Lexical Representation of Knowledge about a Human Being in English

Abstract

This paper presents the research in the sphere of lexical representation. On the premise that word meaning offers insights into conceptual knowledge stored in the mind, we have analyzed the semantics of the set of synonyms denoting a human being without reference to gender, age, occupation or peculiarities of personality and without any evaluation of the referent. These lexical items are person, individual, human being, and one of the meanings of man and personality. Use of etymological, dictionary, derivational, collocation, context analysis and conceptual modelling enabled us to build a list of conceptual components that comprise the knowledge about a human being represented in the English language. To date, the conceptual models used to visualize knowledge do not seem applicable to visualizing knowledge about a human being; therefore, we could only formulate the main features that are characteristic of this knowledge in the English world-view.