The role of the alternative relation in cognition and the disjunctive conjunctions as a means of its verbalization

Abstract

The cognitive processes of the human mind are not perceived directly, the information about them can be received through the analysis of their representation in the language means. The article is devoted to the cognitive study of the English syntactic structures with the disjunctive conjunctions used in speech, in the contextual environment. The inherent meaning of alternative which these conjunctions possess is modified under the influence of the lexical-grammatical context. It makes the English syntactic structures containing these conjunctions applicable not only for the description of the situation of choice, but also for the depiction of the situations of deficient knowledge, alternation, distribution, motivation. Due to the neutralization of the inherent meaning of the conjunctions in the context the constructions which contain them can convey in English such mental operations as enumeration, approximation and addition. The analysis of English syntactic structures with the conjunctions reveals the cognitive work of the human mind. The results of the research are useful for the English language acquisition as the syntactic structures with the disjunctive conjunctions help the speaker to achieve the variety of communicative goals.