XVIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2026

The phenomenon of lacunarity got attention of representatives of the Russian and foreign scientific schools in the second half of the 20th century. Today, lacunae are an object of research in such spheres as linguistics, ethno-psychology, linguistics, philosophy, translation. This interest is explained by the fact that the lacuna, a vivid expression of national identity, impedes effective and comprehensive interaction between different cultures. 

In linguistics, besides the term "lacuna" other terminology units were proposed, for example, "white spots" on the semantic map [10, стр. 120] or "empty" cell of the language system [2, стр. 63]. In the studies of interlingual lacunae of different parts of speech, I. A. Sternin, A. A. Mahonina, Zh. V. Petrosyan, O. V. Sukhanova consider lacuna as "a meaning that does not have a one-word naming unit in the language under study or a naming unit represented by collocations in presence of such units in the language being compared " [6, стр. 16]. It should be noted that if a lacuna is found in the language studied, then a non-equivalent lexis is found in the language being compared [9, стр. 21].

It should be said that lacunae can be studied from the point of view of the aspect analysis. This technique means revealing generalized levels of comparison to describe national specificity of linguistic units [1] and it allows to study various language features on the step-by-step and consistent basis. The following aspects have been suggested: the quantitatively-structural aspect, emotional and evaluation and functional style aspects, the aspect of the semantic development of the lexemes, the aspect of typological characteristics of sememes of the grouping, and the aspect of the semantic closeness [1]; the aspect of lexical polysemy, lexico-grammatical polysemy, communicative relevance of the sememes, sememe representativeness of the semanteme [5]; the structural and denotative aspects and the aspects of linguistic objectification of concepts and their temporal characteristics [3].

Aspect analysis is a good tool for studying lacunae. By virtue of universal character of the aspects suggested by S. I. Derkach for analysis of lexical groupings it seemed reasonable to use the following aspects for lacuna description: the quantitatively-structural aspect, the aspect of semantic closeness of lacunae, the aspect of typological characteristic of lacunae. The indices developed for lacuna analysis make it possible to propose two more aspects: the aspect of semantic lacuna alteration and the aspect of structural complexity.

The aspect of typological characteristic of lacunae deals with lacunae classification and has such indices as: the index of generalizing and specifying lacunae that is defined as ratio of the totality of generalizing and specifying lacunae to the totality of the elicited lacunae of a particular group; the indexes of generalizing-specifying, generalizing-specifying proper and pseudo generalizing-specifying lacunae, the indexes of explicit-generalizing and implicit-generalizing lacunae. These indexes are figured out in the same way as index of generalizing and specifying lacunae [4, 11].

The aspect of semantic change of lacunae is presented by the index of denotative extension and the index of denotative restriction. The index of denotative extension [6, p. 48] is the ratio of the lacunae with denotative extension to the totality of the lacunae in the group. The group of Russian-English adjectival lacunae “Medical sphere” does not have lacunae with denotative restriction.

The group of adjectival lacunae in the medical field has 3 generalizing lacunae [7, стр. 59]: запачканный, забрызганныйкровью – cmp. bloodstained. The example shows that in Russian there is no corresponding generalization and it is expressed by two verbal lexemes. This lacuna is also an example of a lacuna with an implicit disjunction, when the generalization presented as an alternative between two generic characteristics is not evident [7, стр. 62], and the disjunction is not expressed in the dictionary definition, but is represented implicitly. This is a lacuna of the second level of lacunarity [6, стр. 72]: there is no generalization for the produced action at the first level of lacunarity and the substance (blood) at the second level. The example of a lacuna with an explicit binominal disjunction is имеющийхарактерколикиилинапоминающийколику – cmp. colicky: The disjunction is expressed explicitly in the dictionary definition by means of the disjunctive conjunction or. This lacuna is a lacuna of the second level of lacunarity, as the same lacuna characteristic of the second level is expressed by identical lexemes (колика).

As an example of a conjunctive generalizing lacuna with an explicit binomial conjunction, consider the lacuna частыйисухой (окашле) – cmp. hacky: in this case, there is no generalization expressed by a set of generic characteristics and the conjunction is expressed explicitly in the dictionary definition using the conjunction and. This lacuna is a lacuna of the first level of lacunarity, since there is no generalization of one of the characteristics (quality).

The analysis of the Russian-English group of adjectival lacunae in the medical sphere revealed 91 specifying explicit lacunae (there is no concretization for a specific reason [7, стр. 59] with one or two levels of lacunarity. For example: легко, быстроутомляющийся – cmp. fatigable – lacuna of the first level: the specifying concept is tiring and there is no concretization based on one attribute – the degree of manifestation of the trait. Прикованныйболезньюкпостели– cmp. bed-ridden is a second-level lacuna: there is no concretization on the object of the action application at the first level of lacunarity and on the influencing object at the second level of lacunarity.

Specifying lacunae of the first level of lacunarity can have an implicit disjunction (неимеющийшрамов, рубцов – cmp. scarless), as well as an explicit disjunction (получившийтравмуголовыилисотрясениемозга – cmp. punch-drunk). A disjunction can be represented by an open list: связанныйсуходомзабольнымит.п. – cmp. housebound.

From the perspective of the aspect of typological characteristic, the index of explicit-generalizing lacunae is 0,03. The index of implicit-generalizing lacunae equals 0,02.

Only one lacuna with denotative extension was singled out in the group. From the perspective of the aspect of semantic change of lacunae, the index of denotative extension is 0,01.

To conclude, the analysis demonstrates definitively that the formalized parameter system accurately and transparently exposes national variations in lexical gaps. Aspect analysis can be applied to take a look at lexical lacunae in other languages and terminological lacunae as well.

Список литературы

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