Linguistic Units Research Articles

Cortical tracking of language structures: Modality-dependent and independent responses

ObjectivesThe mental parsing of linguistic hierarchy is crucial for language comprehension, and while there is growing interest in the cortical tracking of auditory speech, the neurophysiological substrates for tracking written language are still unclear. MethodsWe recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) responses from participants exposed to auditory and visual streams of either random syllables or tri-syllabic real words. Using a frequency-tagging approach, we analyzed the neural representations of physically presented (i.e., syllables) and mentally constructed (i.e., words) linguistic units and compared them between the two sensory modalities. ResultsWe found that tracking syllables is partially modality dependent, with anterior and posterior scalp regions more involved in the tracking of spoken and written syllables, respectively. The cortical tracking of spoken and written words instead was found to involve a shared anterior region to a similar degree, suggesting a modality-independent process for word tracking. ConclusionOur study suggests that basic linguistic features are represented in a sensory modality-specific manner, while more abstract ones are modality-unspecific during the online processing of continuous language input. SignificanceThe current methodology may be utilized in future research to examine the development of reading skills, especially the deficiencies in fluent reading among those with dyslexia.

Lexical-and-Semantic Field “New Sincerity”: Neologisms in Russian and Chinese Media Discourse

The ideographic description of new vocabulary and the linguistic units within the lexical-and-semantic field of the idiom new sincerity in particular, is being considered. It is noted that in addition to its cultural significance, this expression has also acquired two new meanings: marketing technology and communicative practice. It is precisely in these meanings that the idiom new sincerity is studied in this research. Using component, contextual, and interpretive methods of analysis, with the support of the ideographic dictionary compiled by one of the authors and examples of usage in media discourse texts, the vocabulary within the lexical-and-semantic field of “new sincerity” has been identified and described. Most of the linguistic units in this group have been established to be neologisms. The presented ideographic network has a frame structure and reflects the fragments of modern reality represented in the linguistic worldview by new vocabulary. The authors have identified 5 segments (slots) of the ideographic network: “new sincerity” as a tactic in internet communication, social-and-political communication, as a basis for uniting people, a form of expressing aggression, and as a communicative practice in the conditions of the coronavirus pandemic. Each segment includes a set of ideograms that unite lexical representatives – neologisms. It is noted that the expression new sincerity is not used in Chinese media texts. However, there has been an increasing interest in open expression of feelings and sharing personal stories by participants in modern Chinese shows, which corresponds to the practice of “new sincerity” in virtual and real life.

Value orientations of the English-language sanctions discourse through the prism of new language units

Value orientations of the English-language sanctions discourse through the prism of new language units

Prepositional case constructions with the preposition <i>ot</i> (English <i>from</i>) in the poetry of F. I. Tyutchev

Function words, for instance, simple prepositions, have significant potential for meaning making and are an important element of the grammatical structure of the text, which, along with the lexical one, is involved in creating the imagery of an artwork. The insufficient knowledge of the semantic charge of simple prepositions in F. I. Tyutchev’s poetic texts determined the relevance of this study. The research aims to develop a typology of the prepositional-case constructions with the preposition ot (English from) and determine their place in the authors’ dictionary of the poet’s vocabulary. To analyse the 118 uses of phrases with the preposition ot obtained from the "Concordance of the Complete Poems of F. I. Tyutchev. A–Z", we employed the descriptive method in conjunction with observation techniques; generalisation of the material; componential analysis (identification of semantic components of the meaning of the preposition ot); distributional analysis that enabled us to identify the combinability of the preposition ot with other linguistic units. When describing the meanings of prepositional-case constructions with the preposition ot, we considered the morphological and semantic features of the head and dependent words included in the phrases with case government. The study identified and analysed the object, adverbial (locative, temporal, causal, of manner), and attributive relations realised in prepositional-case constructions. Additionally, we specified additional meanings acquired by prepositional combinations in poetic texts. The research shows that constructions with the preposition ot form a fragment of the authors’ dictionary of F. I. Tyutchev’s language.

