KOMI-PERM PHYTONYMS CONTAINING ANIMAL NAMES

Abstract

The article considers the Komi-Perm names of plants which include animal names in their composition. The main source of units for analysis was "Materials for the Dictionary of Komi-Perm Plant Names". The Komi-Perm phytonymic material is analyzed in structural and semantic-motivational aspects. The paper considers the structural types of two- and three-component units, describes the main and determinative components, gives examples of phytonyms formed according to the corresponding models. Semantic and motivational analysis has shown that, in general, zoonyms in the structure of complex phytonyms give the names of plants the meaning "not real", "inedible", "not domesticated, wild". Some units have a more specific motivation that depends on the animal name: zoonyms yus’ 'swan’, turi ‘crane’, lyagusha ‘frog’ reflect the place of growth, the zoonym balyamosh 'bumblebee’ - honey-like properties of plants, components pytsh ‘flea’, ludyk ' bug’ - the ability of plants with strong smell to drive away insects. Units formed by metaphorical transfer most often represent the structural parts of the plant: features of the stem (porskok ‘burdock’ - literal ‘pig's leg’), a form of the shoot (kӧktoin 'field horsetail' - literal ‘cuckoo's pestle’), the leaf (shyrpyzh 'plantain' - literal ‘mouse boat’), the inflorescence (kӧchbӧzh 'snake root' - literal ‘hare's tail’), the flower (kӧkkoti 'Venus's slipper' - literal ‘cuckoo's shoe’). A significant percentage of Komi-Perm complex phytonyms have originally Russian zoonymic components: baran, ezh, kuricha, lyagusha etc. Some of them are linguistic calques of the names of Russian units: shyrankytsh 'mouse peas’ (tufted vetch), kanlapka, kankӧk 'cat’s paw’ (cat's foot), kӧxinva 'cuckoo tears’ (haircap moss), etc.