Features of conceptualisation of idea of purity in English and German languages

The language picture of the world, its separate fragments fix and keep chronologically different ideas of subjects, phenomena, which native speakers faced and continue to use. Conceptual analysis based on diachronic research of the facts of language can track evolution of formation of structure of a concept, explaining and describing the functional and semantic features of the language means expressing - first of all - the nuclear part of a concept. How can various ways of structuring concepts in closely related languages exist and what causes it? An attempt to answer this question is made on the material of analysis of words representing the nuclear part of the concept "purity" in English (clean) in comparison with the cognate German language. In German historically the main lexeme fixing the idea of purity is of Germanic origin - rein (h), which represents an empirical adjective whose original meaning is 'without dirt, spots', 'separated from dirt, impurity'. The other aspect of the concept "purity" was expressed by hlutar (modern: lauter) with the nominative and non-productive meaning 'clear, light'. In the Old High German a Latin borrowing to denote the purity of soul, moral purity, came into German, subar (modern: sauber). Old English does not have the word (h)rein, the second adjective - hlutor, - meaning 'light, clear' was lost during the Middle English period. A loan similar to German from Latin - syfre - was also lost, and a later borrowing 'sober' did not develop the meaning 'clean'. In such a situation the adjective 'clean' was quite exclusively used, starting with early Old English texts, to express the idea of purity. The German 'klein' corresponding to the English 'clean' could express 'pure', but was also lost. Possibly, the generalization of the meaning that made 'pure' the basic meaning of 'clean' happened on the continent, before settling in Britain (this can explain the loss of Germanic words for 'pure'), and with a substratum influence that supported the process of generalization (cf. Irish 'glan' — 'clean', 'without impurity', 'bright, brilliant'). The carried-out historical and etymological analysis and interpretation of its results from the cognitive point of view allows us to believe that in the course of functioning of the empiric adjective 'clean' in the meaning 'light, clear; shining' (possibly, originally used to describe natural phenomena) actively expands its denotation sphere defining 'clean' as the result of activity of the person - 'clean' = 'cleaned' (in direct and figurative meanings). Ian important conclusion is that during the Old High German and Old English periods of history the ideas about purity of Germans and the British were structured by the same conceptual components - 'light, clear; shining' (about the natural) and 'cleared of dirt, impurity' (action of the person). The difference is that in early history of Germans this concept was expressed by the semantics of two lexemes - (h)rein and hlutar (h), whose Germanic origin allows to assume a similar structure of the conceptual kernel of the concept 'purity'. In the English language the idea of it is expressed by a language unit of a later origin, but its semantics reflects the same cognitive model, the same image of 'clean' ('pure / light, bright' - about the natural, 'pure / cleared of dirt and impurity' - action of the person).

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