Functional purpose of personal proper names in expressing the nominative-predicative aspect in the literary dictema (based on English fiction)

Abstract

The aim of the research is to describe the functional features and categorical differences of personal proper names (anthroponyms) in the construction of the nominative-predicative aspect of the literary dictema. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the identification of the structural-textual functions of personal proper names in relation to their etymological meaning, as well as in the extended examination of the organisation of the nominative and predicative aspects of the dictema. The investigation of linguistic units within the semantic field of the dictema is conducted using authentic texts of English fiction. The paper discusses the functional features of a personal proper name as an informative and significant unit of text that serves to establish semantic connections in the seminal aspects of speech within the literary dictema. Within the framework of the dictemic approach to the study of personal proper names, typical groups of anthroponyms have been identified, which form a specific kind of nominative-predicative centre in relation to the given mental trajectory of objective reality. As a result, the research shows that the appellative bases of anthroponyms are capable not only of denoting events, which allows associating this phenomenon with the nominative part of the dictema, but also of participating in the construction of the predicative aspect, i.e., indicating the reality and unreality of actions in the author’s imagined world and directly in the interpretation of the reader.