Cognitive semantics and polysemy of the verb predicate верить (on the material of religious and common discourse contexts)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the polysemy of the verb predicate верить in the cognitive-discursive methodology. The relevance of the research is due to the irrelevance of the traditional approach, the impossibility of describing the mechanisms of the development of word meanings as metaphorical, metonymic, or functional transference, as well as the need to understand and explain the contradictions in the semantics of the verbal predicate that arise in the contexts of various discourses.

As a result of the analysis, a system of parameters was determined, which constitutes a single analytical apparatus of the cognitive-discursive methodology. On the basis of the analysis, we explicated cognitive features, which in our opinion, embodies the gestalt script of the religious conceptual space of Faith, determined the internal form of the concept of Faith, which acts as a cognitive script and induces all the contextual meanings of the verb predicate верить; compiled typology of the contexts of usage of the verb and differentiated several of its meanings.

The subject of our attention was the meaningful difference between the contexts of religious discourse (я верю в бога) and common (я верю в тебя/ прогресс компьютерной техники). The use of terms gestalt, background-figure, focusing-defocusing made it possible to compare the semantics of the verbal predicate in the contexts of religious and common discourses, as well as to trace the distribution of attention in the semantic-syntactic organization of different contexts and the game of cognitive focus at the conceptual level (gestalt scenario). Focusing the interlocutor's attention on the meanings required in the course of religious/common communication, as well as obscuring the background meanings ensures the polysemy of the verb predicate верить.