VARIATION OF THE DNIEPER BASIN HYDRONYMY
 ON THE TERRITORY OF THE SMOLENSK REGION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Dnieper water bodies nominations on the territory of the Smolensk region. The research is aimed at consideration of the most important onomastic problem at present – variation in the sphere of the proper names, particularly in the hydronymy. Amidst the regional onomastic development, the research in the sphere
 of toponymy and hydronymy is being actively carried out, toponymic dictionaries are being published. In these dictionaries the variants of the geographical objects are often only marked down. However, more focused attention to the revealing
 and describing the reasons and methods of their variation allows the researchers to carry out more detailed diachronic analysis of the onyms existence in the different historical periods and define the invariants formation. The most interesting field of research is the toponymy and hydronymy study of the Smolensk region – western border region of Russia. The material of
 the research is based on the military-topographical map of Smolensk Governorate, large scale maps and an atlas of the Smolensk region, as well as written information sources. The author has analyzed the examples of the orthographical,
 phonetical, morphological and lexical variants of hydronyms and has tried to reveal the linguistic and extralinguistic reasons of the water bodies nominations variation in this region.
 It is proved that the hydronyms variants origin is typical for small water currents; it is linked with their shallowing and the loss of their significance in the economic life of the population. The predominance of the phonetical variants is explained by the influence of the general-linguistic process, a local dialect lect, a living colloquial language. The variation on the word formation level is widely represented by diminutive forms as a result of the changes in the water currents physico-geographical parameters.
 Lexical variation of the hydronyms in the region depends on the nominations de-etymologisation. Moreover, in the analyzed region the author has found out a lot of variants of hydronyms with changes at different language levels. Linguistic
 and extralinguistic reasons of variation in hydronymy are closely linked. This fact can make it more difficult to determine the method of the new variant creation. The analyzed factual material will be practically used in the «Hydronym’s Dictionary of the Smolensk Region», which will be published soon.