Onomastic heritage in diachrony: On the material of oikonyms in the Kyiv region

Abstract

This article is devoted to the issues of historical oikonyms, whose general background is illustrated by etymological comments on specific examples from the oikonymicon of the Kyiv region. The etymology of an oikonym is not limited to the analysis of the etymon but also refers to the development of a particular word in general. Conceivably, reconstruction of the original oiko- nymicon is hardly possible, but a new discovery, even the attestation of a hitherto unknown renaming contributes to furthering our knowledge about the onomastic heritage. The article presents fragments of word-formation and etymological research relatable to the Kyiv region. The author reconstructs some Proto-Slavic forms, fills gaps in practically destroyed lexical nests, and looks in the lost appellatives and anthroponyms. Since the disappearance of words from the historical vocabulary is natural, the lexical basis of the onym, e.g., Berezan, Deremezna, Shkneva, largely remains almost the only evidence of plausible East Slavic features. The author uses the comparative-historical (etymological) method and the method of internal reconstruction. This is a reliable way not only to reconstruct the lost lexical structure of the language and local dialect rarities tending to enrich the lexicon but also to discover ethnic movements and migration processes of the population on both the right and left banks of the Dnieper River. Keywords: oikonym, etymology, word-forming model, anthroponym, appellative.