The metaconcept путь-дорога (way) in the folk fairy tale as an expression of an immutable moral law

Ostrovskaya Ksenia Zurabovna

This article discusses the nuclear metaconcept of a folk fairy tale, namely the concept of “way”. Among other metaconcepts, “way” forms the conceptual field “sacral”, which is fundamental in a folk fairy tale. Drawing a parallel between the characteristics of the sacral as a phenomenon and the categories of the sacral as a conceptual field, the author analyzes how the verbal expression of the concepts that make up the metaconcept “way” explicate its characteristics such as finiteness, discreteness, and inevitability. Using examples from Russian, German, and English fairy tales, the author highlights the general properties of the meta-oncept “way”, considering them in the context of the universal moral law. The metaconcept “way” and the folk fairy tale itself are presented as a means of accumulating and transmitting moral rules, reflecting morality as a characteristic of the phenomenon “sacral”.

Keywords:sacral, folk fairy tale, concept, way, morality.