«Time Designations» in East Slavic Etiological Legends: Lexis and Language Cliches

The article analyzes the structure and content of the final fragments of the East Slavic etiological legends containing various time markers and «time designations» that determine, predict and consolidate the transformations of living creatures and natural objects stated in the text of the legend. Special attention is paid to the plots from the East Slavic «etiological fund», for which the temporal aspect is extremely relevant – these are the plots about transformations (of a person into an animal or a plant), about the endowment of natural objects with new qualities or the deprivation of any properties. At the same time, each linguistic and cultural tradition (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian), in addition to lexis with common cultural semantics (‘forever’, ‘until the end of the world’, ‘forever and ever’, etc.), uses time designations expressed by regional (dialect) language means.