PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITION, THINKING AND CULTURE THROUGH THE PRISM OF LEXICOLOGY

Abstract

The paper presents the evolutionary development of human thinking and cognition on the basis of fundamental works on terminology, cognitive linguistics and newest anthropolinguistics. The periodization of interrelated cognition and culture used in history and philosophy (pre-scientific, proto scientific, and scientific stages) is enlarged in the present paper by two more stages: proto human and informative ones. Their temporal characteristics are given, as well as the main peculiarities of language functioning. The chronological stratification of the language is supplied with the analysis of semantic processes (polysemy, synonymy, hyponymy, paronymy) which are described in terms of lexical system development, development of human thinking and cognition, and cultural development.