On the semantic potential of the lexemes “marei” and “saiws” in the gothic language

This article aims to analyze the semantic potential of the Gothic lexemes “marei” and “saiws” denoting such water objects as “a sea” and “a lake”. The lexemes are known to be synonymic units in Gothic written records. As far as the semantic potential is concerned, it may be described as a quantitative property of the semantic structure of a word having a certain volume of lexical meanings. There exists syncretism as a special feature in the semantic structure of these lexemes. In the article we understand the difference in the semantic potentials of these lexemes as a quantitative ratio of their lexical volumes in accord with the law of distribution, or Bréal’s law.