Technique of diachronic research and cognitive approach to language. Article II

The article is devoted to the methods of historical analysis of language. The technique based on the principles of modern diachronic studies (systemacity, interdisciplinary studies, areal description of the analyzed facts, complexity of methods) is described in terms of mandatory stages of historical research. Stage 1. The status of the lexical units under analysis, their semantic structure as wells as the interrelations of their lexical semantic variants are determined on the basis of all variants of the national language. The differentiation between the literary and the dialect refers to a later period of the national history. The historical lexicology with its orientation to the full inventory requires vertical (historical) stratigraphy to be supported by horizontal stratigraphy (that of various dialects). Stage 2. The analysis of system relations (derivational, syntagmatic, paradigmatic) at the level of the modern Russian language is carried out to describe formal and semantic relationships in the deri-valtional nest, the peculiarities of relations of same-root words and to determine whether the lexical unit under analysis is derivative or non-derivative. Stage 3. This stage is divided into two procedures. The first procedure implies the analysis of system relations of the analyzed lexical units comprising certain lexical-semantic fields (LSF) and derivational-etymological nests at different chronological levels of history of the written language (the inner reconstruction). The second procedure aims at determining correspondent lexical units (genetically related vocabulary) first in closely related languages (the Slavic languages are the case for Russian), then in historically interconnected languages (the outer reconstruction). Stage 4. This stage implies historical and areal description of the core and periphery of the LSF (the areal and chronological stratification, i.e. the stages of formal semantic evolution of the vocabulary under analysis in the designated space). Stage 5. This stage implies the definition of historical and cultural determination of the LSF composition and content at different historical levels of language and ethnicity. Stage 6. This stage determines the motivational feature, the inner form (image) and its historical changes for the LSF units as well as the motivational models of the LSF unit formation and their dynamics. The stages and sequence of historical, lexicological and etymological analysis of the language facts allow the systematic and diverse representation of the language facts in their evolution, using various techniques (descriptive, structural, comparative and historical, areal, typological). Then comes the linguo-cognitive research that implies generalization of the scope of motivational models representing a certain cognitive model.

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