THE CONNOTATIVE MEANING OF TOPONIMS IN ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

Abstract

In the article the author analyzes that toponims containing information about the culture, traditions, social and political life of a people, can become part of phraseological units. The toponim acts as a kind of symbol have cultural and historical information. Thus, in addition to identifying the object in space, the toponim in the phraseological units performs symbolic and axiological functions. In the semantic structure of proper names components there is a redistribution of the hierarchical dependence of denotative and connotative components: the latter displace the denotative component from the nucleus of the onim meaning and move from the periphery of the lexical meaning to its center. Thus, it is clear that the connotation is not layered on the main content, but is in complex interaction with it. Toponimic components can be evaluative in nature, reflecting the prevailing public evaluation of certain geographical features. Each proper name in phraseology is assigned a certain stereotypical set of features. The connotations of proper names are evaluative and mostly characterize geographical objects on various grounds. They arose on the basis of certain features of these names, their properties, sizes, characteristics and so on. Thus, a significant layer of onomastic vocabulary became part of phraseological units in connection with the spread of Christianity. Like mythological phraseology they belong to interethnic units and are found in the phraseology of different languages. The type of connotative meaning is influenced by the nature of the denotative correlation of the component “proper name”. On the basis of the correlation of the proper name component with the denotation, single-denotative names are distinguished, for which single concepts are fixed, and multi-denotative, which are characterized by the absence of a specific denotative correlation. Connotations of one-denotation names arise on the basis of encyclopedic information about the denotation name and are determined by the importance of historical events for society. Multi-denotative proper name components are marked by generalized, metaphorical and figurative meaning, which arises as a result of various possibilities of different perception of proper names by another person. As part of phraseology, place names can retain their onimic character, pointing to a specific object. Acting as a semantic core component, such proper names carry information about a particular denotation of a geographical object and related cultural, historical and everyday events, which is a necessary condition for understanding the meaning of a complex linguistic sign.