Features of the Onomasticon Formation in the British Folk Tale

This study aims to identify and systematise distinctive features of nominations given to creatures in British folk tales. The authors describe the mechanism of nomination and highlight regular patterns along which folk-tale creatures are named. The research is carried out in line with cognitively oriented ethnolinguistics. The subject matter is relevant due to the limited amount of research into the functioning of proper names in the texts of the British folk tale and their role in the creation of literary images. The analysis of onomastic realities helps to clarify specific features of the national worldview which holds them. The material of the study was provided by six collections of English, Scottish and Irish tales and a collection of fairy tales of Great Britain totalling 2,386 pages. Of these, the authors selected names of wizards and magical creatures and established their etymological, semantic and figurative components. Further, the authors drew data from lexicographic sources for the subsequent comparative analysis of the mythonymic nominations represented in the analysed folk tale texts and the mythonyms fixed in dictionaries. The method of continuous sampling, descriptive and comparative methods were used in the research. In addition, the authors carried out the analysis of word-formation and etymology, applied the method of linguocultural reconstruction of the content of nominations as well as some elements of statistical method. The authors analysed two thematic groups of nominations (nominations of wizards and nominations of magical creatures) and established their encyclopedic meaning, function and structural features. The conducted research allowed them to assert that the nominations of Germanic and Celtic origin prevail in both groups, which is explained by the connection of the characters and motifs of the folk tale with pagan rituals and the social and religious way of life of the British. Romanic nominations appeared later, under the influence of knightly novels. The results of the research proved that typification of characters is an inherent feature of folk tales; therefore, common names without additional emotional-aesthetic evaluation predominate among the names of wizards and magical creatures. In addition, the authors came to the conclusion that the folk tale onomastic space tends to be hierarchical. Romanic nominations of wizards and magical creatures are used as generic ones while Germanic and Celtic names act as more specific ones.

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