241 The above change becomes clearer in reference to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin’s texts. In Lenin’s lexicon, the words attributed to the word family avantjura are much more frequent than in the general language of his time, and the outlined generalization of the meaning correlates with the meaning in Lenin’s idiolect. Stalin then strengthened and entrenched this change. To round up, the lexical complex avantjura came to be useful for the framework of Lenin’s political philosophy, and he generalized its meaning and also strengthened a pejorative aspect. Given his (and also Stalin’s) political and ideological power, this change swiftly penetrated into general language and became entrenched there. Again, it was unlikely that there were any linguistic or communicative reasons behind this change; these reasons seem to be rooted in politics and ideology. Interestingly, in contemporary Russian, the pejorative assessment of 241. Let me illustrate this point with two quotes: “But Selifan simply could not recall whether he had passed two or three turns. Thinking back and recalling the road somewhat, he realized that there had been many turns, all of which he had skipped. Since a Russian man in a critical moment finds what to do without going into further reasonings, he shouted, after turning right at the next crossroads: “Hup, my honored friends!” and started off at a gallop, thinking little of where the road he had taken would lead him” (Gogol, 1997, pp. 38–39; tr. by R. Pevear & L. Volokhonsky); “A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the bestorganized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth – science – which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth” (Tolstoy, 2010, p. 686; tr. by L. Maud & A. Maud). With this comparison, Tolstoy illustrates the views of the German general Pfuel of basic principles of warfare, which are contrasted to those of Kutuzov, the head of Russian army. Kutuzov denies the meaningfulness of any theoretical reasoning before the battle and is sure that everything is decided during the battle.

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

the lexical complex avantjura is significantly weakened in the wake of a global ideological change. The communists’ ideas have lost their value in post-Soviet Russia and the aforementioned deep-seated attitudes have come to the forefront. To sum up this subsection, it is important to stress again that one of the significant factors influencing semantic change is an interplay between particular idiolects and general language, and the success of a semantic innovation is driven by the sociocultural (or sociopolitical) status of a speaker/writer, and not by linguistic or communicative factors, such as the ones outlined in Section 10.1. To be sure, such an interplay is irregular and unpredictable, but the nature of this irregularity differs markedly from that of processes covered by “the invisible hand” model. In the latter case, there are many random micro-level events of the same type, whose similarity provides an opportunity for averaging and revealing regularities at the macro level, while in the former case, each story is unique and any averaging seem irrelevant. At the same time, the influence of particular authors can be taken into consideration, when we look for the cause of a certain semantic change, especially if such a change has an obvious sociocultural value. This cause can be found in their idiolects.

10.3.2 Unification-separation request as a motivation for semantic change There are many types of special language beyond idiolects and, therefore, various types of interaction between special languages and general language. The interaction between a term in a scientific discipline and a word in everyday language is one of the most noticeable types of such interaction, generating semantic change. This is especially important for the humanities and social sciences (see, e.g., the semantic history of the word family filosofija (‘philosophy’) in Glebkin, 2016). Numerous cases of an interaction between professional languages and general language are reported in Meillet’s article quoted above. Below I would like to dwell on a less explicit, but methodologically important case of interaction between sociolects and general language covered by the concept of ‘fashion,’ considered from a broad sociological perspective. Such a perspective is developed in the classic essay “Fashion” by Georg Simmel (1911, pp. 29–66). Simmel emphasizes the following properties of fashion (pp. 32–33): [Die Mode] ist Nachahmung eines gegebenen Musters und genügt damit dem Bedürfnis nach sozialer Anlehnung, sie führt den Einzelnen auf die Bahn, die Alle gehen, sie gibt ein Allgemeines, das das Verhalten jedes Einzelnen zu einem bloßen Beispiel macht. Nicht weniger aber befriedigt sie das Unterschiedsbedürfnis, die Tendenz auf Differenzierung, Abwechslung, Sich-Abheben. Und dies letztere gelingt ihr einerseits durch den Wechsel der Inhalte, der die Mode von heute individuell prägt gegenüber der von gestern und von morgen, es gelingt ihr noch

