What is life? Semantic Preliminaries

Abstract

The term used in the title has not so far been the subject of a more extensive linguistic reflection. The author of the paper aims at providing a disciplined description of lexical units containing the segment żyć with respect to their structure and meaning. The method of analysis is based on putting forward hypotheses in the form of analytical implications and subjecting them to falsification by bringing them down to contradiction. The content of the paper focuses on issues relating to reconstruction of the form of lexical units (on the basis of segment and supra-segment signals) and reconstruction of the hierarchy of meaningful components. In close relationship with the content of the analysed terms, also the notions wiedzieć (‘to know’) and robić (‘to do/make’) are discussed. The author tries to prove that those components belong to the semantic structure of the examined phrase; he also proposes a preliminary explication of meanings in the terms of natural semantic meta-language