Philosophical and religious projections of the polysemantic lexeme dust in the Russian language picture of the world

Abstract. 

The main purpose of the study is to describe the semantics of lexeme dust as far as the influence of a religious cult (Christianity) on the consciousness of native speakers of the Russian language is concerned. The objectives of the study are the following: firstly, to describe the earth as a substance from which according to the text of the Bible man was created. Secondly, to analyze the semantic components of the meanings of lexeme dust in the major explanatory and encyclopedic dictionaries of the Russian language. Thirdly, to demonstrate examples of verbalization of semantic components of the lexeme dust in the collected language material. Finally, draw conclusions about the Christian influence on the views of native speakers of the Russian language on earth. The material for the study was taken from the National Corpus of the Russian Language (www.ruscorpora.ru), from texts of fiction relating to XIX and XXth centuries, and six explanatory dictionaries. The main methods of research are descriptive, comparative, interpretative. According to the study, the semantic structure of lexeme dust comprises components that have lost religious meanings (‘dust/ smallest particles of something’, ‘black earth’, ‘(dry) rot’, ‘dust’, ‘natural substance’), components that verbalize pagan concept of earth such as ‘flesh/body’, ‘ashes’, as well as components associated with the Christian cult, namely the motive for creation a man (‘decay’, ‘remains/corpse’, ‘clay’, ‘negligible/low-value’, ‘short-term’, ‘vanity’). The language material shows the relevance of all 12 semantic components of the lexeme dust in literary contexts, and, therefore, in the language. The found components of dust are mainly highlight its natural materiality and low value. In the Christian worldview the earth retains its status of material involved in the creation of man. However, it no longer gives birth to him: God creates a man from particles the dust of earth or, like a potter-master, sculpts him from clay.

Keywords: semantics, semantic components, linguistic picture of the world, dust, earth, biblical motif, creation of man.