This dissertation discusses cognitive linguistic foundations for coining English, Ukrainian and Modern Greek compounds whose naming (onomasiological) structure includes a color-concept from the list of basic colors registered in the considered languages. The research framework includes conceptions of the theory of naming, and techniques of conceptual analysis developed by different schools of cognitive linguistics. From a cognitive linguistic perspective, a naming model represents a cognitive structure grounded on one or several basic propositional schemas (BPS) described in Semantics of Lingual Networks (S. A. Zhabotynska). In a naming model, the logical subject or the logical predicate of a particular BPS becomes either the onomasiological base (the main concept) or the onomasiological feature that characterises the base. In this dissertation, the BPS are used for both defining the naming models of compounds, and establishing the particulars of conceptual derivation due to which some concepts (and their names) are derived from the other concepts (and their names). The naming models of compounds are linked to metonymic and metaphoric processes. The latter are analysed in terms of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (G. Lakoff and M. Johnson).
At the first stage, the compounds of a particular language are divided into groups with regard to the color-term they contain. In each such group, the compounds are distributed into those where the color-term names an ontological property of objects, and those where the color-term names a symbolic property associated with the color per se. The compounds where the color-term names an ontological property are further stratified among conceptual domains of the named objects. These domains are: MAN, ANIMAL, PLANT, NATURAL OBJECT, PLACE (TERRITORY), ARTEFACT, CLOTHES, and FOOD. The compounds within each domain obtain their onomasiological models, which in direct, literal naming are grounded on the qualitative BPS «X (base) is SUCH-color (feature) > SUCH-color (feature) X (base)». In indirect, figurative naming, the initial onomasiological model is extended with the other BPS that provide different ways of linking the inner form of a linguistic expressions with its meaning. Among such ways are metonymy, metaphor, metonymy + metaphor, and metaphor + metonymy. Metaphoric shifts are further analyzed with regard to metaphorical scopes formed by the ontological domains of MAN, ANIMAL, PLANT, NATURAL OBJECT, PLACE (TERRITORY), ARTEFACT, CLOTHES, and FOOD, as well as with regard to their metaphorical potential. Those compounds whose inner form includes a color-concept used symbolically are studied with the aim to expose the initial meaning from which the symbolic meaning is derived.
The second and third stages of the enquiry are comparative. At the second stage, it is the comparison of results obtained through the analysis of each «color» group within one language. At the third stage, it is the comparison of results obtained in the analysis of compounds with color-terms in all three languages. The compared aspects are: salience (the degree of exposure in compounds) of different basic colors; salience of the ontological domains of «colored» objects; salience of different basic propositional schemas applied in naming processes at different steps of conceptual derivation; metaphorical potential of the ontological domains of «colored» objects; and the foundations of symbolic meanings developed by different colors.
Comparative analysis of cognitive linguistic grounds for coining compounds with color-terms in the English, Ukrainian, and Modern Greek languages reveals universal and idioethnic properties of the chromatic «world-images» possessed by their speakers. This analysis pinpoints similarities and differences in the naming processes that, due to metonymic and metaphoric shifts, cause emergence of such compounds at different stages of conceptual and formal derivation.
