Somatic theological terms in the system of ukrainian popular botanical names: sociolinguistic aspect

Halyna Nakonechna; Hennadiy Voznyuk

The article describes the Ukrainian national botanic names with somatic theological terms in their structure and their specific using in the world of the Christian outlook. The authors defined the area of spread of these units and lexical-semantic relations between them. The comparative analysis of these terms lets you outline a statistics and an importance of the terms with a Christian component in various regions of Ukraine, to find out their intrasystem homonymy.

Ukrainian language

botanic terminology

somatic theological terms

dialect names

lexical-semantic relations

intrasystem homonymy

A few dissertations, monographs, a number of articles in Ukrainian linguistics deal with the issue of botanical terminology [1;3;4;6;8;9;12]. There is also a fundamental lexicographical study of this branch terminology, which has become the main source base for our research [2]. Botanical names with theological terms, including the somatic ones, have not been an object of terminological study yet.

Topicality of the research stems from the fact that nowadays the processing of any branch terminology, and definitely as specific as botanical, certainly implies multivectorness, in particular, the involvement of lingual and cultural as well as ethnic and linguistic approaches.

The aim of this article is to identify the degree of fixation of the Christian worldview in the popular names of plants, since botanical vocabulary reflects the worldview of people at different stages of its historical development, to describe lexical semantic relations between such names.

Theological terms as a part of popular botanical terms may included in the following lexical-semantic groups: names of objects (e.g. крісло Матері Божої [krislo Materi Bozhoyi]), names of constructions (e.g. буда аронова [buda aronova]), names of plants subspecies (e.g. терня Христові [ternia Khrystovi]), names of products (e.g. манна Божа [manna Bozha]), theological and ecclesiastical names (e.g. благодать Божа [blahodat’ Bozha]), natural phenomena (e.g. Божа роса [Bozha rosa]), names of persons (e.g. ангельці [anhel’tsi]).

Lexico-semantic group with somatic components is the most numerous. It includes the names of body in general (тіло Боже [tilo Bozhe], тіло Божої Матері [tilo Bozhoyi Materi], тіло Христове [tilo Khrystove]), as well as its parts: Христове око [Khrystove oko], очі Божі [ochi Bozhi]; адамова голова [adamova holova], п’ятка Божої Матері [pyatka Bozhoyi Materi]; ребро(а) Божої Матері [rebro(a) Bozhoyi Materi], ребро адамове [rebro adamove], пальці (пальчики) Божі [pal’tsi (pal’chyky) Bozhi], пальці Петрові [pal’tsi Petrovi]; рука (ручка(и)) Божа(і) [ruka (ruchka(y)) Bozha(i)], ручка Пресвятої Діви [ruchka Presviatoyi Divy], ручки пречисті [ruchky prechysti], ручки Христові [ruchky Khrystovi]; серце Іванове [sertse Ivanove]; коси Матері Божої [kosy Materi Bozhoyi].

Anthropocentric perception of the plant world, its personification is a typical phenomenon of all ethnic cultures. We are interested not in somatisms in the names of plants in general, but rather in the specificity of using the names of body parts in the light of the Christian worldview.

Conclusion: 1) popular Ukrainian botanical terminology captures such important stage in the history of the nation as the acceptance of Christianity; 2) the proportion of units with theological terms as components in the synonymic rows is relatively low; 3) the specified lexemes are used mostly in the Western Ukrainian dialects, partially – in the Central Ukrainian dialects, and rarely – in the Southern and Eastern Ukrainian dialects; 4) a certain polarization is inherent in popular naming: along with the names of plants that are composed of Christian elements, synonyms with reduced stylistic colouring are used; 5) intrasystemic homonymy is a special feature of the mentioned terminological system.

Ukrainian botanical terminology, especially its popular part, requires a detailed study on all the terminological levels , since it is the source of specific vocabulary, structural and derivational models of terms formation, fixing the development of the people’s mentality.

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