Aleksieieva N. Peculiarities of functioning of English hipponyms in language, speech and mental lexicon

Every year the interest in the nomination processes grows and the range of onomastic researches is constantly expanding, covering more and more new, previously unexplored groups of proper names. In this PhD thesis the proper names of horses are comprehensively considered from the point of view of their functioning as units of language and mental structures. It turns out that, despite the status of the peripheral onymic category, hipponyms are worth more substantive analysis, because it is a complex phenomenon that covers passport official and folk unofficial names, and the naming process is time consuming and requires considerable ingenuity. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that it clarifies and unifies the system of terms to describe the process of nomination of horses; it is for the first time that the influence of extralingual factors on the system of hipponyms has been studied; a linguistic analysis of a wide hipponymic material has been performed, and, as a result, structural, semantic, word-forming features of this class of onyms and their functional load has been revealed; the specifics of mental existence of hipponyms of different nature in the mental lexicon of English speakers has been analysed. The theoretical significance of the work is due to the new cognitive-discoursive approach to the study of hipponyms through the prism of mental operations of categorization and conceptualization. The results of the study are a contribution to the development of national and foreign onomastics, as they expand scientific knowledge in the field of zoonymy and hipponymy and stimulate the initiation of new zoonymic investigations dedicated to the study of the nomination of animals as ancient and unchanging companions of man.Practical value of this dissertation research is determined by the possibility of using the obtained results for teaching university-level courses in general linguistics, English lexicology and special courses in psycholinguistics and cognitive onomastics. The practical findings of the study can also be used for writing qualification and scientific papers