Role of Object Imagery in Comprehending Real World Phenomena Attributes

Novosibirsk State Technical University, Humanities Department 20 Pr. K. Marksa 630072 Novosibirsk, Russia

^* Corresponding author: m.ivleva@corp.nstu.ru

Abstract

The paper analyzes the functioning of nouns as paragons of certain attributes characterizing various properties of the real world objects. Humans perceive the objects they see in space as possessing definite inherent attributes (shape or dimension). Perception results in the system of parametric adjectives. However, adjectives denote rather abstract meanings thus possessing a more sophisticated structure of categorial meaning in comparison with nouns. The dimensional nomination by adjectives is “vague”, while nouns can actualize several attributes and create a holistic image. The factual material analysis reveals that: 1) the use of nouns as an “evaluation tool” of the objects’ physical properties is due to the specific human feature to perceive the world primarily in essential, substantial or “objectified” images; 2) object images specify and simplify processing of the incoming data by cognitive structures; 3) object imagery is one of the tools to conceptualize spatial properties of the objects; 4) linguistic representation of object imagery is culture specific and depends on a grammatical structure of a given language conditioned by its historical development; 5) the English language is characterized by frequent direct nominal representation of an idea in contrast with the same idea being expressed by a simile in Russian.