Yermolenko S. Semiotic Structure of Language Unit in Communicative-Epistemic Perspective.

The dissertation is an investigation of interrelationships existing between semiotic properties, primarily semiotic-representative ones, of language units, on one hand, and epistemic character of the discourse type, or register (scientific, religious, mythological, political, conversational etc.) these units occur in, on the other. This investigation is based on the assumption that every such functional-communicative variety of language is characterized no only by the inventory of units and the way of their use that is peculiar to it but also by the epistemic approach to interpretation, or modeling, of the part of reality it deals with. A similar role of interpreting some fragment of reality is also performed by every language unit where it is reflected not only in its meaning (and sometimes form), but also by the relationship of semiotic representation (or, from another viewpoint, motivation) connecting form and meaning. It is the author's principal hypothesis that there must exist some kind of veryspecific interrelationship(s) between these two, diametrically different in their scale, kinds of linguistic modeling of reality. This problem is investigated with reference to the mythological-folklore discourse as represented by so called calendar proverbs, and to literary (or artistic) discourse as found in fiction, poetry and some adjacent literary genres, with evidence drawn primarily from Slavonic, Roman and Germanic languages and, occasionally, Hebrew and Greek.