CONCEPTUAL-THEMATIC GROUP “ANIMALS” IN THE NOVEL BY LONGUS

• Published in: Studia Linguistica no. 14; pp. 133 - 146
• Main Author: Makar, Inesa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Ukrainian
• Published: 2019
• ISSN: 2411-1562
• DOI: 10.17721/StudLing2019.14.133-146

In the article, we attempt to provide a systematic description of the animal names in the novel by Longus, the ancient Greek writer of the end of the 2nd century A.D. “Daphnis and Chloe” and identify their role in the writer’s lexical idiosystem. By combining the functional-semantic approach to the analysis of the writer’s lexical idiosystem with the cognitive, the conceptual concepts that are verbalized by lexical dominants and are directly related to the subject matter of the work, were united into the conceptual-thematic group “Animals”. The names of domestic animals, wild animals, insects, animals living in the water and birds were delimited within the conceptual-thematic group “Animals”. The subgroup “Names of Domestic Animals” was found the most abundant (29 names) and the most frequent (397 fixations) in the studied text. It showed the highest number of dominants in comparison with the other groups (ἡ αἴξ, ἡ, ὁ βοῦς, ὁ τράγον, ὁ τράγον, ὁ τράγον, ὁ, ἡ κύων). Domestic animals play very important role in the life of shepherds. Goats and sheep raised Daphnis and Chloe when they were little, brought them closer in their youth, were grieving when the lovers were not together, were rejoicing with them and even attended the main characters’ wedding. Here we come across anthropomorphization of animals in Longus novel. It was revealed that the lexemes denoting animal world are involved in the process of creation of numerous tropes (comparisons, metaphors, epithets, etc.), which is due to the peculiarity of the genre of this work and writer’s idiostyle. The writer’s idiolect is closely connected to the conceptual structure of the fiction text, as it is evidenced by the analysis of the CTG “Animals”. The micro-concepts which we include to this group appear to be the relevant elements of the writer’s conceptual model of the world. The names of micro-concepts actualize their semantics in micro-contexts through semantic connectivity with the other words, revealing their direct and indirect (figurative) meaning, alongside with the aesthetic-philosophical potential of the writer’s outlook in general.