The nomenclature and nomination processes of naming and producing technical color nomens of automotive paints based on secondary nomination and transonymization are investigated. The main and most numerous groups of the automotive paint nomenclature are systematized and considered in detail, motivational aspects of nominating such items, as well as their structure, semantic field, and pragmatic frequency of using have been determined.
Keywords: automotive paint nomenclature, technical color nomen, secondary nomination, transonymization.
The total number of the studied names used to designate colors for all-metal bodies, cabs, body fittings, chassis, units and components of Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles is 240 items, of which the vast majority of automotive paint nomenclature are produced by conversion of appellatives into onyms (e.g. begonia, pelican, pigeon, emerald), which indicate the productivity of the semantic onymization.
In terms of parts of speech, these are nouns that designate a color through a specific object and are further carriers of a certain similarity and associative proximity of the designated concepts. The method of obtaining such a semantic loading is the secondary nomination, namely, transfer to the color palette through assimilation against the background of environmental objects and phenomena.
However, we observe the phenomenon of transonymization, when the source of a new name for automotive paint is the previously used proper name. Such items (in the amount of 57 color nomens) were recorded both at the level of the entire lexico-semantic group, and partly in individual LSGs: 1) the LSG with archiseme “toponyms” in the amount of 29 items; 2) the LSG of color nomens with the achiseme “mythological and fairy-tale characters” in the amount of 10 items; 3) the LSG with the achiseme “anthroponyms (female names)” in the amount of 7 items; 4) the LSG of color nomens with the achiseme “astronomical objects” in the amount of 7 items; 5) the LSG of color nomens with the achiseme “art” in the amount of 3 items; 6) the LSG of color nomens with the achiseme “geography, natural phenomena” in the amount of 1 item.
Special attention should be paid to the combination of adjectives in the palette of automobile paints, such as heroic, cream white, having in their composition an additional semantically visualized component for color perception. Given the rather subjective vision of the semantics of car colors, there is a need to conduct a statistical study of the frequency of using and associativity of the main components of the car color palette, which will be discussed in future scientific publications.
Thus, we can make conclusions that the names of automotive paints form a separate nomenclature group of color nomens, the items of which are predominantly the product of the secondary nomination, which is closely related to the semantic load of the lexeme and the associative ability of native speakers to find the reference value.