mentalnym

Mentalnym is a neologism used in cognitive science and linguistics to describe the practice and study of naming and categorizing mental states in language. It seeks to capture both the internal act of labeling thoughts and feelings and the external expressions by which speakers communicate those states. As a concept, mentalnym focuses on how people construct mental state vocabulary and negotiate meanings, rather than on the states themselves alone.

The term appears in recent discussions within psycho-linguistics and cognitive semantics, often as a descriptive label for how communities lexicalize beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions. It has no formal standard definition and remains a niche, exploratory concept, with varying definitions across studies. Researchers employing mentalnym may analyze cross-linguistic differences in mental-state terminology and how cultural context shapes what counts as a mental state term.

Mentalnym intersects with theory of mind, metacognition, and affective linguistics but is distinguished by its emphasis on linguistic labeling and taxonomy of mental phenomena. It is used as a framework for investigating questions such as how people talk about thinking versus knowing, how emotional terms are recruited in conversation, and how narratives encode mental life.

Critics argue that mentalnym is underdefined and culturally contingent, which can hinder cross-study comparability. Proponents view it as a useful heuristic for tracing how language models human access to mental life, while calling for clearer operational definitions and empirical validation.

See also: Theory of mind, Metacognition, Psycho-linguistics, Emotion terminology, Mental state verbs.