scholarly journals Mathematical Methods for the Study of Toponims with Lost Semantics

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 176-187
Author(s):  
Andrey Borovsky ◽  
Elena Rakovskaya

The article discusses methods for restoring the lost meaning of old toponyms. This task can be solved using a systematic approach. The study used methods of permutation and transformation of consonants in the backbone of a toponym, methods of di- and trichotomy of a word, formation of a table of all possible transformants, a method for finding associates for all transformants of a word using the vector model of the Russian language, a method for clustering the found associates, a method for determining the frequency of repetition of associates in the corpus of the Russian language, which allows you to calculate the probabilities of the appearance of various clusters, a method of lexical analysis of Old Church Slavonic languages, including Old Russian and Sanskrit. The use of a set of methods made it possible to restore the lost meaning of the toponym Moscow. It turned out that with a probability of more than 80 % the name of our capital goes back to the name of the commander and spiritual leader of the first half of the 15th century, who had the nicknames Mosokh, Meshekh, Moses Khan (Prince). The army of medieval Russia (Tatar-Mongolia) created by this man defeated Byzantium and subjugated Western Europe. During the Romanov dynasty, Western European scholars-Russophobes deleted the name of the commander from the history of Russia. As a result, the toponym Moscow has lost its original meaning. The article also restored the lost meaning of the two most important toponyms of Eastern Siberia - Lake Baikal and the Angara River. It turned out that the lake got its name from the old Russian exclamation Bai-ka-al = ay, how divine! The name of the Angara River in Old Russian means the mountains of Christ.

Author(s):  
Е.Ю. Долгова

Статья посвящена описанию глагола «погрязнуть» по лексикографическим источникам, фиксирующим словарный состав русского языка X - XVII вв. В работе используется метод лингвистического портретирования, позволяющий объединить данные этимологических и исторических словарей и увидеть динамику развития семантического, словообразовательного, сочетаемостного и стилистического потенциала языковой единицы в диахронии. В статье подробно изложены материалы этимологических и исторических словарей русского языка, приведены и описаны многочисленные варианты употребления имперфектива грязнуть и перфектива погрязнуть, зафиксированные в словарях, содержащих лексику древнерусского и старорусского периодов: гр#зъти, гр#зhти, гр#зити, гр#знqти, погрязати - погр#зти, погр#зити, погр#знqти. Установлено, что в древнерусском языке глагол гр#зноути (гр`t#знuти) имел прямое номинативное значение «погружаться, тонуть» и редко употреблялся в памятниках письменности. Многозначным и наиболее частотным был положительный, результативный член глагольной видовой пары перфектив погрязнуть (погр#зноути). В статье приведены все лексико-семантические варианты глагола и примеры словоупотреблений, зафиксированные в словарях, отражающих лексику X - XVII веков. В статье приведены синонимы и многочисленные дериваты глагола погрязнуть , в том числе рассмотрена семантика абстрактных существительных, образованных от глагола погрязнуть ( погрязение, погрязнение, погрязновение ) и отражающих влияние церковнославянского языка на книжно-письменный литературный язык древнерусского и старорусского периодов. Лексикографический портрет лексемы погрязнуть проявляет неоднозначность в трактовке некоторых значений в разные исторические периоды. Проведенный анализ позволяет сравнить значения лексемы, увидеть их отличительные особенности и сделать вывод о существовании самостоятельных стереотипных образов, существующих в сознании носителей языка в X - XVII веках. The article is devoted to the description of the verb "to wallow" from lexicographic sources that fix the vocabulary of the Russian language of the X - XVII centuries. The method of linguistic portraiture is used to combine data from etymological and historical dictionaries and see the dynamics of the development of the semantic, word-formation and stylistic potential of the language unit in the diachrony. The article details the materials of etymological and historical dictionaries of the Russian language, presents and describes numerous variants of the use of an imperfective “gryaznut’” and a perfective “pogryaznut’”, recorded in dictionaries containing the vocabulary of the Russian language of the X - XVII centuries. It has been established that in the ancient Russian language, the imperfective “gryaznut’” had a direct nominative meaning of "dive, sink" and was rarely used in monuments of writing. The multi-valued and most frequency used was the positive, effective perfective “pogryaznut’”. The article presents all lexical and semantic variants of the verb and examples of word usage recorded in dictionaries that reflect the vocabulary of the X - XVII centuries. The article presents synonyms and numerous derivatives of the verb, including the semantics of abstract nouns formed from the verb “pogryaznut’” and reflecting the influence of the Church Slavonic language on the book-written literary language of the old Russian period. The lexicographic portrait of the lexeme “pogryaznut’” shows ambiguity in the interpretation of certain meanings in different historical periods. The analysis allows us to compare the meanings of the lexeme, see their distinctive features and conclude that there are independent stereotypical images that exist in the minds of native speakers in the X - XVII centuries.


