Information Processing Channels in Phytonymic Lexicon: Taste

Abstract

The article presents the results of onomasiological and cognitive analysis of phytonymic lexicon. The aim of the research is to compare literary and common medicinal plant names in the languages with different structures: Romance (Latin and French), Germanic (German and English) and Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak), and to find out how information processing channels are reflected in them. Studying the information processing channels by which a person receives information about the outside world is very important for explaining one's cognitive and nominative activities. The study has several stages: onomasiological, then cognitive analysis. Onomasiological analysis of phytonyms makes possible to establish and describe onomasiological bases (lexical and formal), predicates and onomasiological features: features of outlook, evaluative features, features of alienated/unalienated possession, features of warning against the dangerous properties of a herb, and some others. Cognitive analysis allowed indicating all the five information-processing channels in herb names: vision, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. Vision prevails in all the languages under consideration. It can be explained by the fact that it helps describe the look of a medicinal plant (its color, shape, structure features), indicate the time of flowering and collection of medicinal raw materials, and localize the areal of the given plant. Via the tactile information processing channel, it is possible to characterize such properties of the plant's surface as smoothness, elasticity, humidity, oiliness, etc. The analysis of the olfactory information-processing channel gives us possibility to identify in medicinal plant names the presence or lack of smell, its intensity, as well as the evaluating component (pleasant: fragrant, sweet-scented; unpleasant: stinking, fetid, odoriferous, suffocating); complementary properties (sweet, sour); existence of a perception standard for vegetable, animal or other origin (lily of the valley, fir, rosemary, bug, goat, vinegar, lime, honey, etc.). Hearing has the least frequency in this language material. Phytonyms reflecting the taste channel are subject of a more detailed analysis. The results of the study show that this channel is verbalized in the names of medicinal plants with the help of adjectives of taste (sweet, bitter, sour, salty); gradual features (sugary, burning, biting, etc.); corresponding standards of vegetable or animal origin: sweet (sugar, honey, raspberry), bitter (mustard, quinine, chicory, absinth, pepper, radish, horseradish, almond, bile), sour (vinegar, barberry, acid, lemon, cranberry, sorrel, kvass), salty (salt); and also a group of words denoting specific taste associated with a variety of foods (bread, meat, wine, cheese, salad). In the onomasiological model, the channel of taste can be located in the bases and in the features of evaluation denoting physical properties of a medicinal plant.