Borrowings as the means of Catullus’ poetic language

While studying the author’s creative work, present-day philological studies take into account a number of linguоcultural and linguocognitive factors that shape the author’s individual style. New perspectives and insights into the research of the creative work of the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (87–54 BC) prompted the scholars to refocus their attention onto a unique collection of 116 poems, which was rather popular among the ancient Romans. This paper is aimed to analyse one the expressive means typical of Catullus’ poetry, namely the borrowing, which clearly reflects the individual author’s style. It is outlined in the paper that Greek borrowings have been studied by A. Garnyk, O. Malein, and O. Mikina. Some aspects of Greek borrowings functioning in Catullus’ poems are represented in I. Shtal’s and E. Nazhott’s works. Researchers point out that the specificity of Graeco-Latin contacts lies not only in their cultural and religious relations, but also in their every-day life which affected the Latin language and thus was reflected in the Latin vocabulary. Accordingly, the existing literary traditions as well as the author’s own creative discoveries contributed to the fact that Catullus actively used Greek words in his poetry, assimilating them to the morphological system of the Latin language. By way analyzing authentic Catullus’ poems, the present paper substantiates the reasons of this vocabulary actualization in poetic works, offers a comprehensive classification of borrowings according to the criteria of their derivation type and thematic group as well as describes the specificity of their functioning and stylistic value in poetic texts. In particular, the nouns are classified into the following thematic groups: anthroponyms (ethmonyms, theonyms, mythonyms, cosmonyms), chrematonyms (i.e. the lexical units denoting material values and the results of human activities), toponyms (choronyms, hydronyms, oronyms, natural phenomena), phytonyms (the words, designating various plants), zoonyms (the vocabulary denoting animals). We have also singled out qualitative and relative adjectives belonging to the group of Greek borrowings. It was found out that qualitative adjectives are predominantly formed from mythological and geographical names with the help of various word-formative means. Despite the fact that a large number of Graecisms historically became a part of the Latin vocabulary and were used by the Romans rather unconsciously, in the analyzed texts there are cases of specifically individual use of Graecisms by Catullus when the author deliberately ignores the Latin equivalents. The analysis results demonstrate that borrowings play an important role in presenting a comprehensive view on Catullus’ idiostyle. It has been found out that Graecisms should be viewed as one of the characteristic means of Catullus’ poetic language that reflect the author’s desire to create poetry of the elevated style complying at the same time with the requirements of established literary traditions. Borrowing from the Greek language proves to be an active word-formative element of Catullus’ idiostyle, while their frequent use is conditioned by the subject matter of poetic works, their general expressive potential as well as by Catullus’ desire to create vivid poetic images.