Character’s train of thought (based on A.P. Chekhov’s story “My life”)

The article is dedicated to the train of thought of A.P. Chekov's short story “My Life” main character Misail Poloznev. It is analyzed as a component describing his personality, reflecting his world and reality perception and thus causing his decisions and behavior. The aim of the article is to prove that the main means to express the character's train of thought is his verbal lexicon which is analyzed by the authors from the point of view of semantic structure including integral and differential semes. The authors focus on the analysis of verbal language having semantic structure including integral and differential semes, which is the main vehicle for expressing train of thoughts. The article covers usage of 83 thought verbs which play the important role of sense making as part of the main character's individual consciousness implementation. The analysis performed allows conclude that through a diversity of implemented semes, the writer shows how maturely the character perceives reality, as well as power of his behavioral system.

train of thought, discourse of thought, verbal language, integral seme, differential seme, sense-making function, individual consciousness