Reference of abstract nouns in the modern German language

The present paper deals with the study of the peculiarities of linguistic reference of abstract nouns in the modern German language, the reference being realized with the help of the article. The authors aim at describing the peculiarities of the realization of the category of article determination with abstract nouns as well as at explaining the uncharacteristic occurrences of the article use determined by the relative transposition of abstract nouns into the semantic group of class nouns. The analysis of the use of abstract nouns with the definite, indefinite, and zero articles has allowed the authors to prove that the specificity of the correlation is determined by the abstraction degree of semantic and formal characteristics of abstract nouns as well as by the mental images the person has while making use of abstract nouns in a particular act of communication.