The nominative field of the WOMEN’S CLOTHING concept as an object of study in diachronic conceptology (based on the French language)

The aim of the study is to establish the structure of the nominative field of the WOMEN’S CLOTHING concept in the French language and to examine its changes from a diachronic perspective. The article explores the etymons of women’s clothing nomenclature in French from the medieval period onward. The main focus is on the methods of the semasiological and onomasiological approaches, as well as etymological analysis, which reveals the dynamics of content and categorical structure of the concept within various cultural and historical epochs. The clothing vocabulary in the French language has only been the subject of investigation in a limited number of works, predominantly from a synchronic perspective. The study is novel in that it is the first one to consider the process of clothing nomenclature formation in French from a diachronic perspective taking into account external factors linked to cultural-historical and socio-aesthetic conditions. As a result of the study, it has been found that the nominative field of the WOMEN’S CLOTHING concept in the French language constitutes a complex hierarchical category, reflecting the centuries-old experience and knowledge of its speakers. The structure of the category is characterized by a multitude and diversity of interrelations among its elements, including hierarchical relationships between units of different levels of abstraction, as well as associative links between elements of the same level based on similar attributes. This indicates the prototypical nature of the category and its deep-rootedness in the conceptual system of the French language.