Authors
- Petrova Inna Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor
Annotation
This article looks at the classification of objects of reality by the speakers of different languages through the word order in the attributive group. The aim of this paper is to investigate these constructions using the class theory. The class theory explains the cognitive mechanism for classifying objects of the surrounding reality. We consider the specificity of the picture of the world, which is peculiar to speakers of different languages, and compare their features of classification of objects of reality. It is possible to establish common and different features both in perception and in expression of specific aspects and characteristics, that is, how a person constructs the world through his / her phrase.
In order to conduct the word order analysis in the attributive group, we can set the general classification princавинаiple: each adjective in the attributive phrase stands for a certain class of parameters of the object. The traditional order of attributes in the attributive phrase (Attribute + Attribute + Noun) helps to establish the adjective that characterizes a stable class of units based on objective features. There are cases when an attribute characterizes a certain subclass based on purely subjective criteria of the speaker. This leads to the change in the order of attributes and can be considered as the indicator of characteristics that are relevant to the speaker in such case. The article also advocates the idea that the speaker puts the most significant classification parameter closer to the noun being determined while classifying objects of the surrounding reality.
Our description rests on the evidence obtained experimentally. The empirical material is based on the data collected in dynamics through the Google search engine. The digital data provide information about the frequency of occurrence of an attributive phrase in the search engine. This evidence reveals the relevance of the analyzed attributive group to the speaker of the language. Our data show that there is some difference in the classification of objects by Russian-speaking and English-speaking users of the system. The results obtained indicate that the analysis of the word order in the attributive group helps to establish differences in the speaker’s relevant characteristics of the object of surrounding reality.