Dissociating prosodic from syntactic delta activity during natural speech comprehension

Decoding human speech requires the brain to segment the incoming acoustic signal into meaningful linguistic units, ranging from syllables and words to phrases. Integrating these linguistic constituents into a coherent percept sets the root of compositional meaning and hence understanding. One important cue for segmentation in natural speech is prosodic cues, such as pauses, but their interplay with higher-level linguistic processing is still unknown. Here, we dissociate the neural tracking of prosodic pauses from the segmentation of multi-word chunks using magnetoencephalography (MEG). We find that manipulating the regularity of pauses disrupts slow speech-brain tracking bilaterally in auditory areas (below 2Hz) and in turn increases left-lateralized coherence of higher-frequency auditory activity at speech onsets (around 25-45Hz). Critically, we also find that multi-word chunks-defined as short, coherent bundles of inter-word dependencies-are processed through the rhythmic fluctuations of low-frequency activity (below 2Hz) bilaterally and independently of prosodic cues. Importantly, low-frequency alignment at chunk onsets increases the accuracy of an encoding model in bilateral auditory and frontal areas while controlling for the effect of acoustics. Our findings provide novel insights into the neural basis of speech perception, demonstrating that both acoustic features (prosodic cues) and abstract linguistic processing at the multi-word timescale are underpinned independently by low-frequency electrophysiological brain activity in the delta frequency range.

Specific features of Russian coordinating conjunctions from the activity approach perspective

The article examines the specific features of Russian coordinating conjunctions, first and foremost primary i (English and), a (English while, and), no (English but), da (English but, and). The prepositions are examined from the standpoint of the activity approach to the description of linguistic units, i. e., considering the actions of the speaker using these conjunctions, as well as the listener who, thanks to them, receives the information necessary to understand a coherent text. Particular attention is given to the primary conjunctions due to their key role in text organisation. Numerous compound conjunctions and prepositions only develop some of the subtleties of connection against the background of text organisation. Data from several foreign languages are also used to expand the picture since the system of simple coordinating conjunctions in Russian is unique and finds no exact correspondence in other languages. The conjunctions are semantically described taking into account their general meanings and functions. A new interpretation is proposed for the conjunction da. The functions of the conjunctions are associated with the communicators’ activity. During interaction, the speaker partially prompts what kind of information the listener will get. In particular, the conjunction i and its analogues in many other languages indicate that something similar to the previous message will be communicated. The conjunction no shows a violation of the addressee’s expectation, and this function is also very common in the world’s languages. In a few languages there are more subtle indications of the subsequent message content. For example, one can use the conjunction a in Russian to warn that something new, but not necessarily contradictory to the previous information, will be communicated. Finally, it remains possible to signal the addition of information suggesting its exhaustiveness, which is expressed with the conjunction da in a few of its meanings. Marking precisely such semantic relations enables one to draw a conclusion about possible connections between sentences in the text and the presupposition in it regarding the course of the narration.

Accuracy of Automatic Processing of Speech-Language Pathologist and Child Talk During School-Based Therapy Sessions.

