Semantic Potential of the Word: by the Material of the Mythologem of the Holy Marriage of Heaven and Earth

Abstract

The study of the initial semantics of the word and its further development in the history of the language and its speakers, undoubtedly, belongs to the number of topical problems of modern semasiology. Of particular research interest is the disclosure of the historical and etymological origins of the word, which largely predetermine its further development. The focus of this article is the East Slavic mythologeme of the sacred marriage of Heaven-father and Earthmother, the semantics of which has absorbed the sacred mode of pagan existence and Christian value ideas. The material of the study was the myths and proverbs of closely related Belarusian, Rusyn, Russian and Ukrainian languages, which go back to the East Slavic mythologeme of the sacred marriage of Heaven-father and Earth-mother and preserve a common cultural and semantic memory. The undertaken consideration of this mythologeme against the background of the Greek myths about the “beginning of the world” made it possible to characterize its original historical, etymological, ethical and aesthetic features. As a result, an appeal to the history of the word from the standpoint of the concept of evolving consciousness G.G. Shpet led to the conclusion about the special role of cultural memory, which accumulates the accumulated experience of the existence of the word and thereby increases its semantic potential.