The semantic unity of “generosity/greed” in diachrony

the article examines the lexical and semantic prototypes of the concept “generosity” and the lexical expression of its anti-concept (greed, avarice, greed, etc.). The purpose is to explore the semantic field of the concept “generosity”. For this purpose, an etymological analysis is carried out and methods of component analysis are used. The choice of the concept is determined by its basic character for the Russian ethical conceptual sphere. The author comes to the conclusion that the common lexical prototype for both the property of generosity and greed in the meaning of “stinginess, avarice” is the action of splitting, desintegrating, waste, and the semantic prototype within the framework of the semantic unity of generosity and greed is the conceptual scheme “hand”. Words derived from it: generosity, generosities, generously. That is, the generous one is the one who shares, splits, breaks off, separates from his own and gives to others. A miser does the same thing, that is, he splits, breaks off, separates, but does not share with others, keeps it for himself. The action of splitting, breaking off, is thus a lexical prototype for both generosity and stinginess and scarcity. Thus, the semantic unity generosity-scarcity-avarice-stinginess is connected by the senior meaning of the root – to cherish, to spare.

linguistic and cultural concept, anti-concept, lexical prototype, etymology, etymological analysis, internal form of the word, generosity, greed, conceptual scheme, semantic unity