SOMATIC VOCABLARY AS A REFLECTION OF SPACE PERCEPTION OF THE SELKUPS
Anthropocentric approach is currently very relevant in studying of language and culture. According to this approach the person appears to be the central reference point in measurement and description of objects of the surrounding reality. The question of spatial orientation is not quite studied at the moment in the Selkup culture which owing to its originality is of special interest for consideration. The article is devoted to studying of the above-stated question through the “prism” of a human body. Having carried out the linguistic analysis of names of parts of a human body it has been revealed that a human being is considered to be a focal point in view of the Selkups both in plane (horizontal) division of space and in vertical. Somonims are used by representatives of the Selkup ethnos to describe positions of parts of objects in space. Thus, somatic vocabulary is revealed to denote upper, lower, front, back, side and inner parts of objects. Moreover, some of them changed their grammatical category into postpositions and are currently used to describe the movements against parts of objects having certain position in space, i.e. the movements against the upper, lower, front, back and side parts of objects and the movement oriented inside.