QUANTITY INTERPRETATION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The present paper deals with the issues pertaining to the role of language in the quantity interpretation process in modern English. The authors attempt to describe the language means of quantity interpretation at different linguistic levels to show the level peculiarities of quantity interpretation in each case. To prove that the process of linguistic quantity interpretation is integrative and multiple-factor at different language levels, the authors execute the analysis of the quantitative meanings and senses formed by the lexical and grammatical (morphological) linguistic units of quantitative semantics. Cognitive and linguistic mechanisms of quantity interpretation as well as additional linguistic factors of quantitative sense formation receive consideration. Thus, the paper presents the findings concerning the specificity of each level in the process of quantity interpretation. Studying the processes of linguistic quantity interpretation in modern English, we employ the cognitive approach that allows assessing the role of a person in both, comprehension of the quantitative characteristics of the world and formation of the quantitative meanings and senses in the language system. To provide an account of the issues under study we address the theories worked out within the framework of cognitive linguistics by Russian and foreign scholars: cognitive semantics, conceptualization, representation and linguistic interpretation.