Etymology and semantics of Altai demonyms: materials for a linguocultural dictionary

The paper considers the problems of lexicographic description of demonyms of Altai linguoculture. The problem is posed in connection with the development of principles for the compilation of glossaries of a linguocultural dictionary based on the material of precedent folklore texts. The study of etymology and analysis of the inner form of the word allows to accurately formulate lexical meanings of concept words and thereby eliminate the problem of synonymy of lexemes, in particular demonyms, broadly represented in the mythology of the Altaians. On the basis of the analysis of etymology and inner form, the lexical meanings and semantics of Turkisms (kormos, jutpa, jelbis, ttitinek, turgak) and Mongolisms (aldachy, buk, jetker, kolchin) are determined. The study of the etymology of this group of words is connected with the problem of borrowings and cultural and language contacts of different ethnic groups in Central Asia. Etymological facts allow to disclose the history of the development of meaning in words representing mythological concepts, to discover associative links that are fixed in the minds of people. Etymological and historical components of demonym concepts, determined by the inner form of the word, are associated with the conceptual components of their lexical meanings. The considered Turkisms have a clear inner form that underlies their lexical meanings. These names contain motivational attributes: "the demon's ability to act" (turgak 'standing, forcing to stop', jutpa 'swallow, devourer'), "demon's feature" (kormos 'invisible evil spirit'), "demon's ability to transform into a natural phenomenon" (jelbis 'master spirit, evil spirit', ttitinek 'evil spirit coming with the wind'). Modern speakers of the Altai language and bearers of folklore understand the inner form of these words badly, which is explained by the narrowness of the use of mythological discourse. They were better understood in the past, at the time of wide existence of myths. Demons jetker, buk, aldachy, kolchin have their lexical correspondences in Mongolian languages and are identified as borrowings based on existing etymological data. The relation to the Mongolian languages is indicated in the lexeme jetker and kolchin by the derivational morphemes -ker and -chin. The lexemes buk and jetker fully coincide in appearance with minor phonetic differences: in the Buryat language - shudkher, Kalmyk - chutker, Tuvan - chetcher. Demon kolchin is used in the nominative metaphorical function in the colloquial speech of the speakers in the sense of 'an ugly demon, a ghost', 'an evil spirit' (about a person). The considered Mongolisms in the Turkic languages may be late borrowings, since the sound form and the semantics of the corresponding Turkic word coincide with the Mongolian; besides, there are no such words in the ancient Turkic language. The associative-figurative components of these concepts appear in the transition of nominations to the conceptosphere of man. Pejorative evaluation components 'evil', 'malicious', 'ugly', 'unknown, invisible', accompanying their denotative meanings, allow their common usage in relation to a person. The principles of analysis of the cultural concept, tested on the material of demonyms, can be applied to the study of other thematic groups of cultural vocabulary. Ethnolinguistic and cognitive-stylistic approaches to the analysis of discursively marked concepts give new opportunities for studying the specificity of culturally significant vocabulary and for revealing their role in participating in the world-modeling.

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