Materynska O. Semantics of Body Parts Names in English, German, Ukrainian and Russian Languages.

The research focuses on the semantics of the human body parts names (BPN) in the English, German, Ukrainian and Russian languages, viewed both synchronically and diachronically in the neutral vocabulary, terminology and slang. The lexical units under analysis are characterized by the high degree of polysemy, high frequency value and the great importance for the human being in terms of the world perception and categorization. The nouns in question are considered in terms of partonomy relations, as a result the semantic regularities of their meaning development in English, German, Ukrainian and Russian have been singled out and the degree of BPN polysemy in different lexical layers of the language has been defined. It has been highlighted that cross-cultural tendencies in the semantic development of words may be applied to different groups of lexical units.