DAN, GIFT, GIFTS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN THE DYNAMICS OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PICTURE OF THE WORLD

On the basis of the ideas about the basic properties of the lexical-semantic system of language as a highly complex self-developing dynamic system, the authors of the article believe that its study and description on the axis of successive linguochronological levels is possible only on the basis of reconstruction and a multidimensional study of large lexical associations, which are the etymological nests. Semantico-derivational center «Dar (Gift)» – a multicomponent fragment of the reconstructed etymological nest *Dati – occupies an exceptionally important place not only in the word-formation and semantic system of the Russian language, but also in the Russian language picture of the world as a whole. The article presents the results of a dynamic system-structural and anthropocentric description of the «Dar (Gift)» concept in the history of the Russian language from the Proto-Slavic to the modern state. The vocabulary representing the cultural phenomena «Dar» and the «Exchange of Gifts» forms an extremely broad chapter of the Proto-Indo-European vocabulary; this feature of the Indo-European root *dō- continues in the Proto-Slavonic language, where the semantic-word-forming centers *dati ‘give', *danь ‘a tribute, submit – the object of compulsory transfer as a payment', *darъ ‘a gift – an object of voluntary transfer as a token of appreciation, friendship and peace'. Preservation in the Proto-Slavic and modern Slavic languages of ancient nominal derivatives from one root, denoting ‘gift' and ‘exchange of gifts' (*danь, *darъ), Vyach.Vs. Ivanov explains that at a certain stage of the early Middle Ages, exchange and treaties as universal sociological phenomena took the character of an exchange of gifts. In form, these gifts were voluntary, essentially – strictly binding. As a result, a close relationship was established: the grantor was obliged in relation to the gifted. Thus, the exchange of gifts had in the eyes of these people a magical power that determined the significance of the concept of «Dar (Gift)» in the contemporary Russian picture of the world, which is confirmed in the article by lexical, phraseological and contextual data.