Concepts of sovereignty in semantic derivation

“Sovereignty” as a unit of language is rapidly beginning to fill a variety of semantic niches, while appearing in qualitatively different semantic statuses. Traditionally, the terminology of sovereignty is linked to its state, people’s and national versions, with the dichotomy of supremacy and independence, with the widespread taxonomy of S. Krasner (1) internal sovereignty of public authority in interaction with society; 2) international sovereignty as an international legal principle; 3) “Westphalian” sovereignty as equality of players in international politics; 4) sovereignty of interdependence as the ability of the state to control transboundary flows). In the current public information space, nominations related to sovereignty (more broadly – the properties of sovereignty) penetrate into a wide variety of subject areas. In the so- called “extralegal” meanings and phrases – with regard to political, cultural, technological, epistemological, virtual objects – in the form of concepts, or (in contrast to terms in the strict sense) – formations with open possibilities of multiple interpretations, with expressed subjective principles. Here, new contour schemes, conceptual frames, semantic formations emerge. Numerous derivatives begin to grow from the common root prototype. Sovereignty in political-linguistic communication ceases to be perceived as something self-evident, self-referential. Concepts appearing in abundance (in contrast to legally strict categories) appear in various semantic positions, taking on reversible subject-predicate roles. Along with political and legal terms, there appear concepts-experiences, concepts-events, conventionally loaded symbols and, finally, emblems of ideological dispositions. This process of proliferation of semantic nuances and variants of word usage is marked by its stages and occurs in various modes. Semantic derivation is organized according to the rules of regularity, logically consistently, and generates hierarchical structures of derivatives in their linearity. In another version, new concepts can appear outside of a certain usage. Rather, they are characterized by sporadicity, kaleidoscopic situationality, are used outside of the generally accepted meaning, multiply rhizomatically, penetrating into contexts that seem to be unrelated to each other. Such a mode of semantic derivation is characterized as occasional, or conditioned by individual cases. Depending on this, concepts of sovereignty serve diverse purposes.

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