Verbovetska O. Informal anthroponomy of Ternopilshchyna.

In this thesis, we present a comprehensive study of the unofficial anthroponymy of Ternopil region (also referred to as Ternopilshchyna). The work is based on a extensive analysis of the available literature on the subject and on the body of experimental data gathered by the authors. The data were collected by interviewing residents of different ages, genders, and social strata from 128 villages uniformly distributed across Ternopilshchyna. The material basis includes 2410 forms of 280 personal names, 1778 family and 5100 individual nicknames, 190 group names, and a large number of variations of in-family usage of shortened and colloquial name forms.Our work exposed theoretical problems of unofficial name classification; defines classification principles and basic methodology or analyzing unofficial anthroponymy; and discusses several controversial issues in this area of anthroponymy. We have performed functional analysis of unofficial names of Ternopilshchyna residents, provided motivation for dividing anthroponymy into official and unofficial systems; analyzed the components of these systems, their characteristic properties, and functional specifics. We have established a number of principal features of all unofficial names, including their informality, lack of fixed word form, exclusively spoken usage, optionality, information content, and variability. We considered the following groups of modern unofficial names: colloquial versions of personal names, individual or group nicknames, family or relatives-specific names. For each of these groups, we have established appropriate onomastic terminology.