“Husband” Designations: A Classification of Nomination Models (In the Linguo-Semantic Field of Eurasia)

Abstract

The present article offers the first section of a collective study devoted to identifying the basic models of designating the notion of “husband, spouse”. The study is based on textual and lexicographical data, as well as that stored in databases of semantic shifts (CLICS and DatSemShift). The paper analyzes synonymous denominations of “husband” in different language strata and concludes that there is an unusual abundance of “parallel” designations (in contrast with other terms of kinship). The empirical data comes mainly from languages of Europe (both Indo-European and belonging to other language families), as well as from Uralic and Dravidian languages, including also other linguistic material with additional comparative value. A comparative analysis of the corresponding semantic shifts in the aforementioned databases has provided the article with colexification graphs. In the course of research, general models of the nomination of “husband” were identified and described, partly based on the specifics of archaic marriage law, namely the unequal status of “husband” and “wife”, which is also reflected in some of the nomination models. The most common (and presumably the most archaic) of these models, M-1 (husband as my man, my human), is based on the implicit idea of EGO, in this case, the wife as the supposedly initial subject of nomination. Further, another model was identified in which the “husband”, according to the nomination strategy, does not rely on EGO, but rather appears as a socionim (M-2). Within this model, 4 subgroups are distinguished (husband as a married person; husband as an outstanding member of society; husband as an old man; husband as a master, landowner). Another model (M-3) implies paired husband-wife nominations (spouses, husband as a friend, a partner, companion etc.). In the course of research, it is planned to create maps of the areal distribution of these models throughout Eurasia and to identify preferential zones for each of them.