This study examines the accuracy of Interaction Detection in Early Childhood Settings (IDEAS), a program that automatically transcribes audio files and estimates linguistic units relevant to speech-language therapy, including part-of-speech units that represent features of language complexity, such as adjectives and coordinating conjunctions. Forty-five video-recorded speech-language therapy sessions involving 27 speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and 56 children were used. The F measure determines the accuracy of IDEAS diarization (i.e., speech segmentation and speaker classification). Two additional evaluation metrics, namely, median absolute relative error and correlation, indicate the accuracy of IDEAS for the estimation of linguistic units as compared with two conditions, namely, Oracle (manual diarization) and Voice Type Classifier (existing diarizer with acceptable accuracy). The high F measure for SLP talk data suggests high accuracy of IDEAS diarization for SLP talk but less so for child talk. These differences are reflected in the accuracy of IDEAS linguistic unit estimates. IDEAS median absolute relative error and correlation values for nine of the 10 SLP linguistic unit estimates meet the accuracy criteria, but none of the child linguistic unit estimates meet these criteria. The type of linguistic units also affects IDEAS accuracy. IDEAS was tailored to educational settings to automatically convert audio recordings into text and to provide linguistic unit estimates in speech-language therapy sessions and classroom settings. Although not perfect, IDEAS is reliable in automatically capturing and returning linguistic units, especially in SLP talk, that are relevant in research and practice. The tool offers a way to automatically measure SLP talk in clinical settings, which will support research seeking to understand how SLP talk influences children's language growth.

POPULAR SCIENCE LINGUISTIC DISCOURSE IN MASS MEDIA: UPDATING LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE

The article deals with the specifi cs of functioning of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in mass media. Popular science content is not mandatory for mass media. The main task of mass media is to communicate relevant information to the addressee. The functioning of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in media sources of this type is conditioned by a number of factors that make scientifi c information relevant to the mass addressee. Based on the analysis of three print media (the newspapers Argumenty i Fakty, Izvestia and Kommersant) three factors of actu-alization of scientifi c linguistic knowledge have been revealed: 1) intellectual; 2) pragmatic; 3) informational and entertaining. The popular scientifi c linguistic discourse, the actualization of which is conditioned by the intellectual factor, helps the reader to comprehend actual facts and events. Linguistic information in this case can be presented in diff erent amounts and represented in diff erent ways. But at the same time popular scientifi c linguistic discourse is not independent, it is presented in the context of an event relevant to the reader. With the help of scientifi c knowledge, the mass addressee gets an opportunity to critically evaluate this event. Popular scientifi c linguistic discourse, the relevance of which is conditioned by the pragmatic factor, can be used by the addressee in practical speech activity. These are materials about the normative use of individual units of the Russian literary language and articles about the rules of speech interaction. The relevance of popular scientifi c linguistic discourse can be conditioned by the informational-entertainment factor: the reader as a language user shows interest in certain linguistic phenomena. On the basis of thematic analysis, the spheres of linguistic knowledge which are of the greatest interest to the mass addressee are singled out: 1) history of words and phraseologisms; 2) lexical meaning of obsolete and new words (neologisms); 3) the use of proper names. As the analysis has shown, popular scientifi c linguistic discourse in mass media is subordinated to the main principle of content formation — the principle of relevance. Communicative, genre and style specifi city, as well as the way of representation of linguistic information are determined by the in-tellectual, pragmatic or informational and entertaining factors of actualization of this discourse.

MƏTN DİLÇİLİYİN OBYEKTİ KİMİ

Text as an Object of Linguistics Summary The article examines the place of text in the syntactic system of language. The logical connection of sentences in the formation of a text as a linguistic unit is noted. A text is not individual sentences, but consists of a group of sentences, being a complex syntactic unit and having a closed structure, it expresses a complete thought. A text as a syntactic unit stands above the sentence. At the language level, a text, compared to the sentence, demonstrates particular complexity in structural and semantic terms. The syntactic features of a complex syntactic whole as a text-forming structure are highlighted. It is emphasized that a complex syntactic whole has a number of grammatical properties and the semantic and stylistic features of combining sentences are revealed. Key words: text, structure, semantics, complex syntactic whole, sentence

