STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF ENGLISH PICTONYMS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of structural features of English pictonyms — proper names of paintings. Pictonym is a subclass of imageonym, which is a subclass of artionym, which, in turn, is a subclass of ideonym. Proper names of paintings are an under-researched area of onomastics that attracts the attention of many scientists because proper names play an important role in the spiritual development of society and have their own unique features that distinguish them from other onyms. The purpose of the article is to examine the structural division of English pictonyms. The object of the research is English pictonyms. The subject of the study is the peculiarities of the structural characteristics of English pictonyms. The research material is a selection of 500 English pictonyms from the catalogues of the National Gallery located in London, the Royal Gallery located in Buckingham Palace (London), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the National Gallery of Art located in Washington, the Yale Center for British Art in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, and specialised art websites. During the study, a descriptive method was used to analyze the actual material, as well as a statistical method to count the number of English pictonyms analysed. Based on the general classification of M. M. Torchynskyy, pictonyms were divided into three groups: simple, complex and compound. It was found that the vast majority of the analyzed units belong to the compound type and structurally represent a group of word combinations. Phrases, combined abbreviations, word combinations, and sentences are followed by quantitative indicators. A smaller number of simple pictonyms, of which affixational and non-affixational ones are distinguished by their structural features. The smallest part consists of complex names, among which we are able to identify proper composites, affixational composites, and abbreviations.