A fragment of the dialectical linguistic image of the world which represents
the concept of the human intellect is linguistically manifested through the
lexical-semantic subfield of abilities, which with the subfields of
temperament and character completes the lexical-semantic field of human
psychological characteristics and gives a more comprehensive account of the
psychological profile of the Prizren dialectical persona. Within the
lexical-semantic subfield of abilities we identify two parameters for the
classification of lexemes, one in the field of intellectual and one in the
field of psychomotor abilities. The lexical paradigm, based on semantic
fields theory, is represented as a system of units organized into smaller
lexical groups: the LSG of adjectives with the hyperseme ?intellectual
abilities? and the LSG of adjectives with the hyperseme ?psychomotor
abilities?. The human intellectual abilities are primarily reflected in the
smart - dumb opposition. The set of units used to represent the negative
sphere of human intellectual abilities is disproportionately broader in
comparison to the lexical groups whose constituents have a more positive
connotation. The constituents of the lexical-semantic subfield abilities
combine elements from the intellectual sphere of the human psyche (smart,
sensible, wise, able, skillful, agile, resourceful, quickwitted, sharp; dumb,
imprudent, distracted, foolish, witless, crazy, insane). Here we can clearly
see the distinction between the opposites smart - dumb and smart - crazy,
while on the negative axis we can note the gradual transition from a mental
state into a psychological state (dumb - crazy; crazy - dumb). The number of
lexical features which can be used to mark the human intellectual capacity,
the choice of the lexeme used to mark a man as a bearer of these features,
and the high production of expressives in the domain of human intellectual
characterization indicate that the principles of the intellect have a
significant role to play in the understanding of the conceptualization of an
individual among various speakers of a particular dialect.
The lexical-semantic representation of the concept of abilities in the dialectical linguistic image of the world (the case adjectives of the Serbian speech of Prizren)