ТОЖДЕСТВО КАК ЯВЛЕНИЕ И РУССКАЯ ЯЗЫКОВАЯ КАТЕГОРИЯ

It’s common for people to compare and relate facts of the world around, events, situations, properties of objects, or the changes that happen to them. The comparison is performed by means of language and is reflected in speech. The conclusion about the identity, i.e. equivalence of objects, characteristics, actions, circumstances is necessary and important for the evaluation of real situations, world cognition, and man’s orientation in it. The notion of “identity” is very important not only in the Russian linguistic picture of the world, because it corresponds to three stages of object cognition: singling out, identification, and classification. N.D. Arutunova formulates the nature of identity as a linguistic phenomenon: “The Russian language tries to somehow formally differentiate names that are part of sentences of identity from each other, reveal their communicative inequality” [2, P. 318].

The interpretation of the word “identity” in Russian lexicography is rather ambiguous. We have different approaches to this notion. From Aristotle on, many researchers assume that only singular things, which are “one in number”, possess identity. The opposite approach can be found in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by D.N. Ushakov, where identity is defined as “a state when two or more objects or phenomena under comparison appear to be the same, quite similar, or absolutely alike” [9, P. 724]. Thus, two major kinds of identity are defined: the identity of the object in relation to itself and the identity between different objects. The condition of identity is matching of concepts of one kind and “scope” (in the functional and/or logical sense), i.e. their semantic, categorical, and generic correlativity. Contrariwise, the conclusion about identity is impossible in case of modal context, reported speech, when a name is used without a referent, when mutual substitution of the names of the subject and the object tells on the content and understanding of the utterance, and when identification is based on the class to which the object belongs.

Identification as a logical operation can perform two functions: explanatory, when the first component is not informative for the addressee; and specifying, when the first component contains sufficient information, but with the lack of knowledge about certain equivalence, the information turns out to be imprecise.

Many Russian linguists resorted to the notion of “identity” when analyzing language processes. V.V. Vinogradov was the first to point out the categorical meaning of identity in his work “The Russian Language: Grammatical Studies on the Word.”  This meaning was noted, among other, in the particle же: “The postpositive identifying particle же seems to link to demonstrative particles in such combination as тот же, туда же, там же, тогда же, etc. It links to pronominal words by means of agglutination” [4, P. 668]. The distinguished Russian scholar did not only define the notion, but showed the means by which it is formed. The next stage in the definition of the category of identity was description of language forms aimed at expressing the meaning of identity. A.A. Shakhmatov introduced the term “sentences of identity” to characterize two-member uncoordinated sentences like “Нестор – отец русской истории” [10, P. 150]. These are special constructions characterizing the subject by means of identifying it through somebody or something, equating it to somebody or something, referring it to the known, to a class of coordinated/homogeneous objects or phenomena [7, P. 279]. The categorical meaning of identity has been interpreted in the “Dictionary of Linguistic Terms” by O.S. Akhmanova: “Functional community, belonging to the same invariant, the unity of different specific representations of the invariant based on belonging” [3, P. 476]. We come across the term “the category of identity” in P.A. Lekant’s article “The Problem of the Category of Identity in the Russian Language” [5, P. 5].

We believe that the list of formal indicators, or “markers of identity” (the term introduced by P.A. Lekant), and constructions of identity should be extended. To the means of forming identity we should refer the linking word есть, the pronoun это and some conjunctive combinations: только и … что, если… то, что… если не, никто… как, что…так только. The criteria for singling out constructions of identity should be the following: 1) binary structure; 2) the meaning of similarity or invariability of identified/equivalent components; 3) present (or implied) formal indicators of identity. The formal indicators of identity characterize syntactic units of all levels: simple sentences, complicated sentences, composite sentences, texts. Among the syntactic units we can single out simple not complicated sentences with homogeneous objects, attributes, adverbial modifiers; complicated sentences with two-member explanatory constructions, where the explanatory component is identical to the component that is explained; pseudo-composite sentences with detached constructions where the structural and semantic identity serves to foreground a component of an utterance; complex sentence with attributive subordinate clauses that are semantically identical to subjects or predicatives of the main clauses expressed by pronouns; supra-phrasal units with semantically or structurally identical components.

Analyzing various approaches to the classification of identity types, we attempt to create an ordered binary scheme. This principle of classification is used by A.M. Peshkovsky, who maintains that in explanatory sentences of identity “a speaker focuses on the meaning of a separate word making linguistic self-observations in the process of speech production… According to the speaker, they denote the everlasting equality of a word and its true sense. These are ideal sentences of identity ” [6, P. 271-272]. Thus, speaking about “pure”, “complete”, “ideal”, “not complicated” identity which, we believe, denotes self-identity, we should also speak about “partial” and “complicated” identity, which has been and still is a debatable issue. Sentences with complicated identity are widely spread. Two unequal images acquire certain points of contact, certain identical details. Having points of contact these unequal images correlate, which can serve as a proof of their identity and equality.

To interpret the term identity in a more profound way, we should assess the similarities and differences between identical and similar (though not identical) terms. The analysis of dictionary entries explains why these concepts overlap. The dictionary by D.N. Ushakov defines the word “identical” as “similar, alike, resembling”, which shows that we can use the word “identical” to denote both things that are absolutely alike and things that have resembling features. The dictionary edited by A.P. Eugenyeva maintains that identity is complete sameness of objects and phenomena or correspondence of one thing to another [8, P. 373]. N.D. Arutunova believes that the fact that explanatory dictionaries provide ambiguous definitions for the concepts of identity, similarity, and resemblance can be accounted for by the fact that “these words function in various spheres: denotative (existential), significative (intentional), material, and ideal. The concepts of identity and similarity can refer both to objects and to their characteristics (in a wide sense). In the first case these concepts cannot be treated synonymously, while in the second case they can be used as synonymous terms [1, P. 297]. Thus, a special research is required to assess the differences and similarities of the concepts of identity, similarity, and resemblance. Another important issue is the semantic scope of the concepts of identity and identification. The two concepts should be treated as a process and its result. Logically correlating some objects, one compares, identifies, opposes, explains, and so on. The identity of correlated objects acquires significance. Logical identity presupposes that a subject, object, action or characteristic is self-identical. Grammatical identity covers a larger scope of meanings, it relies on linguistic markers, such as category and grammatical peculiarities. Identification is more general than logical identity, for the former includes various stages, such as assessing the reasons for identity and concluding whether the compared objects are identical or not.

Thus, logical identity is implemented in speech as a general linguistic category by means of various linguistic means.