Good and Evil Ethical Concepts in the Linguistic Picture of the World of Kyrgyz

This article analyses actual problems of cognitive linguistics, intensively developing linguistic direction since the 80s of the XX century. The study concisely conducted a scientific and theoretical analysis of cognitivism, the object of the study of which becomes the human mind, thinking and mental processes. The formation of a concept as a basic concept of cognitive linguistics is connected with cognitive activity, world perception of a person. The concept as a result of national linguo culture reflects national, spiritual and cultural values in the linguistic picture of the world of any ethnic group. It is noted that language is a manifestation of cognitive processes, “activity of the mind” is studied on the material of language i.e. language means. The article is devoted to the analysis of ethical concepts “good” and “evil” in the language consciousness of the Kyrgyz people. It is noted that the key tokens are good and evil. The study is conducted on the material of analysis of lexical meanings of linguistic units with morphemes: zhakshy, zhaman, Kyrgyz proverb, a passage from the Epic of Manas, consisting of opposition “good” and “evil”. The article briefly describes the essence of the philosophy of good and evil of the Kyrgyz people, which reflects humanistic ideas, moral and ethical, national values, ethnic peculiarities of mentality of the Kyrgyz people. In them, good stands for love, good, success, faith, hope, honor and dignity, a sense of duty, and evil is manifested in destruction, greedy profligacy, slyness, anger, etc. The study notes that the conceptual part of the structure of concepts “good” and “evil” is “multiple and complex, as they use figurative expressions, which include purely personal perception, linguistic mentality and means of artistic expression. It has been determined that the moral and ethical concepts of “good” and “evil” are a neglected topic in Kyrgyz linguistics. They have a special place in the linguistic consciousness of the Kyrgyz people and require further in-depth study.

Semantically Equivalent Representatives of the Concept “Custom/Adat” in Russian and Kyrgyz Languages

This paper conducts a semantic study of the concept “custom/adat” and its representatives in the Russian and Kyrgyz languages. The conceptual content of the concept “custom/adat” is determined based on the study of relevant articles in explanatory, translated (bilingual), cultural, encyclopedic and other dictionaries. An analysis of Russian and Kyrgyz linguistic units denoting customs, rites, ceremonies and other elements of traditional practice of ethnic groups has been carried out. The study identifies the semantic dominant that organizes the functional-semantic field “custom”; in this regard, some central and peripheral nominees of the concept “custom” are identified and characterized on the basis of the lexicographic, literary, artistic, colloquial and folklore spaces of the two languages ​​being compared. The unity and differences in the linguoethnocultural ideas of native speakers of the Russian and Kyrgyz languages ​​about custom, its types and manifestations are shown, and explicit and implicit types of its nominees are identified. This work fills a small gap in the branches of linguistics that are actively developing in Kyrgyzstan — in cognitive linguistics, ethnolinguistics, linguoculturology, linguistic conceptology and the theory of intercultural communication.

INNOVATIONS IN THE LEXICOGRAPHICAL PROCESSING OF ONYM LEXICON

The aim of the article is to analyze the innovativeness of the lexicographical interpretation of the corpus of proper names used in literary texts on Hutsul themes, in the appendix to the two-volume dictionary "Hutsul Dialect Lexicon and Phraseology in Ukrainian Literary Language" — "Onym Lexicon". The object of the study is the appendix "Onym Lexicon" to the two-volume dictionary "Hutsul Dialect Lexicon and Phraseology in Ukrainian Literary Language". The subject of the research is the innovativeness of the aforementioned appendix "Onym Lexicon". The main method of the research was the analytical-descriptive method. The result of the study is the identification and substantiation of the innovativeness of the lexicographical interpretation of the corpus of onyms in the format of the "Onym Lexicon" dictionary, created as an appendix to the two-volume dictionary "Hutsul Dialect Lexicon and Phraseology in Ukrainian Literary Language". This approach to the study of proper names through the prism of literary language has proven to be quite effective. It complements the methodology of dictionary interpretation of proper names with new theoretical and practical developments. A formula for the interpretation of each type of onym has been developed, taking into account the nominative-significative nature of each. At the same time, the results of this approach contain valuable information that is important for modeling and analyzing the regional-dialectal worldview through the prism of literary language. For example, oikonyms, and their prevalence in literary texts, indicate the significance and priority of certain settlements in the life of the Hutsuls. They record key centers of economic, historical-political, cultural-artistic, and religious spheres of the highlanders. Anthroponyms contain information about the connections of the Hutsuls with other peoples. Oronyms, from an informative point of view, are linguistic units that convey the harsh living and farming conditions of mountain dwellers and their love for their native land. Hagionyms and eortonyms contain information about the religiosity and piety of the Hutsuls. Other onyms also carry important information about the regional-dialectal worldview of the Hutsuls. The Hutsul linguistic worldview in its literary version would be impoverished and incomplete without the knowledge and information expressed by proper names. We see the prospects for further research on this topic in deepening the study of the possibilities of the "Onym Lexicon" dictionary-appendix for scientific understanding of the literary onomasticon and for modeling the regional-dialectal worldview of the Hutsuls.

