Zhykhareva O. Linguocultural Peculiarities of Predicative Words in English Gospel

The dissertation focuses on the analysis of predicative words - adjectives and participial adjectives - in St. Mark's and John's English Gospels. Structural, semantic and functional peculiarities of predicative words that are defined with regard to their linguocultural aspect, reveal the nature of cultural component in predicative words' meaning and determine their role in preserving and conveying cultural information. A semantic field of predicative words was built in paradigmatics, with the dictionary definitions as its basis. The structure of the semantic field comprises two spheres (object-logical as well as moral-evaluative), lexico-semantic groups, subgroups, classes, subclasses, with the object-logical sphere dominant over the moral-evaluative one. It was defined that in the process of functioning, different types of context - microcontext, macrocontext and situational context - affect the meaning of predicative words. Changes that occur in the semantic structure of predicative words are reflected in intensional, implicational and extensional components of their meaning. Contextual analysis with regard to lingual and extralingual factors, which are relevant for the linguocultural aspect of meaning, makes it possible to rearrange the semantic macrofield of predicative words in syntagmatics. The amount of lexico-semantic variants that belong to the moral-evaluative sphere in the Gospels analysed prevails over the amount of lexico-semantic variants that belong to the object-logical sphere. Thus, any fragment of objective reality may acquire in the Christian world picture a spiritual, religious significance as well as evaluative colouring. That makes predicative words a specific type of linguocultural signs, which convey the information, culturally significant for the Christian world.