Chapter I. Language analysis in cognitive linguistics

2.2. Cognitive features of compounds
From the standpoint of cognitive linguistics, linguistic phenomena are considered as reflections of cognitive processes aimed at conceptualization and categorization of the world around us. Actual topics of numerous domestic and foreign cognitive studies are the processes of production and understanding of natural language, types of conceptual structures and their language representations, cognitive semantic categories, expression of spatial relations in language. We will try to highlight only some of the provisions of cognitive linguistics that are directly related to the cognitive study of compounds.
If it is necessary to designate a new reality from the point of view of the potential of the mental lexicon, there are the following main options:

1. 
   to create a completely new word ex nihilo; form a new meaning for an already existing word;
   
2. 
   to form a new word from the word-formation means existing in the language (the process of word formation itself).
   

These models differ in varying degrees of productivity.
However, as D. Aitchison notes, even these words can be called new only in part, since they follow the combinations of sounds accepted in the language, the number of which is limited³⁷. The second way - the formation of a new meaning for an already existing word - is very productive. Although a lot of experience has been accumulated to date in studying the cognitive aspects of polysemy, research into the cognitive foundations of this phenomenon is actively continuing. There has been an increased need to study the mechanisms of word formation itself from a cognitive point of view, the most common of which at the present stage of development of the English language are compounding, conversion and affixation³⁸.
Cognitive linguistics considers linguistic meanings as conditioned by all human cognitive experience and the knowledge structures it creates. However, no less important, as E.S. Kubryakov, is that the meanings are directly related to those linguistic forms in which they are embodied and which show exactly how this or that meaning is “structured”³⁹. Most designations are born in modern languages in acts of word formation: the main burden in the creation of new conventional signs falls precisely on word formation with its inherent word-formation models that provide examples of “packing” new content into known forms.
The purpose of the word-formation system is not only to store information and provide access to it. It contains this information in an ordered form and therefore offers examples of cognitive processing and sorting of information, and also contributes to the division of information incoming to a person according to some canonical or prototypical forms of its linguistic representation. Derived vocabulary is a huge array from which, if necessary, some ready-made nomination units can be extracted, and at the same time such a database that provides speakers of this language with schemes for connecting certain knowledge structures with certain word-formation constructions, word-formation modeling mechanisms, procedures for processing new data, etc.
It is important to note that the process of forming a new word using ready-made word-formation tools begins with an analysis of patterns existing in the language system, i.e., first, a search is made for prototypical models expressing similar semantic relations/associations identified during the initial analysis of the concept. In recent years, studies have begun to appear within the framework of cognitive derivatology, one way or another related to the problems of neology. In particular, the work of Yu.F. Sukhopleshchenko, made in line with cognitive linguistics and dedicated to the study of lexical neoplasms in the English language.
The analysis of non-codified lexical units created according to typical word-formation models or with their violation and called "actual derivatives" is considered as a promising direction in the field of the theory of nomination and allows, according to the author, to analyze real nominative acts of word-formation order. In the course of the study, Yu.F. Sukhopleshchenko comes to the conclusion that “since a lexical neoplasm is a unit that has no precedent in the language system, it is logical to assume that its meaning corresponds not to one ready-made frame, but to a complex cognitive structure created ad hoc on the basis of various types of information”⁴⁰. A similar approach to the derived word can be traced in the currently developed psycholinguistic concept of neology, which introduces the concept of the internal microcontext of a new word. This term refers to the totality of information that is carried by the formal structural characteristics of a word that generate certain relationships of a given unit with other units of an individual lexicon, including those of a figurative and situational nature. Thus, a compound word is already a miniature context in which a figurative vision of the world can be realized.
The purpose of this paragraph was to highlight the main aspects of the cognitive study of word formation, however, it is necessary to make an important remark about the fact that in the process of creating a new word, along with cognitive factors, pragmatic factors are involved. The process largely depends on such parameters of a broad pragmatic context as the social and professional status of the speakers, gender, ethnicity, etc. groups. In addition, there are intralinguistic stimuli for the formation of new words, among which are the action of the generative function of the language system, the tendency towards language economy and semantic regularity, as well as the desire of speakers to break linguistic automatism.
The main volume of words with cognitive meaning is formed in a suffixal way from the verb (abnegation <- abnegate, arrangement <- arrange, etc.). The most widely represented suffix is ion (37% of all lexical units). With the help of this suffix, nouns were formed from the stem of the verb, denoting:

1. 
   ways of conscious activity: deduction, introspection, clarification, distribution;
   
2. 
   - results of thinking: conception, supposition, assumption.
   

