Семантика війни і миру в сучасних слов’янських мовах: історико-типологічний аспект

The article's subject matter is specific features of linguistic representation of  the  concepts of WAR and PEACE in the lexis of the Slavic languages. The semantics of lexemes referring to social reality as well as physical and mental spheres belongs to  the   basic dimensions of human existence. Social concepts present peculiar difficulties for cognitive analysis since they combine features of both mental and physical reality. The relationship between WAR and PEACE concepts, antonymous in many modern languages, is not symmetrical: it is a privative opposition with «war» the unmarked member. However, at the conceptual level the asymmetry of war and peace is different, WAR being a civilizational concept and PEACE an axiological one referring to ideas of  positive values. Due to its positive significance, the notion of peace is extra sensitive to ideological discourse influence. In historical-typological description, the synchronous state is considered initial and a projection of diachronic development. The authors use the retrospective approach, proceeding from modern languages data to the etymological reconstruction of the  original meaning of Slavic lexemes denoting war and peace (Common Slavic *vojь, *ortь, *mirъ,*pokoj etc.) They establish motivation models of the forming of semantics of   war («warrior», «pursui», «wild animal», «to strike») and peace («calm», «pleasant») in  closely related languages, using examples of typological parallelism to demonstrate the  projection of their conceptual expansion and giving particular attention to crosslinguistic variation in representation of these concepts. Among the semantic typological parallels discovered by them, the most illustrative and reliably evidenced as well as the most widespread and constant in time is the relation of war and peace semantics to performatives. Being a set of events occurring in physical space, war isintrinsically linked with verbal actions. Similarly, peace both as a physical and social phenomenon comes into effect by using linguistic means. The role of performatives merits further study in the framework of the semantics and pragmatics of the WAR and PEACE concepts.