The transformed semantics of the verbalizers of the ethical concepts “Love” - “Mercy” - “Chastity” - “Virtue”

The relevance of the research is determined by the need to identify semantic shifts of ethically significant concepts and their semantic distortion in the minds of Russian language native speakers in order to create an up-to-date picture allowing to understand the level of spiritual and moral values and the preservation of the Russian mentality among modern youth. The purpose of the study is to trace the changes in the meanings of the dominant verbalizers of the ethical concepts “Love,” “Mercy,” “Chastity,” “Virtue” and to determine the impact of these changes on the linguistic and cultural consciousness of modern native speakers. The authors used comparative-historical method, E.M. Vereshchagin, V.G. Kostomarov’s method of allocating semantic shares, questioning, cognitive interpretation, etc. The research was conducted on the material of explanatory dictionaries of the Russian language of different periods and the Church Slavonic language, associative dictionaries and data from sociolinguistic surveys. The article defines the ethical semantic shares of these concepts, establishes their connection with the Orthodox worldview. The ideas of modern students about the selected ethical concepts are studied, transformations in their understanding and evaluation are indicated.