2020 ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Maksym Bondarenko

The article analyzes structural, word-formation and morphological peculiarities of Ukrainian oikonyms motivated by plant names. The conducted research of fixed in the «History of Cities and Villages of the Ukrainian SSR» and «Administrative and Territorial System of Ukraine» for 2019 (current list of Ukrainian oikonyms) confirmed the opinion of many linguists that the most productive way of creating names of settlements is the suffixation, on the other hand, far fewer units are formed with the help of compounding and prefixation. The following groups were distinguished on the basis of the analysis of oikonym-phrases formed from plant names: oikonym-phrase in which the noun is motivated by the plant name and the adjective indicates colour; oikonym-phrases in which one of the components is in the most cases an adjective motivated by plant name, and the main noun is one of the types of landscape, etc. We have considered some interesting oikonym-phrases which occur in all regions of Ukraine, for example, с. Кисла Дубина, с. Красні Лози, с. Мокра Рокитна etc. Some of the names of settlements have been significantly influenced by the Russian language, especially at the morphological level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4 (202)) ◽  
pp. 293-310
Author(s):  
Valeria S. Kuchko ◽  
◽  

This article studies Russian verbs which name the action of gratuitous material assistance to those in need, i.e. благотворить, благотворительствовать, благодетельствовать, меценатствовать, жертвовать, спонсировать, and their few derivatives. The author focuses on the history of their origin and use in the Russian language, the development of their meanings, semantic features, and functioning in the text. The analysis of these characteristics of the life of the word in the language allows the author to identify and formulate some norms of the use of these verbs in modern charity discourse for those who speak and write about charity. The study is based on historical and modern lexicographic sources, such as explanatory dictionaries of the Old Slavic Language, Old Russian Language, Russian language of different time periods, as well as examples of word usage, retrieved from The National Corpus of the Russian Language. In spite of the fact that the verbs studied realise the predicate of a situation of charity and designate the subject’s action of providing a poor or deprived object with material support, they considerably differ in terms of time of their appearance in the language, periods of usage, and semantic capacity. The analysis demonstrates that there is no verb that could claim the status of a nuclear verbal lexeme of the semantic field of charity: the word with the widest neutral semantics благотворить has almost fallen out of use, the verbs благодетельствовать and меценатствовать have a narrower application, while жертвовать imposes semantic restrictions on the choice of words for the positions of the object and the instrument of charity, and in the case of the verb спонсировать a specific context of “market” charity is important, in which the subject receives a certain benefit from their contribution.


Author(s):  
S.G. Sheidayeva

Based on the material from the Russian commercial written records of the XVI-XVII centuries, this article examines semantic and derivational features of the vocabulary of the yamskoy [coachman’s] and izvoznyi [cabman’s] carrier’s trade. In terms of content, the words of these two professional spheres have much in common since the main occupation of yamshchiki [coachmen] and izvozchiki [cabmen] was transportation of people or goods by horse; here are used the names of characters, vehicles, travel modes, types of transported objects. The history of fixing of the words yamshchik [coachman] and izvozchik [cabman] in the Russian language reflects the universal pattern of changing the names of persons ending in -nik by the nouns ending in -shchik /chik ( yamnik - yamshchik [coachman], izvoznik - izvozchik [cabman]). At the same time, the categorical difference in the original names that were at the beginning of the word-formation chains caused a difference in the semantic development of the names of doers: in one case, this is a spatial nomination of yama [Russian word for a ‘pit’] denoting a "station on the road" (> yamchi, yamskoy > yamshchik [coachman]); in another one it is a designation of a movement in space izvoziti [Russian obsolete word for ‘to carry’] (> izvoz > izvozchik [cabman]). In this regard, the names of persons right from the beginning differed in their conceptual representations of the doers: yamshchik [coachman] is the one who moves along the road, and izvozchik [cabman] is the one who “carries” something both on land and on water (like a carrier). Different communicative spheres of yamskoy [coachman’s] (gonny [riding fast] ) and izvozny [cabman’s] carrier’s trade gave birth to specific names of transportation: gon’ba [fast ride] and izvoz [carriage], which had clear internal forms: the first one was motivated by the verb gonyati [Russian obsolete word for ‘to ride fast", and the second one - by the verb izvoziti [Russian obsolete word for ‘to carry outwards’] (cargo, goods).


