ODORATIVE EVALUATION IN SEMANTICS GERMAN AND SLAVIC PHYTONYMS

Abstract

The article presents the results of cognitive onomasiological reconstruction of olfactoryestimation as a semantic component of medicinal plants’ names in the German, English, Russianand Ukrainian languages. In the process of study the key designators that form olfactory estimationsemantic component in the onomasiological feature of the phytonyms have been singled out,and their correlation with the first level of a man’s cognitive activity in the process of designatingplants has been proved. The motivational basis standing behind the olfactory estimation semanticcomponent is constituted by basic characteristics of smell such asintensity, quality and the referencestandard for this mode of perception. The data obtained from the languages under considerationhave been compared to find common or different strategies of embedding the meaning of olfactorydesignation into the semantic structure of phytonyms.