ONYMS IN THE ROLE OF PRESUPPOSITION TRIGGERS IN THE SCIENCE FICTION STORY OF HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT “IN THE WALLS OF ERYX”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of onomastic vocabulary in the role of “triggers” of presupposition in the literary genre of science fiction on the example of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s story “In the Walls of Eryx”. The author focuses on the study of the influence of proper names as a lexical tool on the formation of an atmosphere of horror in the construction of specific text space of science fiction. The onomastic space of a fictional text means the totality of all its literary onyms or poetonyms, i.e. proper names that were created by the author’s imagination. In any text, except for clearly defined or explicit information, there is always implicit or unclear information that is meant by the author and perceived by the reader. The author’s background knowledge and perception of the reader’s awareness are beyond the linguistic content of the statement. To ensure the informativeness of the message, a connection is established between what is meant and what the author directly talks about. A presupposition signifies the assumption of an utterance, namely, something which is implicitly conveyed through what is said, in other words, is implied. Presuppositions are related in a sentence to specific words and elements of syntactic structure, which, as language tools, are usually called triggers or activators of presupposition. In our study, such triggers are those that help synthesize different genres within a single work, activating an atmosphere of horror in a science fiction story. The author of the article focuses on how the concept of “horror” is interpreted in the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and why it affects his writing in other genres, such as the planetary novel. To do this, the onomastic space of the work “In the Walls of Eryx” is studied and the “trigger” functions of the presupposition of individual onyms are revealed. Among such functions of proper names, we have defined the next: the predictability or preconditionality of the information; intuitive perception of the text; liaising with other discourse referents to convey information more accurately.