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energischer dadurch, daß Moden immer Klassenmoden sind, daß die Moden der höheren Schicht sich von der der tieferen unterscheiden und in dem Augenblick verlassen werden, in dem diese letztere sie sich anzueignen beginnt … So bedeutet die Mode einerseits den Anschluß an die Gleichgestellten, die Einheit eines durch sie charakterisierten Kreises, und eben damit den Abschluß dieser Gruppe gegen die tiefer Stehenden, die Charakterisierung dieser als nicht zu jener gehörig. ([Fashion] is the imitation of a given pattern and thus satisfies the need for social adaptation; it leads the individual onto the path that everyone travels. It furnishes a general condition that resolves the conduct of every individual into a mere example. At the same time, and to no less a degree, it satisfies the need for distinction, the tendency towards differentiation, change and individual contrast. It accomplishes the latter, on the one hand, by the change in contents – which gives to the fashions of today an individual stamp compared with those of yesterday and tomorrow – and even more energetically, on the other hand, by the fact that the fashions are always class fashions, by the fact that fashions of the higher strata of society distinguish themselves from those of lower strata, and are abandoned by the former at the moment when the latter begin to appropriate them … Thus, on the one hand, fashion signifies a union with those of the same status, the uniformity of a social circle characterized by it, and, in so doing, the closure of this group against those standing in a lower position which the higher group characterizes as not belonging to it. ) (tr. by M. Ritter and D. Frisby; Frisby & Featherstone, 1997, pp. 188–189)

It seems reasonable to expand Simmel’s approach to phenomena that are not considered to be fashion in the direct sense. Each action of both unification with members of a certain social group and separation from people beyond this group can be covered by Simmel’s model. Language is as important (albeit less salient) a tool for this as clothes or haircuts are. Language innovations driven by such unification-separation requests often get entrenched in general language and bring about linguistic (and, in particular, semantic) change. One of the most compelling examples of this was reported in the famous study by William Labov (1966), which was generalized in the contrast between two types of linguistic change: changes from above vs. changes from below. The former are defined by Labov (1994, p. 78) as follows: Changes from above are introduced by the dominant social class, often with full public awareness. Normally, they represent borrowings from other speech communities that have higher prestige in the view of the dominant class. Such borrowings do not immediately affect the vernacular patterns of the dominant class or other social classes, but appear primarily in careful speech, reflecting a superposed dialect learned after the vernacular is acquired.

Chapter 10. Regularity in semantic change

It is easy to see, that Labov’s description falls strictly within the scope of Simmel’s approach. Although Labov focused on phonetic change, there is also a lot of evidence for semantic change that fits this pattern. As an example, one can refer to the controversy between the conservatives and the innovators in Russian culture at the turn of the 19th century. At the heart of this controversy was the difference in views of the cultural development of Russia in the 19th century. The innovators (Nikolay Karamzin and his adherents) endeavored to rely on modern Western experience, while the conservatives sought support in the cultural tradition of the pre-Petrine time. This difference was directly manifested in their attitudes to language. Innovators based their theory on the spoken language of the educated elite replete with gallicisms, whereas the conservatives relied on a written language formed mainly in pre-Petrine times. An important aspect of this controversy was the contrast between private life and public life. Innovators focused on individuals who were considered more than just a total of their social roles, developing a language to describe the inner states of such individuals. This engendered semantic innovations covered by the “unification-separation” approach,242 some of which became entrenched in general language and resulted in significant lexical and semantic changes. An interesting example of such changes is the semantic history of the words razvivat’ ‘develop,’ razvityj ‘developed, advanced,’ and razvitie ‘development.’ Before the innovators, the last word had not been recorded at all, and the first and second had occurred (the second always, the first with rare exceptions) in the literal meaning (‘untwist’ for razvivat’, and ‘untwisted’ for razvityj). Innovators began using these words in constructions such as razvitie dushi (‘development of soul’), razvitie uma (‘development of mind’), and razvitie haraktera (‘development of character’); in other words, this word family came to be used to characterize various aspects of the process of personal development (Grot, 1867, pp. 41–43). Later, these innovations took root in general language and new meanings replaced the old ones. To sum up this section, it is worth highlighting again that the interplay between special languages and general language is an important resource for short-term (dozens of years) semantic change, and the factors driving the success of a particular semantic innovation in this case are markedly different from those outlined in Section 10.1. The logic behind them is underpinned by a complex system of sociocultural factors (fashion in a wider sense of Simmel, and the sociocultural “weight” of this or that idiolect among others), which have almost nothing in common with the principles of convenience and efficiency of communication. 242. In other words, such innovations can be considered a tool to strengthen the boundary between the innovators and other social groups which resisted these changes.

