ETYMOLOGY OF LATIN AND UKRAINIAN NAMES OF CULTIVATED PLANTS

Abstract

Plant names are a special thematic group of vocabulary, the formation of which continued at various historical stages of the development of society. Despite the rather powerful domestic tradition of phytonym research, a group of names of cultivated plants remains outside the attention of scientists. The aim of the article is to define the etymology of Latin and Ukrainian names of cultivated plants, to determine the types and mechanisms of motivation of phytonyms, to reconstruct nomination motivators. The research used the etymological analysis of phytonyms and the comparative method, the material was 20 binomial names of cultivated plants. As a result of the study, it was found that the process of naming cultivated plants in Latin and Ukrainian is based on the mechanisms of propositional-dictum and associative-metaphorical motivation. The results confirm the conclusions of modern cognitive studies that in the process of plant nomination, priority is given to propositional-dictum motivation, which records true knowledge about the object of nomination in the onomasiological structure of the name. Since the names of plants are one of the oldest layers of the vocabulary, it is not always possible to define the etymology of the word, especially in Latin, where a significant part of plant names is borrowed through Greek from ancient languages, which are considered the original source. The reconstruction of the motivators of many Latin words is in the polemic field of modern researchers and remains hypothetical. Propositional-dictum motivation is dominated by the predicative-argumental kind with various motivators, the most productive of which are qualitative, destinative and partitative. Associative-terminal motivation in the names of cultivated plants is represented by various models, the most productive of which are sign transfers from the donor zones HUMAN, ANIMAL, NATURAL FACT and ARTIFACT.