Когнитивная лингвистика как развитие лингвистики формальной

 Linguistics formal mental 
 Condition (how?) comparative contensive
Cause (why?) structural cognitive 
Purpose (what for?) functional conceptology 
From the point of view of conceptology, it is not the notion, as perceived by cognitive linguistics, i.e., it is not the 
operative, the currently identified representation of the conceptum, but its final, fundamental representation in the form of a 
symbol that completes the chain of the consecutive causal development experienced by the component units of the concept, 
which then requires new bases to be found. The new bases, in their turn, are found in the discursive sequence of arbitrarily 
selected texts. “Thought is in essence symbolic... The human is sentient due to his ability for symbolization.” (Benveniste, 
1974, p.29) 
All these approaches are in complementary distribution, and each of them is responsible for its own task. Contensive 
linguistics studies the notional meaning of the texts; cognitive linguistics is interested in the enrichment of the concept with a 
new meaning (new knowledge) given in the discourse; conceptology is trying to unravel the substantive mystery of the concept 
through its primary meaning.
Thus, here we have described the development in the science of language (the basis - what?) within two traditional 
branches of linguistics – formal and cognitive, working in the process of cognition in order to obtain accurate and reliable 
knowledge. The aggregate answer to all four questions of the Aristotelian causes, described in terms of the semantic constant, 
projects the acceptable development paths for contemporary linguistics. Ultimately, the logical sequence in the change of 
linguistic forms is given as an approximation towards understanding the essence of the living language in its anthropocentric 
dimension. The “three waves” of formal linguistics in their analytical dualism have been replaced with the “three waves” of 
cognitive linguistics in the synthetic unity of meanings. There has been a change in the research approach: from the passive 
“language” of the listener to the active “language” of the speaker.
The semantic constant can be constructed in the following way. 
Contensive linguistics as the condition 
Mental linguistics Cognitive linguistics as the cause 
as the basis
Conceptology as the purpose 
Thus, tentatively speaking, the first wave of research determined the mental component of the linguistic sign in cognition; 
the second wave developed conditions for the enrichment of this sign with new knowledge; the third wave identified the 
“starter mechanism” for the increase of new knowledge in consciousness (in the neural connections of the brain or in the 
hidden conceptum). From this standpoint, the described “waves” in the development of American linguistics correspond to the 
following “waves” of Russian linguistics: the first wave corresponds to contensive linguistics with its notional categories; the 
second wave corresponds to cognitive linguistics with its interest in the metaphor; the thirds wave corresponds to conceptology 
with its focus on the mental mechanisms that start the notional forms of the concept, and in our case – the conceptum. Thus, 
three paradigms are formed, each consisting of three components: formal linguistics (the what-linguistics, the basis) is 
represented by comparative linguistics (the how-linguistics, the condition), structuralism (the why-linguistics, the cause) and 

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functional linguistics (the what-for-linguistics, the purpose). In mental linguistics (what?), these formal components find their 
correspondence in contensive linguistics - in cognition (the condition, how?), cognitive linguistics - in knowledge (the cause,