Lexico-grammatical specifics of the nominations of fantastic birds in Russian linguaculture

Abstract

The problems of the proper noun in linguistics are ambiguously understood, which is due to the different interpretation of the content of the onym: some scientists deny the existence of a meaning (concept and signification) of the proper noun; others believe that the knowledge stored in the human mind is behind the onyms. The relevance of the article is based on the lack of works on the specifics of the lexical and grammatical semantics of the names of fantastic birds that have been functioning in Russian linguistic culture for a long time, such as Alkonost, Gamayun, Harpy, Vulture, Griffin, Firebird, Sirin, Siren, Phoenix. The object of study is the lexical and grammatical semantics of nominations of fantastic birds characteristic of Russian linguaculture, and the focus is the peculiarities of the lexical and grammatical semantics of these nominations. Russian dictionary definitions of these lexemes and a selection of texts including these nominations from the National Corpus of the Russian Language served as the material. The following methods were used: component analysis, the method of definitional analysis of dictionary entries, the comparative method, the method of contextual analysis. Based on the study of the meanings and uses of the nominations of fantastic birds and their functioning in direct, symbolic and metaphorical meanings, the author identifies the features of their lexical and grammatical semantics, determines that the content of these onyms changes the content and the ratio of the significative and denotative components: in some contexts they narrow their extensional, in others they expand the intensional; they are also able to develop ambiguity and acquire connotations. Within the framework of the substantive quantitative category of numbers in the grammatical semantics of the studied onyms, their approximation to common words, either concrete or abstract, occurs. In general, in speech practice, there is a continuality of the content of the nominations of fantastic birds within the oppositions “concreteness – conceptuality” and “uniqueness – multiplicity”, and a transformation of the onym as a classical index into a conditional sign (iconic or symbolic), the proper name is filled with generalized linguistic information, which is then often fixed by dictionaries. In general, the material allows the author to conclude that the studied group of proper nouns, due to the cultural load acquired over the centuries of its existence in Russian culture, occupies a special place in the continuum of a proper noun – a common noun.