Distribution of the lexeme «evidence» in English legal discourse

The study of the distribution of terminological units of legal discourse confirms that the context of using professional terms acts not just as a background, but as a filter that cuts off common linguistic meanings and gives the lexeme «evidence» the status of a judicial argument. Within the framework of legal discourse, such a selection of meanings is critically important: it ensures the accuracy of communication and minimizes the risks of misinterpretation in law enforcement practice. The purpose of the study is to identify and describe the patterns of lexical-semantic distribution of the lexeme «evidence» in modern English legal discourse at the junction of distributive and frame semantics. The object of the research is the lexeme «evidence» in the texts of English legal discourse. The subject of the study is the patterns of its lexical-semantic distribution and its frame structure, including scenarios for presenting, evaluating, and challenging evidence. The methodological basis of the study was made up of distributive semantics, based on the principle «the meaning of a word is determined by its environment»; collocability analysis which allows to identify regular combinations of the analyzed lexeme; theory of lexical functions, formalizing syntagmatic connections, as well as frame semantics, which considers meaning through the activation of scenario structures. The scientific novelty of the research lies in an attempt to synthesize distributional analysis with the pragmatic principles of legal discourse, where the semantic content of the lexeme directly depends on the stage of the trial. The study shows that the meaning of the lexeme «evidence» in legal discourse is not static. Its distribution demonstrates a wide compatibility profile, including the abstract concept of «information», as well as the legal concept of «an admissible fact». The «evidence» token allows for a conceptual representation in the form of a procedural-cognitive frame with six core slots: source, presenter, form, standard, evaluation, procedure. Each slot represents a mandatory category of proof qualification, without which the fact cannot be legally recognized as evidence in the procedural sense. The distributive properties of the lexeme «evidence» along the syntagmatic axis and the paradigmatic axis make it possible to identify the lexical-semantic variant that is actualized in the utterance.