Peculiarities of conceptualization of ancient European family names

Modelling of the concept of the ancient European family name Eismont is presented in the article.The conceptualization of the proper name is considered as conceptum - embryo, grain. This grain is the etymology of the proper nameon the one hand and on the other one is the activity of the name bearers. In accordance with the etymological analysis the family nameEismont is formed on the basis of the ancient complex names of Indo-European type. The first component of the complex name Jo-/Ei isconnected with the semantic field go - run - ride, anthroponymisation of which was determined by such kind of human activity aswalking to the war, marching, or protecting people they live with. This component correlates with the professional activities of the familynames bearers belonging to the ancient knights clan. The second component Mont correlates with the Indo-European root *men,which designated a human being as a judicious, intelligent creature and this associates with the diverse activities of the family bearers inthe field of science, art and religion. The analysis of the semantic structure of the ancient family name Eismont showed that the seedof the proper name concept is the names etymology and the activity of the individual under the influence of which the amendments inthe semantics of the onyms structure may occur. During the16th-19th centuries in the result of the name adaptation at the level of thecognitive consciousness in the linguistic picture of the world the kernel of the onym semantic field was formed. Such signs as courage,valour, conceit, merit, glory and scholarship, intellect, high spirituality refer to this onyms semantic field. Contrastive analysis of thetexts of the 16th-19th centuries with the texts we recorded from the bearers of the name at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21stcenturies allowed us to reveal steady spiritual values of the gentry culture of the name bearers in the conceptual picture of the world.The history of the semantics structure of the ancient family name permits to trace back the process that took place not only in the onomasticsstructure of the ancient family name, but also in the history and culture of the society as well. Thus, ancient family names bringthe examined area into the broad European context and stimulate the conservation of historical and cultural memory. The presentedmodel of the concept may be used as a basic structure to describe concepts of different classes of proper names.

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