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10.4

Final remarks

To round up, three points should be emphasized. First, one should distinguish between long-term and short-term semantic changes. Long-term changes correlate with cognitive processes brought about by cognitive development from pre-theoretical to early theoretical cultures and then from early theoretical to modern industrial cultures. Within the scope of FLTCD, these processes are represented as the emergence of cognitive levels С and D. The view of factors influencing semantic change from this perspective provides the ground for the elaboration of a more entrenched taxonomy and, in particular, reveals the deep cognitive roots of Traugott’s tendencies. Second, short-term semantic changes (changes within modern industrial cultures and, to some extent, within early theoretical cultures) are largely influenced by sociocultural requests, and are often the result of the interplay between special languages and general language. The widely discussed pragmatic reasons, premised on an interplay of speaker-based and hearer-based perspectives, are not underpinned by convincing experimental data and fall short to explain the process of entrenchment of a particular semantic innovation. As the above analysis evidences, the sociocultural factors, such as unification-separation requests, at least in certain significant cases, are decisive for the process of entrenchment. The identification of these factors is a significant part of the description of a particular lexical complex in STLC, which was illustrated in Chapter 9 with the example of the complex intelligencija. STLC can be considered, therefore, a possible framework for describing the process of semantic change of a particular lexeme or lexical complex. Third, the approach developed in this chapter paves the way for rethinking the idea of regularity. In contrast to long-term semantic change, correlating with the process of cognitive development observed from a large-scale sociocultural perspective (which allows for revealing regularities, such as Traugott’s tendencies), short-term semantic change seems to be casual. Nevertheless, one can find certain regularities in this type of change if changing the point of view. Exploring causes of a particular semantic change, a researcher has a set of sociocultural scenarios, such as an interplay of interpretations and an everyday use of a particular lexical item or unification-separation requests, which determine the direction for research. Regularity, in this sense, is concerned with the taxonomy of causes rooted in the sociocultural situation. STLС presents a model for systematizing this type of work.

Conclusion As known, the pathway of European culture in the Modern era is associated with the destruction of medieval holism and the dismemberment of the medieval image of the world into smaller and smaller fragments. This is evident in religion (the disintegration of religious integrity into Catholicism and Protestantism in various versions), in political identity (the shift from subjects of the Roman Empire to citizens of national states), and also in science. At the end of the Middle Ages, all knowledge was accumulated in voluminous ‘Summae” and treatises “De rerum natura,” whereas in the Modern era, first, physics was singled out from the whole domain of knowledge, then this happened with other natural sciences, and finally, in the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries, the field of social sciences and humanities was also split into many parts. In the Early Modern Era, one could talk about two fundamental disciplines (that is, history and philosophy) covering the entire spectrum of social knowledge and humanities, but later new academic disciplines emerged, such as economics, psychology, sociology, linguistics, political science, etc. This process met its logical limit towards the end of the 20th century: acmeology, transitology, conflictology, and similar dwarf sciences claimed to obtain their own “place under the sun.” It is worth noting that such a fragmentation of areas of scientific knowledge has had certain positive consequences: the emergence of various formalized disciplinary languages allowed developing clearer criteria for the demarcation between science and non-science as well as between science and pseudo-science. However, excessive specialization gave rise to new problems, gradually becoming a strong brake on the development of science. Man and the world fell apart into local fragments, and the loss of a sense of the whole became the downside of a scrupulous description of these fragments by separate disciplines. Using Thomas Kuhn’s (1970, pp. 35–42) terminology, the activities of academics have largely been reduced to solving puzzles, often artificially invented and almost senseless from a broader perspective. The idea of an “iron curtain” between disciplines has become an important element of professional self-identification. The fact of the appearance of “alien” researchers in an already inhabited territory and their attempt to problematize postulates that have become something self-evident for its inhabitants has been usually regarded as a dangerous provocation that causes a strong protective reaction.

