PECULIARITIES OF NATURAL TOPOGRAPHIC NAMES FUNCTIONING IN UKRAINIAN SPELLS

Abstract

The article proposes a comprehensive approach to the analysis of the topographic repertoire of Ukrainian spells. Peculiarities of topographical and toponymic vocabulary functioning in the most ancient texts of ritual folklore are deduced. It has been determined that the spells reflect different geographical areas with the help of 7 structural-and-semantic types of topolexes; their artistic-and-aesthetic focus has been identified. Geographical names as culturally loaded onyms in folklore texts carry a huge layer of culturally significant information in their semantics. In this case the name is an abridged history of the inner life and spirit of the people. The cultural component of the language at the vocabulary level (hence the proper names) to some extent fixes the culture of the people - the native speakers, reflects the inherent worldview of the people. It has been proved that the disclosure of the functional load and mechanisms of onomastic vocabulary in folklore texts will contribute to the clarification and deepening of the theoretical foundations of onomastics as a linguistic science. Each geographical name, entering folklore texts, is combined with a complex range of relations that can be restored only on the basis of a comprehensive systematic analysis of all manifestations of spiritual and material culture of the people, taking into account regional data distribution and knowledge of typologically related cultures. One of the toponyms’ functions in the texts of the spells is a targeted one, but this category of proper names in folklore texts performs not only a nominative function, but often acquires a generalized abstract meaning, adds other semes to their lexicographically fixed meaning, which implicitly contain people's attitudes to the world. It has been proved that geographical names appear in folklore genres as peculiar concepts of the linguistic-and-figurative sphere of the Slavic mentality.