Barkar U. Concepts of the numbers 'one' / 'two' and their realization in German and Ukrainian (semantic-etymological investigation).

The research is devoted to the study of the origin and development of the concepts of the numbers 'one' and 'two' and their realization in German and Ukrainian. The number is investigated as an abstract psychological concept reflecting in the language the evolution of man's intellectual processes and of the world picture on the whole. The simplest numbers 'one' and 'two' are considered in interrelation as notions having common origin. The author's approach is based on the understanding of the primary binarity in the nature of quantitative units. The number 'one' was formed on the basis of the binary concept expressed by the protoroot ie. *kwa as its part. By means of psycholinguistic methods applied to both languages and corresponding texts including fragments of folklore the dominance of the singularity concept in the mentality of a present-day man is proved to counterbalance the archaic duality concept. In this connection the term "pair formula" was introduced and the index of language binarity was calculated in the dissertation. On the material of Middle High German, New High German, Old Ukrainian and Modern Ukrainian texts and also on the basis of lexicographical sources of different types the semantic-etymological analysis of lexical units and morphemes enclosing signs of the numbers 'one' / 'two' was carried out. It gave an opportunity to deduce their common archetypes in the form of *kwa, *ра/*ba, *kwana, *kwara, *tara and to investigate their in-depth semantics in diachrony.