INTER-PARTIAL LANGUAGE SYNCRETISM AS A MANIFESTATION OF EXPRESSION

In wartime, the internal potential of language reaches its extreme, which is shown through the implementation of expressive means that can be traced in the grammatical plane. The desire for the efficient use of language resources in combination with the revelation of the deep inner potential of each word is known as a phenomenon of interpartial language syncretism, which became the object of analysis in the suggested article. The subject of research is the expressive-emotional potential that arises as a result of semantic-grammatical fusion within syncretic language units. The goal is to identify and describe the syntactic, morphological and semantic factors that create a special expressive effect, and thus to prove that the phenomenon of inter-partial language syncretism can be considered one of the elements of the language game. The research employed the methods of observation and description of linguistic phenomena, structural-semantic and contextual analysis using methods of external and internal interpretation. Media texts and social media discourse of various genres served as the foundational source base.The phenomenon of inter-partial language syncretism, which arises as a result of inter-linguistic transposition of genetically related linguistic units or lexical-grammatical homonymy, possesses significant expressive and emotional potency. Therefore, this phenomenon should be considered as an element of the language game, however, taking into account extralingual factors (the war as a catalyst for the appearance of such innovative linguistic units), it is necessary to emphasize the absence of a humorous connotation. The identification and analysis of such language facts have diverse perspectives in further investigation: 1) it will highlight the criteria and techniques for distinguishing parts of speech; 2) it will outline the semantic, morphological and syntactic features of syncretic language units; 3) it will enrich the repertoire of grammatical means of the language game.

Verbal short term memory contribution to sentence comprehension decreases with increasing syntactic complexity in people with aphasia

Sentence comprehension requires the integration of linguistic units presented in a temporal sequence based on a non-linear underlying syntactic structure. While it is uncontroversial that storage is mandatory for this process, there are opposing views regarding the relevance of general short-term-/working-memory capacities (STM/WM) versus language specific resources. Here we report results from 43 participants with an acquired brain lesion in the extended left hemispheric language network and resulting language deficits, who performed a sentence-to-picture matching task and an experimental task assessing phonological short-term memory. The sentence task systematically varied syntactic complexity (embedding depth and argument order) while lengths, number of propositions and plausibility were kept constant. Clinical data including digit-/ block-spans and lesion size and site were additionally used in the analyses. Correlational analyses confirm that performance on STM/WM-tasks (experimental task and digit-span) are the only two relevant predictors for correct sentence-picture-matching, while reaction times only depended on age and lesion size. Notably increasing syntactic complexity reduced the correlational strength speaking for the additional recruitment of language specific resources independent of more general verbal STM/WM capacities, when resolving complex syntactic structure. The complementary lesion-behaviour analysis yielded different lesion volumes correlating with either the sentence-task or the STM-task. Factoring out STM measures lesions in the anterior temporal lobe correlated with a larger decrease in accuracy with increasing syntactic complexity. We conclude that overall sentence comprehension depends on STM/WM capacity, while increases in syntactic complexity tax another independent cognitive resource.

