Nizhegorodtseva-Kyrychenko L. "Intellectual Activity" Lexical Semantic Field: an Attempt of Conceptual Analysis (the Study of nouns)

This study, done from the standpoint of cognitive linguistics, proposes a conceptual model for the INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY notional category. The latter is manifested by the respective lexical semantic field constituted by nouns of contemporary English. The conceptual model is construed via integrating the frames of three basic types - partonynic, object-centered, and action-centered. Partonymic frame (schema) demonstrates the general principle of coordinating the subcategories within the category. The model which arranges information within the subcategoties is a combination of object-centered and action-centered frames. The integral conceptual model (schemata) serves as a foundation for considering the notional category as a prototypical entity. Besides, this model helps to understand how words and their multiple meanings are stratified within the lexical semantic field. This stratification is reflected in the ideographic thesaurus dictionary which results from the research. When construed, the integra l conceptual model provides an explanation for the phenomena of polysemy and synonymy/antonymy inherent in the units of the lexical semantic field.