FEATURES OF THE TOPONYMS NOMINATION

Geographical objects are remarkably diverse. Among them there are both natural and artificial objects. In onomastics in general and in toponymy in particular, they are defined as objects of nomination.

The Great Russian Encyclopedia defines a nomination as “the formation of units of language characterized by a nominative function, i.e., serving to name and isolate fragments of non-linguistic reality and form appropriate concepts about them in the form of words, combinations of words, phraseological units and sentences” [4, с. 279]. The nomination process in language is a complex phenomenon that raises a large number of questions: specifics, ways of conveying semantic content, etc.

Toponyms are a subset of proper names, which means they should be characterized by the same features of the nomination. E. M. Chernyakhovskaya emphasizes the need to study the word–formation composition of geographical names, due to the fact that “all proper names, on the one hand, indicate the general process and trends in the development of each language both in the past and at the present stage, and, on the other hand, they have their own patterns of development, their own word-formation specificity” [6, с. 217].

Toponyms can represent the objects they designate in different ways. They reflect the characteristics of objects through the subjective perception of residents, through their economic importance, their attitude to any persons or other objects, etc., which is embodied in the principles, methods, types of nomination/

As for the specific features of toponyms, it is important to note some highlighted by A. V. Superanskaya:

1. The secondary nature of the nominations.
2. The individuality of each act of nomination.
3. A particularly close connection of the toponym with the named object.
4. The absence of a direct connection between the signified and the signifier.
5. The increased connection of the toponym with the cultural and historical background on which it originated [3, с. 89].

The process of nominating toponyms is largely related to their functional characteristics. Thus, Istvan Hoffman points out the priority of satisfying people's communicative needs when naming geographical objects, but at the same time emphasizes that cultural motives also influence the nomination process, since proper names have been a universal component and one of the fundamental parts of human culture for thousands of years [7, с. 292].

In ancient times, the first names were given to those geographical objects that were located nearby human settlement. Since such objects often turned out to be unique, they received a common name without any clarifications. For example, a certain mountain could be called simply the mountain, a river – the river, and a forest – the forest [1, с. 1116].

Over time, these words, which were originally just common geographical terms and had no reference to a specific object on the ground, disappeared from the living language. According to T. V. Babiyan, the reason for this could be its development or its complete disappearance due to a change in the ethnic composition of the territory. Nevertheless, they remained as names of geographical objects, and were perceived by native speakers of a new language not as common words, but as proper names [1, с. 1116].

In cases where there were several objects of the same kind in a certain area that needed to be distinguished, they often received names for their economic purpose. At the same time, the most useful elements of the landscape – rivers or lakes – could receive their own names quite early, while other objects – forests – remained nameless for quite a long period of time.

As the role of reservoirs in people's lives declined, the oldest permanent settlements began to arise. Now they became the main landmarks, and many small rivers and streams themselves received their names from the names of settlements, rather than giving them their names.

Over time, geographical names have gone through various transformations, often losing not only their original form, but also their meaning. The most common type of transformation is simplification. As a result of this process, long or descriptive names take on an increasingly compact appearance. Since toponyms are much more actively borrowed from one language to another than other words, they are often assimilated and transformed under the influence of a new language system. In addition, they can be reinterpreted within the framework of another language and acquire a completely new meaning under the influence of the cultural and linguistic characteristics of another people.

Collectively, all the toponyms of a particular area form its toponymic system. The term “toponymic system” simultaneously means, firstly, all the names of a particular territory; secondly, the system is considered as a set of separate types of toponyms like hydronyms, oikonyms, etc., rows of toponyms correlated by some structural or semantic feature.

A toponymic system can arise naturally when place names appear during the history of a region and persist for a long time, or it can be created artificially, for example, when renaming geographical objects. At the same time, we can talk about the complete artificiality of the toponymic system only in some cases, since the complete displacement of the original toponymy of a certain region occurs only in rare cases and most often even in the case of a change in the ethnic composition of the region, multilingual toponyms compete with each other for a relatively long time, coexisting equally in the language.

Each toponymic system is strictly territorial, that is, it is tied to a specific area. At the same time, the toponymic system is not a simple sum of names of geographical objects related only by the fact that they are located in a specific area, but such a set of toponyms, which are characterized by a time factor, a language factor, as well as landscape-geographical, ethnocultural, historical, economic and linguistic unity of the territory. As noted by G. V. Glinskikh, “... the systemic relations between linguistic units functioning in a language are transferred to toponymic material, which is quite likely and natural, but are interpreted as specific connections that create a special, toponymic system” [2, с. 44].

Based on the above, any toponymic system has a number of characteristic features. According to A. V. Urazmetova, the most important of them are “the integrity of the toponymic system, the differentiation of its various elements, the correlation and interaction of various elements of the system, the extralinguistic validity of the elements of the system” [5, с. 47].

Thus, the nomination of toponyms began at an early stage of language development. The first names were often common names, but then they became proper names. The process of nominating toponyms takes place according to the rules of the language, but taking into account the historical and geographical features of the area. The toponyms of a certain area together form its toponymic system, which is characterized by the presence of systemic relationships between its individual elements.