THE LINGUISTIC CATEGORY OF EVALUATION AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS IN THE UKRAINIAN MASS MEDIA

The article is devoted to the characterisation and interpretation of the linguistic category of evaluation, its essence and main features on the basis of modern mass media texts. The ambiguity of scientists’ interpretation of the nature of evaluation as a complex multidimensional linguistic, cultural and linguistic-pragmatic phenomenon with a dual nature — linguistic and mental — requires us to consider the peculiarities of the linguistic category of evaluation as an axiological component of word semantics. We understand evaluation as the result of the speaker’s activity in relation to the subject of speech, which is verbally fixed in the sense of heterogeneous linguistic units united by evaluative semantics, expressing a positive or negative attitude towards it in accordance with the existing ideal model of the world and aiming to evoke the speaker’s predicted reaction in the addressee of the message. Evaluative values are expressed at all levels of language: lexical, syntactic and phonetic. Evaluation fulfils cognitive, communicative, pragmatic and linguistic-cultural functions; it forms the idea of values or anti-values. The set of values reflects the hierarchical scale in which the spiritual culture of a given society is represented. It is proved that the linguistic category of evaluation is a means of realising the positive or negative significance of the results of human activity for the satisfaction of their objectively determined needs and interests. It was found that evaluation, which is explicitly or implicitly linked to comparison, always contains subjective (modal evaluation framework) and objective (descriptive, attributive) components that interact with each other.

Investigating the Hierarchical Relationship Between Clause and Phrase Using the Menzerath-Altmann Law: Evidence from Academic Research Articles

ABSTRACT The study justifies phrases (instead of words) as the direct constituents of clauses using English academic research articles (RAs) by fitting the Menzerath-Altmann Law (MAL) to the correlations between sentence length (in clause numbers) and clause length (in phrase numbers), and between clause length and phrase length (in word numbers). The study was conducted under the framework of dependency grammar, with a self-built corpus of 104,499 tokens. The results indicate that 1) both correlations abide by the MAL, or abide when excluding the second MAL regime, regardless of part-genres, suggesting that phrases are the appropriate direct constituents of clauses. 2) The increasing MAL fitting curve is found in , which has the shortest mean dependency distance. 3) Clustering analysis on the MAL parameters in dependency structure can effectively differentiate the size-restricted from the other part-genres at the lower level, i.e., clause-phrase-word level. Furthermore, our findings have important implications: 1) The second regime may be closely related to text characteristics or linguistic unit levels. 2) The dependency distance minimization effect is possibly a counteractive force against the Menzerathian shortening effect. 3) The competing relationship between clausal and phrasal complexity in RAs is driven by the self-regulating and self-adapting language system.

Lexicalization of transposed phrases in Kurdish language

This research is entitled of (Lexicalization of transposed phrases in Kurdish language). It’s an effort to present and analyzing for those phrases after the replacement of subject and predicate, during the process of transformational from deep structure to surface structure, became the lexicon unit. As it is known phrase is a syntax unit, but as a result of the development and change and the needs of language to naming and producing of new concept and meaning, again language resorts to other used units of language, that is why some of the language units moves from a level of language to another to reuse. One of those ways is reproduction of lexicon unit through syntax, one of the products of this way is the inverted phrase, again after the process of its inverting creator units. As an equivalent lexicon to a compound word.

