Semantics and syntax of zoonyms (words denoting animals) used for characterisation: the common and the nationally-specific (analyzing parallel texts)

The article presents the base for, the process and the results of, a comparative analysis of zoonyms (words denoting animals) used for characterisation as they function in parallel texts, viz. M. Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita and its nine translations into English, German and French. The analysis was aimed at finding out the common and the different in how zoonyms are used for characterisation in the four languages. Different groups of such functioning are considered, viz. syntactic comparison patterns, animal names in their figurative meanings, derivatives and compound words with zoonym roots and «semantic derivatives», i. e. verbs naming processes whose active participants may be both animals and their correlates in comparison, - in the Russian original and the translations. The analysis of our material reveals a basic likeness of zoonymic characterisation in the compared languages, with differences in using the means of expression and sporadic differences in the associative fields («zoo-images») of some animal names.

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