Author(s):  
Sergey Feliksov

The article deals with the history of religious style formation in the Russian language. The research considers nouns of religion semantic field with a suffix -stv/о/, recorded in the 18 th century Russian lexicographic works of civil press, which provide detailed representationof confessional vocabulary – The Church Dictionaryby archpriest Peter Alekseev (1773–1794), The Short Slavic Dictionary by abbot Evgeny (Romanov) (1784) and The Dictionary of the Russian Academy (1789–1794). The paper features peculiarities in word-formation and semantic structure of nouns with a suffix -stv/о/ belonging to religion semantic field.Their lexical and grammatical categories as well as thematic groups are described.The neologisms that appeared in the 18 th century within these groups are revealed. Active development of word-formation models, arising in Russian in that period, has contributed to emerging word-formation patternsfor the nouns of religion semantic field with a suffix -stv/о/, which have been established and analyzed. It is shown that despite the notable competition caused by existence of synonymous derivatives, nouns of religion semantic field with a suffix -stv/о/ have sufficient representation in the dictionary system of the Russian language of the 18 th century, forming a special layer of confessional vocabulary. It should be noted, that the abovementioned word class, as well as Russian religious style as a whole, was going through the process of active formationin the 18 th century.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Galochkina

System of derivational morphology of the Old Russian language has its own characteristics based on the origin of the book vocabulary, which consisted mainly of Proto-Slavic words and calques from Greek words. The main morphological way of word formation was the heritage of the Proto-Slavic language, which developed together with the formation of morphemes as a language unit. Active derivation took place during the formation of the Old Russian book vocabulary. During this period an uninterrupted process began the creation of book translations from the Greek into Church Slavonic. The ancient scribes made extensive use of Greek words calquing, which especially intensified the creation of compound words. Compound words were formed according to the models of Greek composites, but using Russian morphemes. As a result of this process, the lexical fund of the literary language was created, which included words with the root *lěp-. Such words are contained in ancient Russian written records (“Life of St. Sava the Sanctified”, composed by St. Cyril Skifopolsky, “The Life of St. Andrew the Fool”, “The Chronicle” by John Malalas, “The Chronicle” by George Amartol, “History of the Jewish War” by Josephus Flavius, Christianopolis (Acts and Epistles of the Apostles), Uspensky Сollection of XII–XIII centuries etc.). In the article will be considered the word formative structure of words with the root lěp-.


