CONFLICT OF SYNCHRONY AND DIACHRONY IN RESEARCH ON LEXICAL SEMANTICS (LINGVO-HISTORIOGRAPHIC ASPECT)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to highlight the views of linguists of the second half of the XX – early XXI century on the importance of synchronic and diachronic studies of lexical meaning and identify the tendency of modern linguists to consider synchrony and diachrony as components of one whole. With the help of synchronic-diachronic study of language, studies of lexical semantics are presented in an extremely wide range of works, which receive new opportunities to explain semantic processes and highlight similar dominant features in both structurally related and unrelated languages. The scientific interest of linguists can be directed both to the study of a particular morpheme and to the derivation of universal laws for the development of the lexical meaning of the world’s languages. The vast majority of studies, however, have a more or less clear distribution on the principle of synchrony and diachrony. The article highlights the current perception of diachronic research as one that consists of a number of studies of synchronous sections in the history of lexical meaning, and as a result is considered as one holistic effective study. In accordance with the purpose of the article, a general scientific method is used – an actualist method, which is based on the principle of historicism and allows modern knowledge to trace the development of certain linguistic concepts in the past and predict some trends in future theories. The methodological basis of the actualist method is the principles of historicism, causality, systematics and the principle of general connection of phenomena. As the result of the research it was established that the linguists of our time accept the idea of not confrontation, but of fruitful joint work of synchronic and diachronic research of lexical meaning, unity of synchronic description and historical reconstruction. The author concludes that from the point of view of modern linguistics, the dichotomy of synchrony and diachrony is quite conditional. Synchronous research is not opposed, but, on the contrary, is an important component of diachronic research, because diachronic analysis without synchronic one does not exist. The tacit ban on the use of language history data in synchronic analysis has been overcome.