COMPOSITE SENTENCE AS LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE FORMAT: INTERPRETATIVE PERSPECTIVE

COMPOSITE SENTENCE AS LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE FORMAT: INTERPRETATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Author:  S.G. Vinogradova

Affiliation:  Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin

Abstract:  The paper proceeds from the fact that to verbalize complex fragments of reality (hiperevents), in the process of interpretation as a linguistic cognitive activity the speaker configures his or her knowledge about a composite sentence-utterance (further on – sentence) as a specific linguistic knowledge format. A linguistic knowledge format is a form that fixes the presentation and organization of the knowledge about the world as a result of the speaker’s language structure and system cognition.

In its conceptual structure and content, a composite sentence is a multi-component and an integrative linguistic knowledge format. The variety and choice of linguistic means used by the speaker to construct a composite sentence is primarily predetermined by the fact that a sentence is a projection of the three functions of any language: cognitive, communicative and interpretative. The interpretative language function can find its manifestation in the function of determining the status of knowledge that defines the cognitive scheme for the communicative sentence perspective and represents a conceptual basis for the formation of the categories of linguistic means aimed at marking the given and new knowledge. The function of determining the status of knowledge reveals metainterpretation as an aspect of the linguistic cognitive activity. Metainterpretation is understood in its narrow sense as a conceptual modification of the knowledge about some particular fragment of reality expressed by some sentence.

The study of metainterpretation projected on a composite sentence allows us to broaden the idea of this syntactic unit as a linguistic knowledge format in the context of communicative sentence perspective. The given and new knowledge being linked by the relations of relativity are systemic and dynamic, inferential and interpretative respectively. The process of their transfer through a composite sentence is governed by at least two principles: the conceptual representation of meaning in the form of thematic and operational concepts and the conceptual hierarchy of meaning based on the fact that at the moment of speaking in the speaker's consciousness mental representations of the referents within the hiperevent line up according to their state of activation.

Keywords:  composite sentence, linguistic knowledge format, interpretation, metainterpretation, communicative sentence perspective, knowledge, cognitive, conceptual

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Pages:  10-18