The Basic Images of the Elements in the Semantic and Phraseological Space of Different Linguistic Cultures
Olga Prokhorova – Igor Chekulai – Jerome Baghana – Vladimir Pugach – Zhazira Issayeva
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2026.19.01.10
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the problem of reflecting the natural phenomena’s semantic peculiarities in a language. The investigation is conducted in line with the comparative semantic analysis of the language phenomena. The results show that, though formally unrelated from the ontological point of view, the concepts denoting the four basic elements – fire, water, earth, air – reveal similar associative features, allowing us to speak of them as the mental entities of the same plane. The conventional association of these entities being opposed in pairs, where fire is considered to be the antipode of water and earth is opposed to air through the concept of sky, needs some definite corrections as, for instance, water may be opposed to air due to their being fluent substances, and earth may create metonymical relations with fire through the concepts of volcano, magma, lava and the like. The metaphorical models may pertain to different spheres of human relations, such as emotions and facial expressions. The names of the four elements and the main metaphorical models reflecting them in most cases of their speech actualization transform some value content through evaluative lexical units and speech constructions. The results achieved in this investigation may be important for further development of the cognitive linguistics and comparative semantics of the language.
Key words: elements, metaphor, model, association, value, evaluation
Pages: 149-162
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