A special case of anthroponyms-giving based on idiotisms in Ewe: examination of language facts in the creation of proper names of persons and their semantic interpretations

Abstract

This study concerns onomastics and focuses on a particular aspect of the attribution of anthroponyms among the Ewe people. Its objective is to attest that among the Ewe there are anthroponyms based on idiomatic phrases and, then, to show the necessary measures for their semantic interpretations. Speaking of idioms in this work means to highlight the phrases or expressions specific to Ewe language that can be used as proper nouns of persons. We point out in passing that idioms are fixed forms of discourse specific to a given language. After a general overview of the possible meanings of idioms according to different points of view of the authors, the research focused on the cases of their use in the anthroponyms-giving process among the Ewe. This work has revealed that to understand the meaning of the anthroponyms created on the basis of idioms, the researcher must first know these Ewe idioms, in their primary form, since their interpretation still does not illustrate exactly what they may signify in another language. The semantic interpretation of the anthroponym based on an idiom does not depend on the addition of the meanings of the lexemes composing it taken separately, but rather on all the items considered as a whole. The meaning always depends on the prior knowledge of idioms in the language. This amounts to saying that the assortment of lexemes forming an idiom in the creation of an Ewe anthroponym is a conglomeration of items falling back on a specific meaning already stabilized in the language. As a result, these anthroponyms have a denoted meaning in Ewe and to understand them it is therefore necessary to learn the idioms of the language. The results of the study revealed to us that there is a plethora of anthroponyms created on the basis of idioms among the Ewe The theoretical framework of reference for this research is mainly based on the theory of the naming function and particularly that of the degree of referential strength of the proper name as defined by Kleiber (1981 and 1984) for the semantic interpretation of the proper names of persons.