https://doi.org/10.31174/SEND-Ph2019-210VII61-12 

The  article deals  with  the  discussion  of  ontological  essence  of  such  mental  formations  as  concepts  which  have  a  deep  diachronic nature and which was laid in the period of formation of primitive pagan worldview of ancient ethnic groups, in particular the Indo- Europeans. Truth, beauty and good also belong to them. The author reveals the essence of the concept as a deep mental construct with a complex network of conceptual features formed by combining various initial semantic features of designated concepts which were formed on the basis of the displaying means of their content of the internal form of concept names. The main attention is fo- cused on the identification of the origins of each individual feature, which objectifies them primarily in the value dimension and re- flects the collective archetypes of the British about a certain concept. Effective methodological algorithm has been developed for the reconstruction  of  these  representations  which  are  retained  and  reflected  in  primary  meanings  of  the  name  of  concept  GOOD  and which constitute his diachronic core. In the article we apply the method of semantic reconstruction to restore primary meanings of lexeme good, in particular semantic transitions in different derivatives, which reach Indo-European and Proto Germanic etymons and demonstrate the connection with the semantic reflexes of other non-Germanic languages. The main primary meanings concern Indo- European roots *ghu-to, *ghut- “that which is invoked” and also Indo-European root *gheu(e)- “to call, invoke” and “divine entity summoned to a sacrifice” with their semantic transitions in Proto Germanic *guthan and then Old Saxon, Old Frisian god, Old High German  got, Gothic guϷ,  Old English gōd and their meanings “supreme being, deity; the Christian God; image of a god; godlike person”. Non Germanic forms correspond with these meanings: Old Slavonic *zъvati, Sanskrit huta- with meaning “to call, invoke” and Ukrainian zvaty, Russian zvat. On the basis of these etymological observations we made an assumption that original symbolics of reconstructed  primary  meanings  can  be  described  as  “divine  entity  summoned  to  the  sacrifice”.  We  hypothetically  conclude  that mentalising of ideas about good occurred during a long historical and evolutionary period, first in the ancient mythological and syn- cretic consciousness of the Indo-Europeans and then Germanic people and it was associated with the performance of the ritual of collective unity for the worship to deities for material welfare which brought them a sense of internal psychological satisfaction and a certain sense of fear in case of disfavor of the gods. Due to the spread of Christianity and the formation of monotheism these ideas are transformed into Old English lexeme gōd “virtuous, pious, divine” person and fixed as ethnic constant of religious and Christian consciousness of the ancient British. Since 13-th century the meaning “merciful person” has developed in semantic structure of gōd, it gives grounds to speak about the acquisition of this concept of moral and ethical characteristics.