LA MOTIVAZIONE DEI NOMI PER ‘LEGGE’ E ‘DIRITTO’ IN ALCUNE LINGUE D’EUROPA

This contribution aims to describe some semantic components that characterise words used to denote law. For the most part, these characteristics are language-specific and do not appear to be relevant to the understanding of a text. The comparison of structures that are organised in different ways according to the language considered can, however, serve to reconstruct a web of relationships between words that proves crucial for placing law within the constituent practices of a cultural tradition. Words help to organise intellectual experience on the basis of perceived physical reality, so that a language can be considered a 'folk model' of the world.