Explicatives as a form of knowledge representation

The article is devoted to highlighting of the concept of the explicative as a unit of understanding the scientific text, which is new for the theory of language. These units represent progressive intertextuality, due to the novelty of scientific knowledge, being elements of interpretation of the scientific thought. The authors of the article focus on the concept of a representheme, regarded as a model of a concept that has a verbal representation in the form of a special sign. It is noted that the most studied units of understanding are terms, terminological phrases and definitions. The authors work out theoretical foundations for the concept of the explicative taking into account linguistic, communicative and cognitive criteria, describe the research methodology, and develop specific methods for the study of this unit in a text. The methodology includes the development of principles and steps for the analysis of explicatives in a scientific text. Explicatives are included by the authors in a generalized class of units of understanding and are regarded as a means of interpreting scientific knowledge. The characteristics of explicatives are associated with open and unfinished language expressions clarifying the original concept. The concept of explicatives deserves special attention since, unlike logically complete units, they have open, incomplete structures and perform the function of an additional description of the object under consideration. The main conclusion of the study is the suggestion that, being free interpretations, explicatives are more dynamic and less inert than definitions and other complete units. The authors draw conclusions about the role and functions of explicatives in the scientific text and outline prospects for using explicatives in practice.