The article presents the results of the study devoted to the semantic
transformations of chronofact names understood as proper names referring to
resonance events that are often tragic. In spite of many studies devoted to the
processes of new words activation in various historical periods, proper names,
with rare exceptions, are not included in the phenomena under the study. The
objective of the following research is to identify universal features of chronofact
names that make it possible to study these names as a separate group of onyms
with their specific semantic and motivational characteristics. The proper names that have become the symbols of technological disasters, terrorist attacks, antigovernment actions, etc. (Chernobyl, Fukushima, Nord-Ost, Beslan, Bolotnaya
Square, Maydan, and so on) served as the material of this study.
Contextual analysis of these names in Russian media in the last decades, as well as component analysis of the connotative semantics of each name, allowed the
author to select several common characteristics of chronofact names. First, every chronofact name undergoes rapid semantic transformations in the following order:
it denotes a certain object – it denotes a singular tragic event (metonymy) and the development of a connotative onym – it denotes any other similar event (metaphor) and develops the characteristics of a precedent name. Second, chronofact names display same lexical and grammatical signs and they are used in homogenous contexts. Third, under certain extra-linguistic conditions, chronofact names are capable of expanding their figurative meanings and denoting a genuine notion for a long time. The material under the analysis is of interest to theoretical understanding of connotation as well as lexicographic description.