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The professional deformations become evident when academics from different research fields refer to the same subject and interpret it within the scope of their disciplinary language, or, moreover, use the same categories with different meanings. In this case, the desire to uphold the “purity of faith” narrows the opportunities for constructive interdisciplinary dialogue and entails annoying misunderstandings. This concerns, in particular, significant discrepancies in the construals of the concept of ‘thinking,’ dominant among philosophers and psychologists, which engender serious flaws in the theoretical and methodological framework of specific studies (Glebkin, 2010). The only likely way to avoid the above flaws is to work interdisciplinarily. However, such work carries serious risks: the abandonment of disciplinary boundaries often entails the abandonment of scientific rigor, reducing an academic text to a quasi- or pseudo-scientific essay. Another danger lies in the methodological eclecticism, that is, in the incoherent use of methodological instruments borrowed from different disciplines. An interdisciplinary approach needs the more established methodology that could combine the methodological tools of autonomous disciplines into a coherent and consistent system. Such consistency and coherence can be achieved in different ways, but in my opinion, the integration of disciplinary methodologies based on a principle similar to Niels Bohr’s “principle of complementarity” could be a productive approach: such methodologies could complement each other like the particle and wave representations of an object. Meanwhile, the interdisciplinary approach would open up the opportunity for a more critical look at disciplinary frameworks in different branches of science and for the defamiliarization of the postulates and rules taken for granted within the disciplinary scope. This has direct implications for cognitive semantics. The view of language as a cognitive phenomenon is based on a deep relation between linguistics and the set of disciplines that form the framework of cognitive science (psychology, neuroscience, computer science, etc.); the view of language as a sociocultural phenomenon comprises a direct relation between linguistics and cultural studies, sociology, social and cultural anthropology, etc. The sociocultural approach to cognitive semantics requires an integrative methodology that is emerging before our eyes, overcoming the resistance of isolationist views of language, deeply rooted in the past. The cultural-historical perspective seems to provide a productive theoretical basis for different versions of such a methodology. Diachronic Prototype Semantics developed by Dirk Geeraerts and colleagues is a good example of a theoretical approach in this regard. Other examples were reported in this book. There is no doubt that both FLTCD and STLC need further elaboration, and at this point they seem to be the first steps in a long journey. From the perspective of cognitive seman-

Conclusion

tics, for FLTCD, it concerns, first and foremost, a detailed description of semantic inferences of cognitive processes positioned at Level B, Level C, and Level D. The use of STLS seems productive, first of all, for the lexical complexes that designate various areas within the sociocultural domain and has a strong impact on the way cultural identity is formed. In this monograph, this was illustrated by the example of the complex intelligencija. The analysis of complexes otkryvat’ and kamen’ illustrates how STLS can be applied to the description of actions and objects basically located in the physical domain. At the same time, it is not clear how STLS can be used to describe special cases of lexical complexes represented, for example, by the preposition v ‘in’ or the preposition na ‘on,’ including both a direct meaning and metaphorical extensions. This and similar issues need further elaboration. At another level, both the principles of description of processes and phenomena at Level A0 and their impact on the conceptual structure of a certain complex at Level A and Level B need to be further developed. This also applies to the principles of identifying the conceptual boundaries of a certain complex as well as for the guidelines to include words in a certain lexical family, to determine a set of conceptual clusters within the conceptual structure of the complex, etc. All these aspects can be clarified only after a detailed analysis of different types of concepts in different languages – the task of a further research program.

