engleski

The Mediterannean in the Croatian language and culture cognitive conceptual processes

The lexis of the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea is analyzed to point out the way in which the features of a geographic and historical environment of a particular region become integrated into conceptual and lexical categories of its inhabitants over the course of time, becoming closely interwoven with life values through meaning construction and cross- domain mappings, from simple meanings of everyday life to deeper-level reasoning, including basic truths, wisdom, art and culture. Procedures used to explore meaning construction are applied to trace the way in which the concept of sea (more) is seen and experienced and the way in which it is used in cross-domain mappings to create new meanings: (1) in everyday communication, blending its features with the concepts of quantity, time, remoteness, etc ; (2) in proverbs, communicating folk wisdom ; (3) in literature. Meaning constructions created in literary and folk tradition are closely intertwined with basic experiential models, participating on an equal basis in the overall conceptualization process.

conceptual and lexical categories; cross-domain mappings

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