Proverbs with nomological semantics in the Karelian language

The relevance of the study is due to the intensifi cation of the studies on proverb semantics from cognitive and linguacultural perspectives. The study was aimed at identifying and describing proverbs with nomological semantics and their ethnocultural content in the Karelian language. The research material included the latest collection of Karelian proverbs Karjalazet sananpolvet da sananpiät = Karjalaiset šananlaškut ta šananpolvet (2019) compiled by V. G. Makarov. The study was conducted using methods of cognitive-semantic differentiation of proverbs according to the criterion of “attitude to reality” and linguacultural analysis. The study found that 4.5 % of proverbs in the Karelian language have nomological semantics (express empirical laws of nature and society directly or indirectly). According to the categorical-objective focus in refl ecting the surrounding reality, nomological proverbs can be classifi ed into anthropic, natural, and combinatorial ones. Nomological proverbs with anthropic content prevail in the Karelian language. At the same time, a relatively small number of nomological proverbs refl ecting mainly natural codes of culture are ethnoculturally marked, which indicates the nature-centric focus of that part of the Karelian proverbial picture of the world that represents the laws of reality.