ON SEMIOTIC RELATIONS BETWEEN NICKNAMES AND PROPER NAMES

Abstract

Summary. Notwithstanding the fact that proper names were singled out as a separate lexico-semantic category of nouns more than two thousand years ago, their true linguistic nature has not been fully clarified yet, the essence of which comes down to the question of the meaning - whether it is inherent in the proper names or not. The difficulty in answering this question can be explained by lexical and semantic diversity of various sub-categories of proper nouns, each of which has certain peculiarities in the expression of its nominative value. Nicknames are of considerable interest in this respect. Therefore, nicknames regarded as a significant ethnocultural component of the language of many linguistic and cultural communities, including the French, are the subject of this research . The aim of the study is to characterize the linguistic status of nicknames and to show that it differs significantly from the status of other proper names. First, we will briefly review the key problematic issues related to the study of proper names. Secondly, we will focus on the description of the semiotic structure of nicknames and their main semantic and morphological properties. The scientific relevance of this study is in the fact that nicknames are analyzed from the perspective of the linguistic sign theory with a particular emphasis on the description of their semiotic nature in comparison with anthroponyms and toponyms. The language material this study is based on is collected from free French Internet sources and authentic works by French authors on the subject. The analysis of the material has led to the logical conclusion that nicknames are closer to the class of common nouns than to proper nouns. They resemble common nouns in their semiotic structure, which comprises three components, i.e. a signifier, a signified and a referent. Keywords : the French language, the category of proper names, sub-categories of proper nouns, nicknames, the semiotic structure of nicknames, the linguistic status of nicknames, lexico-semantic peculiarities of nicknames.