Folk names of plants as a fragment of the Rusin language picture of the world

The article analyses semantic motivation of the botanical lexis of Presov Rusins as a fragment of nationally conditioned language picture of the world. Motivated flora names make up 29 % (405 nomens). 13 motivational features have been defined in the Rusin plant nomination to identify the connection of folk botany with other fragments of the Rusin world picture. The ranking of the motivational features shows that the greatest number of names is motivated by the external characteristics of the plant (45%). In particular, wide associative links between plants and realities of living nature and objects of everyday life demonstrate the generality or contiguity of different segments of the lexical system in the minds of native speakers. A large number of Rusin plant names are motivated by their therapeutic properties (12.8%), their being used with a magical purpose (10.9%), which indicates pagan philosophical idea of Rusins, preserving the remains syncretic beliefs, magical practices and valuable empirical information about the spiritual culture of the ethnic group. There is a direct correlation between ceremonies and plant names. The folk botany of Rusins is multi-valued, that is, it uses several names of one plant to describe its different features (external signs, internal properties, its use in everyday life), which promotes preservation of ethno-cuLturaL information transmitted by Rusins from generation to generation.

Keywords

Authors

References