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Index A Anselm of Canterbury 16–17 Aristotle 7, 15, 17, 26, 31–34, 43, 56, 67, 79, 85, 90, 106, 201–202, 205, 207, 209 Augustine 44–45, 50, 58, 60–61, 69, 75, 77, 87, 106, 202 B being 43, 165–166 briefly described events 47, 49 C Code of Hammurabi 14, 39–40 сomplex thinking 14, 23–25 D Dante 207–208 Darwin 24, 26–27, 29 Dilthey 88 Dummett 85 E Euclid 7–8, 15, 17–18, 40–42, 46 Euripides 15, 30, 49–50, 205 events described in detail 47, 49 everyday use of language 88–89 F fashion 211–213 Fedotov 177, 193–194 field binding 38–39 field-dependent cognitive style 25, 36, 38–39, 46, 48, 50 Fillmore 84, 94, 98, 100, 112, 136 G Gasparov 184, 195 Geeraerts 1, 21, 28, 65, 89–91, 102, 198–200, 207, 216 Gibson 83, 91, 138, 143 Gogol 208, 210 Gradovskij 169–170, 190 Gregory of Tours 49–50

H Herodotus 14–15, 30, 41, 46–49, 57 hunter-gatherer cultures 11–14, 24–26, 28–29, 35 I ideal type 83, 89, 102 Idealized Cognitive Model 22, 26 idolum 68 Ivanov-Razumnik 174–177, 181, 192–193 K Karamzin 213 Kablic 170–172, 174, 191–192 Keller 199 Kormer 180–181, 194 Kövecses 21–22, 27, 52, 65, 106 Kitayama 13, 25, 36–37, 39 L Labov 212–213 Lakoff 21–23, 26–29, 35, 52, 65, 106 Langacker 22, 99, 143, 199 language user 89 large-scale civilizations 8, 39 Lenin 174, 192, 210 Level С of FLTCD 8, 14, 16, 28, 35, 50, 82, 201, 203 Level D of FLTCD 8, 15–20, 33–35, 38–39, 46, 50, 202–203, 205–206 Lévy-Bruhl 23–24 Luria 12, 14, 24–26, 35 M Meillet 206–207, 211 Merezhkovskij 176, 192–194, 208 Mihajlovskij 171, 173–175, 191 Miljukov 177, 194 mahina 57–63, 73–76 mononuclear complex 92, 95, 135

N Nabokov 208 natura 76–77 number 73–76 P Peter the Great 176–177, 194 Parmenides 165 Plato 7–8, 15, 31, 33–34, 44, 55, 87, 166 Plotinus 44, 90 polynuclear complex 92, 95, 135 polysemy 91–92 poshlost’ 208 prototype 90 prototypical core 90, 92, 135 Pushkin 208–209 S skuka (boredom) 92–94 Simmel 211–213 Solzhenitsyn 180–181, 195 Sophocles 205 Spengler 41–42 Sumerian 203–205 T T-semantics 84, 94, 112, 136 Thucydides 15, 30, 41, 46–47, 49–50 Tolstoy 105, 124, 210 Traugott 198–203, 206, 214 U U-semantics 84, 94, 112, 136 Uspenskij 184, 195 V Vehi 176, 193 Vygotsky 23–24, 26–27, 38–39, 82 W Weber Max 83, 89 weird people 6, 10 Wierzbicka 87–88, 209

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Witkin 25, 36–38 Wittgenstein 24 word family 86–90, 95, 113, 136, 145, 209–211, 213

ἐποχή 34 θεορία 43 κόσμος 43–44 μάντις 56

μηχανή 53–55, 57 νοῦς 44, 56 ὕλη 29–32, 85, 90, 201, 205, 209 χώρα 32–33

The book presents two fundamental theories that characterize the cultural-historical perspective in cognitive semantics: the Four-Level Theory of Cognitive Development (FLTCD) and the Sociocultural Theory of Lexical Complexes (STLC), as well as their application to the analysis of specific material. In particular, the book analyzes the sociocultural history of the machine metaphor, specifically its use in the texts of René Descartes and Francis Bacon. The practical embodiment of STLC is demonstrated through the analysis of lexical complexes such as otkryvat' ‘to open,’ kamen' ‘stone,’ and intelligencija ‘intelligentsia.’ In the final chapter of the monograph, FLTCD and STLC are used for the diachronic analysis of semantic change. The monograph will be of interest to a wide range of linguists, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and philosophers who consider language as a sociocultural phenomenon.

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John Benjamins Publishing Company