About 15% of English cognitive nouns have the -ness suffix. These nouns have the meaning "the state, quality of the mental activity of the individual." Most often they are formed from the corresponding cognitive adjectives (dull - dullness, foolish - foolishness, inventive - inventiveness, silly - silliness, shrewd - shrewdness, etc). Among the least often represented suffixes with the studied group of nouns, we can single out the suffix –ing (thinking, ranking). This suffix has li 2% of nouns. With the help of the suffix -ing, nouns were formed from verb stems, denoting: - process or action: learning; - specific result of the action: ranking, grouping. The percentage of such nouns in general in the language is not large, their forms coincide with the corresponding verbal gerund forms and participle forms, due to which a certain difficulty in their differentiation is revealed (the main criterion is fixation in dictionaries). A number of cognitive noun words (namely 7%) were formed using the verb−> noun conversion.
Conversion means a functional change primarily, i.e. changing the usual syntactic functioning. Most of the words related to vocabulary with cognitive meaning, which are formed from verbs with the help of conversion, entered the language in the XIV - early XV centuries, i.e. during the absorption of everything new, active foreign borrowing, especially from the French language. In general, conversion has been characteristic of the English language since the 13th century; this method of word formation appeared as a result of the collapse of the inflectional system.
Closer to the 15th century, the volume of words formed with the help of conversion begins to decline due to the appearance of a large number of borrowings from the French language of nouns and verbs. Among the words that entered the English language during this period are the following lexical units: to search (v) ->search (n), to surmise (v) -> surmise (n) and a number of other words. Let's focus on vocabulary. Cases of the formation of lexical units with a cognitive meaning in this way are quite rare (3% of the total number of nouns). The bulk of such words include units that entered the English language only not earlier than the 19th century, while the cognitive meaning of these words stood out only in the 20th century. For example, the word "breakout" appeared in the language in the 1820s, and in the meaning of 'analysis' entered the language in the late 1950s. The history of another word, "breakdown", has been going on since the 14th century (meaning - a situation in which something has failed or is beginning to fail). From 1825-1835s. the lexical unit began to be used as a term applicable to machine production ('a situation in which a machine or vehicle stops working'), and in the meaning of 'an analysis or classification of something; division into processes, categories’ the word entered the English language only from the 1930s.
Around the same time, the word also acquired a connotation of meaning characteristic of medical terminology: 'nervous breakdown' (nervous breakdown) dates back to 1905. Today, this way of wording (verb + postposition) is one of the fastest developing in English language. In recent decades, these are mostly words marked as the American version, often limited by the age parameter (more common among young scientists).
Some lexicologists tend to classify such words as neologisms. Such cases of word formation as reversion, contraction and compounding for cognitive nouns are not indicative (less than 2% of the studied nouns have these word formation methods).
However, the fact that 22% of nouns are non-derivative draws attention. This can be explained by the fact that English cognitive nouns represent a separate (separate) lexical layer that began to form in the Old English period, and many of the nouns of this group continue to develop until today. It is noteworthy that for words that have a tinge of cognition not in their original meaning, but acquired it in the process of language development (i.e. as a result of homonymy or polysemy), this meaning is usually the last one that has appeared today. This probably confirms the fact that the science of intelligence at this stage of human development is gaining more and more weight in the world, since every year it seeks to more clearly reveal the hidden reserves of the human brain, increase the productivity of intellectual labor, and teach a person to think in a new way.

3.