The Conceptual Background of Semantic Research on the Croatian Church Slavonic Lexis of Sensitiveness

There are three paradigms in the field of human cognitive-affective dynamics recognized in Western science: the paradigm of emotions, the paradigm of feelings, and the paradigm of passions and affect. On the basis of modern psychology, a number of contemporary cognitive semanticists (e.g. Lakoff, Kovecses) presume that the concept of emotions is universal. A. Wierzbicka suggests that feeling, and not emotion, is a universal concept. She distinguishes between non-cognitive feelings (e.g. hunger, thirst) and cognitive feelings (e.g. joy, anger). The paradigm of passions and affect is typical of medieval Christianity. It is best represented by Thomas Aquinas (ST 1a.2ae.22-48) and widely neglected in contemporary scientific disciplines. Croatian Church Slavonic (abbr. CCS) is an idiom primarily used for liturgical purposes in medieval Croatia (with documents dating from XII to XVI c.). Two features of the CCS lens of sensitiveness can help in determing the most appropriate paradigm of mental-affective dynamics for the semantic description and interpretation of that lexis: cognitivity and morality. On that basis, the paradigm of passions and affect is shown to be the most appropriate one since it is marked by both features (i.e. cognitivity and morality), unlike the paradigm of emotion (which is amoral by definition and does not always take into account cognitive aspects of human mental-affective dynamics) or the paradigm of feelings (which is too vague in the field of the morality of human mental-affective dynamics).