Author(s):  
Aleksandr E. Anikin ◽  

The study of Russian dialectal vocabulary remains one of the most pressing problems of etymology. This article is devoted to the origin and history of a number of Russian dialect words. Namely, the author provides revised explanations for some dialecticisms from the already published issues of the Russian Etymological Dictionary (говéд(т)ник, дохóрь, дóхта, сбрéндить), as well as from its unpublished issues (есáк, жёл, жерсть, жúмы). Most of this material is missing from the Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language by M. Vasmer.The essence of the explanations proposed is as follows:говéд(т)ник, говéдник, говéнник ‘fastening (in front of a sleigh)’ originates from головéнник ‘head, front part of the sleigh’ from голова ‘head’, головной; дохóрь ‘marten’ supplements the lexical data on Proto-Slavic *dъchor’ь ‘ferret’; есáк ‘motif, melody’, есáчить ‘explain with signs’ should be linked with Old Russian ясáк ‘sign, password’ = ясáк ‘tribute’ < Turkic jasaq ‘tribute’, ‘code, law’;жел (жол) ‘acorn’ is identified with Belorussian dial. жэл and Bulgarian dial. жел ‘acorn’ < Proto-Slavic *žьlъ ‘acorn’, cf. Lithuanian gìlė ‘acorn’;жерсть, etc. ‘pole’ can be related to *žьrdь > Russian жердь with the suffix -tь, as in Russian ýжасть vs. ýжас ‘horror’; жúмы ‘pleated boxcalf boots’ is correlated with жúмы ‘folds, gathers’ from жимáть, iterative to *žęti, *žьmǫ ‘press’ > Rus. жать, жму ‘press’. The initial d- in the variant джúмы could appear as a result of rebracketing in combinations вот жимы, под жимы, etc. (of boots); дýнда ‘fat man’ is explained as a reflex of Proto-Slavic *dunda ‘fat woman’, an onomatopoetic or descriptive word that cannot be separated from Lithuanian dundà ‘rake’;дóхта ‘peat’ may be a relic of the Proto-Slavic *deg- ‘burn’ (> *žeg-) with preserved d-, cf. Russian дёготь ‘tar’, etc.; сбрéндить ‘go crazy’ perhaps comes from *сбрéндить ‘break off, about the string of a wool beater’ and *брéндить ‘beat wool with a wool bow’ of onomatopoeic origin, cf. бры́ндить ‛to beat the wool’ — бры́ндить ‛play the balalaika’ and so on.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-83
Author(s):  
Evgenia N. Varnikova ◽  

The paper considers a historical aspect of zoonymic studies which has not been sufficiently developed. The history of Russian horse names (hipponyms) is explored using zoonymic data from the inventories of the Vologda monasteries in the 16th — early 18th centuries, the materials from Listings of horses (Moscow, 1665), and archival documents of the Soviet farms of Sevmaslotrest from 1930s. The author identifies the lexical structure of Early Modern Russian hipponymy, delves into the meaning of names and appellatives they derive from, analyses the structure of horses’ names, and describes the name formation techniques. The studied sources bring the picture of the general development of lexical patterns in the Russian hipponymy. As it turns out, the vocabulary of Early Modern Russian hyponymy is almost identical with the Old Russian anthroponomy, which attests to their genetic unity. At the same time, the use of Christian names is noted, with these becoming more popular in the given period. The article also deals with structural types of Early Modern Russian hipponyms: zoonyms having a substantive form (nicknames formed from onomastic, agential, zoological, and object nouns; zoonymic compounds; suffixal compounds); adjective-based zoonyms; mixed names. In monastic scripts of the 16th — early 18th centuries, the vast majority of units used as hipponyms are “prefabricated” traditional names, the cases of creating original animal names are rare. In the latter case, zoonyms are usually formed using suffixal patterns peculiar for agentive and anthroponomic vocabulary. The word-building patterns include the onymisation of appellatives (sometimes by metaphoric transfer), substantivisation (nominalization) of adjectives, transonymisation of personal and place names. Due to the semantic, structural, and word-formation proximities between Early Modern Russian zoonymy and Old Russian anthroponomy, zoonymic vocabulary of the 16th–18th centuries provides a reliable source on Old Russian onomasticon, as well as explains the “anthroponymic” nature of modern Russian zoonymy and the active use of personal names for animals at present. This practice turns out to have deep historical roots.


2021 ◽  
pp. 178-193
Author(s):  
Maria V. Ermolova ◽  

The article analyzes some verbal features in the West Russian Chronicles (XV–XVI cc.). The 1st part examines contexts with the construction “быти + participle in -ъш- / -въш-”. This construction is extremely uncommon for Old Russian texts, nevertheless the very possibility of its use is very indicative and important for understanding the history of the development of the temporal system in the Russian language. The material of the West Russian chronicles allows to widen the list of contexts with this construction with two more examples. The 2nd part discusses the features of the functioning of pluperfect forms. Rare forms of pluperfect with the linking verb in the aorist form were found in the West Russian Chronicles which is quite unexpected for the late texts. The article discusses possible explanations for this phenomenon. As for the semantics of the pluperfect forms, all of the basic pluperfect meanings are presented in the analyzed Chronicles: perfectness in the past, anti-resultative meaning, discontinuous past. The comparison of the number of the contexts with these meanings to the material of the other chronicles allows us to draw a number of conclusions about the history of the pluperfect’s development in the Old Russian language and its dialects.


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