FEATURES OF A FANTASTIC CHRONOTOPOS AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE DIFFUSE NATURE OF THE SACRAL: AS EXEMPLIFIED IN RUSSIAN, GERMAN, AND ENGLISH FOLK FAIRY TALES

Abstract

The anthropological approach in modern linguistics prioritizes the study of such a multifaceted phenomenon as the national conceptual sphere, the formation of which initially occurs under the influence of pre-scientific ideas about the surrounding reality. Thus, the focus is on the phenomenon of the Sacral, which forms the basis (central conceptual field) of folk fairy tales. One of the fundamental features of the Sacral is diffuseness, that is blurring of boundaries between its components and, consequently, between concepts in the conceptual field of the Sacral. After analyzing numerous sources in Russian, English and German, the author concludes that in folk fairy tales the diffuse nature of the sacred is most clearly manifested in the spatio-temporal organization of the narrative, designated as a fantastic chronotopos. The fantastic chronotopos is a “supporting frame” of a fairy tale and is characterized by an ambiguous relationship between time and space. As the author shows, the means of verbalizing a fantastic chronotopos are traditional folk-tale formulas, however, the existing classifications of such formulas cannot be called universal. According to the author, the consideration of traditional folk-tale formulas in the context of the diffuseness of time and space in a fairy tale can create a universal classification. To confirm his point of view, the author examines the initial formulae of existence and time, showing how the approach from the point of view of diffuseness allows to modify the generally accepted classification of traditional folk-tale formulas, making it more universal.