THE CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS IN THE MULTILINGUAL WORLD PICTURE

The purpose of the article is to scrutinize the concept of HAPPINESS: its representation and partial systematization of the revealed manifestations in a multilingual aspect. In the study of both – the given linguistic unit and its general cultural phenomenon, fundamental conceptual approaches dominate. The theoretical and methodological basis of our research has been compiled on the scientific works of O.Vorobyova, S. Zhabotynska, A. Prykhodko and others. The relevance of the work is supported by the fact that the concept of HAPPINESS is still in the process of an institutional conceptual nature forming, due to the fact that in various scientific disciplines and approaches there is a tendency to replace it with more holistic theoretical constructs, such as “psychological well-being”, “harmony”, “success”, and others.The article summarizes main features and highlights various aspects of the named concept in its general philosophical interpretation, including the objective state of a person, embodied in success or achievement in a certain field of activity; an internal psychological statein which a person feels satisfaction from the realization of a certain intention; possession of the best goods of life, and the moral reaction of an individual who has these goods and which is expressed in a certain contentment with life in general.According to the results of the research, it can be concluded that the features and characteristics of the concept of HAPPINESS in Ukrainian, English and French languages are universal in the multilingual picture of the world; however, happiness can be differently reflected in individual language pictures.

INTERLINGUAL COMMUNICATIVE POTENTIAL OF ENGLISH LEXICS THROUGH THE LENSES OF ECOLINGUISTICS

The paper examines ecolinguistics as a new trend in linguistics, resulting from the study of language and the environment. The article’s relevance is determined by the insufficient amount of works on ecolinguistics and its subsystems. The purpose of the study is to establish particularities of interlinguistic communication, studied within the framework of ecolinguistics, the idea of which originated at the end of the 19th century and got its prominence at present. The research methodology is based on the theoretical works of the most prominent domestic and foreign scholars. Ecolinguistics is the result of the interaction of academic disciplines including linguistics, philosophy, psychology and cognitive studies. The formation of ecolinguistics takes place in such domains as cultural, political and scientific spheres, revealing various aspects of language interaction with the thinking process and the surroundings. The study of ecolinguistics’ evolution and functioning requires a comprehensive approach. The scope of the study includes studying ecolinguistics, clarifying the origins of this branch, presenting it in a generalized form, as well as the peculiarities of translation aimed at preserving the purity of the target language. As a donor language, English considerably enlarges the vocabulary of every language it interacts with. This is manifested in the digital translation, facilitating the process of new words, nomenclatural formations and abbreviations dissemination. The study has shown that the use of digital technologies developing in the digital world ensures the entry of the linguistic personality into the unified system of ecological space. It is concluded that lexical and grammatical units of different languages can peacefully coexist in one text without violating the integrity and harmony. It contributes to the effective interlinguistic communication determined by the ecospace of a particular language.

The Perception of Eponym in Modern Linguistics: Dynamics of Concepts and Definitions

Key words: eponymization, onimization, transonimization, signified, signifier, anthroponym, toponym, semanticization, desemanticization In the article, the perception of the linguistic reality of eponym in modern linguistics has been studied. On the basis of it the term eponym and the process of eponymization have been characterized and clarified. The study was conducted by comparative analysis. In the work, due to the need to solve the set problems, an examination and analysis of the linguistic observations of the concept of eponym has been performed. As a result, the proposed views have been grouped into three main groups: 1. the starting unit of the eponymization process is considered an eponym, 2. the word generated in the end result of the eponymization process is considered an eponym, 3. both sides of the eponymization process are considered eponyms – both the starting unit and the final word. It has been considered acceptable to use the term eponym only for the linguistic unit resulting from the process of eponymization, since theoretically all proper names can become eponyms. In the work, an attempt has been made to clarify the characteristics of the concept of eponym. Thus, it has been defined as a proper or common name, which emerged as a result of the semanticization or polyfunctionalization of the homonymous proper name. It has been noted that an eponym is a word created as a result of the process of eponymization, which has the primary function for a linguistic sign unit, i. e., to name the phenomenon by reflecting it in the system of linguistic sign units. For the process of eponymization, which has been considered beyond the limits of the change of lexical meaning, two main ways have been put forward: semanticization and polyfunctionalization of the proper name. The process of eponymization, which is related to the development of various social spheres that determine human activity, has been evaluated as an important means of enriching the vocabulary of the language, examination of which leads to the necessity for intercultural, sociolinguistic and interdisciplinary studies.