The resources of the semiotic conceptualization provide for the solution of some problems of speech-and-gesture interaction[2]. The main results of the project are (a) the description of different properties of somatic objects – those that are reflected both in verbal and nonverbal signs, sequences of signs or composite speech-and-gesture utterances; (b) the exploration of linguistic names, or nominations of somatic objects, basically of their semantics and pragmatics, as well as of idiomatic expressions involving them; (c) the classification and explanation of certain peculiarities of corporeal behavior of interlocutors in dialogues; (d) the characterization of general mechanisms and statement of some rules that regulate the behavior of Russian speakers in different types of oral discourse; (e) the description of certain regularities in co-functioning of units that belong either to the Russian language or to the Russian body language in different types of communicative acts.
In this paper we will examine only one property of the somatic objects, i.e. their ability to form a pair[3]. This property is widely reflected in most natural languages familiar to us and particularly in the Russian language. We will introduce the notions of biological pair and semiotic pair of somatic objects and discuss some typical Russian units which name somatic objects combined in a pair. We will further generalize the notion of semiotic pair up to the notion of semiotic group of somatic objects and outline some markers of semiotic groups in the Russian language.
1. The notion of biological pairs of somatic objects
We generally say that objects (properties, events, situations, etc.) form a pair when there are two of them and alongside with that they are regarded as a single whole. Shoulders, arms, legs, nostrils (unlike nose!), etc. – all of them are combined in pairs, because anatomically and physiologically they consist of two parts with similar structure and functions. These parts naturally form a biological pair, which can also be evident from their appearance.
Biological pairs are often combined by objects of other kind, i. e. heart, brain, kidneys and some others. The feature common for all these objects is that we learn that they are a biological pair in the process of education and getting specific knowledge. Such information is not perceptual (as it is in case of shoulders, arms and legs), but intellectual, or cognitive. That the heart contains the left and the right auricle, the brain consists of the left and the right hemisphere and the kidneys are both on the left and on the right – all these facts are more likely to be part of a scientific picture of world than the naïve ideas of corporeality. The ordinary, unsophisticated Russian speakers do not know that, for example, lungs and kidneys consist of certain parts which are biologically important, which explains why the Russian words legkije (‘lungs’) and pochki (‘kidneys’) are used in the plural form much more often than in the singular (regarding everyday conversations). Lungs and kidneys are complex objects, but in everyday life people rarely happen to name their parts. The necessity of naming them appears only in exceptional cases, i. e. health checking procedures, feeling unwell and illness, being wounded, etc. Thus, the collocations levoje/pravoje legkoje (‘left/right lung’) or levaja/pravaja pochka (‘left/right kidney’) are almost unfamiliar to the everyday language and belong to the medical lexicon.