Motivation of Suffixal Helonyms of Marijampolė County

  • Dalia Sviderskienė
Keywords: toponyms, hydronyms, helonyms, toponymization, motivation, principles of nomination, ways of nomination, metaphor, metonymy, ellipsis, semantic word-formation

Abstract

    The article addresses suffixal helonyms, which constitute a peculiar and interesting layer of the so called non-equivalent lexis. In order to reveal the motivated connection between their formal structure and meaning, these representatives of the hydronym class are analysed using the linguistic methods of structural, semantic, motivological analysis. As comprehensive information about the denotatum as possible is in use; the article also makes use of the data about the linguistic consciousness of the informants from the area under analysis, which were recorded in the “Land Names” questionnaires (1935–1937), as well as the surviving additional information enabling us to grasp their knowledge and experience and helping to understand the onomastic situation.
    The article is valuable for the science of lexicology and its other branches: ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, the practice of local toponymy, and the conception of the phenomenon of the proper word. The interpretation of the fragment of nature (marshy places) in the language system of a certain area emerging from the study is important in the context of cultural globalization. The findings of the study could contribute to the solution of the issues of regional self-consciousness and identity.

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