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Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 26:1 (2026) ► pp.55–84

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Ways of knowing in Slavic

Towards a comparative history of ideas

ORCiD logo with link | LMU Munich, Germany
Published online: 19 May 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00055.son
Abstract
Expanding on Carl Buck’s insight that the history of ideas is closely tied to the history of the words expressing them, this paper traces the interaction of language, culture and cognition on the example of the concept know and its lexification in Slavic, based on a sample of diachronically and synchronically aligned translations of the New Testament. Two exploratory analyses of the lexical preferences, the domains of conceptual transfer and their perceptual bases reveal characteristic differences in the choice of lexical means, slightly less for the underlying conceptual mappings and for their perceptual bases. The patterns disclosed do not correlate with the branches of Slavic, nor do they display a clear historical signal. Instead, they suggest a correlation with the cultural history of the New Testament translations. The results illustrate the relevance of a more-dimensional approach when comparing the lexical layer of languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The concept know
  • 3.Data
    • 3.1The New Testament as a parallel corpus
    • 3.2Data preparation
      • 3.2.1Contexts
      • 3.2.2Annotation
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Correspondences
      • 4.1.1Lexical expression
      • 4.1.2Conceptual sources
      • 4.1.3Perceptual bases
    • 4.2Clustering
      • 4.2.1General picture
      • 4.2.2Lexical expression
      • 4.2.3Conceptual sources
      • 4.2.4Perceptual bases
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Correspondences
    • 5.2Clustering
    • 5.3Prospects
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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