UKRAINIAN OIKONYMS MOTIVATED BY PLANT NAMES AS THE SOURCE OF STUDYING HISTORY OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE

• Published in: Studia Linguistica no. 14
• Main Author: Bondarenko, Maksym
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Ukrainian
• Published: 2019
• ISSN: 2411-1562
• DOI: 10.17721/StudLing2019.14.70-90

The article analyzes the Ukrainian oikonyms motivated by plant names as an important source of studying the historical development of the Ukrainian language. It also identifies a number of extralinguistic factors that had a direct impact on the naming processes. The units, 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 oykonyms), give an opportunity to trace the dynamics of the Ukrainian oykonymikon motivated by plant names and investigate certain phenomena of the history of the Ukrainian language reflected in the names of Ukrainian settlements. The studied units record the old phonetic features: the absence or presence of prosthetic sounds, the phenomenon of forthcoming vowels in the unstressed position, the simplification in the groups of consonants, the phenomenon of sound combinations rо, lо, ra, la, rе, lе and others. In addition, the lexical features of the oikonyms motivated by plant names, which as wide as possible reflect the specifics of the lingual model of the world of our ancestors, are noticeable. Plant names of folk origin, as well as the precedent plant names, which are an integral part of Ukrainian ethno- and linguoculture, were the motivational basis for the creation of a large part of the oikonyms. The emergence of oikonyms motivated by plant names in the Eastern and Southern regions of Ukraine is characterized by the significant influence of the Russian language. Taking into account the heterogeneity of the names of settlements, due to the wide zoning of certain parts of Ukraine, as well as the territorial features of the relievo, flora and fauna, we also have analyzed the regional specificity of oikonyms motivated by plant names. In this case dialect traits, which are widely represented in the names of Ukrainian cities and villages, serve as narrow regional markers and make it possible to compare the outlook and specific thinking of our ancestors who lived within different territories of Ukraine.