SEMIOTIC PECULIARITIES OF PLACE NAMES: A SIGMATIC AND PRAGMATIC VIEW

The article substantiates the possibility of studying place names from the viewpoint of sigmatics, an aspect of the content plane of a sign. The irreducibility of place names to one clearly specified place in semiotic classification is displayed: the researcher can define their symbolic, indexical, and iconic characteristics. Exploring toponyms as icons in application to names of various types of objects can put the study on the explanatory track. The stages of studying various aspects of place names (syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics) generally repeat the stages of studying common names. Syntactics is a simple, “tangible,” and therefore the most studied aspect of a place name. The semantics of a place name appears to be conditional (stem semantics is explored) due to a unique component found in the structure of a toponym. This component prevents the place name from expressing a concept. Turning to anthropocentrism in science gave rise to a new trend in modern place names studies. The trend is focused on pragmatics. In the post-Soviet region, it is based on the need to explore ethnic and cultural meanings behind place name elements. The author proposes that, when detecting the role of the human factor, sigmatic properties should also be taken into account: properties of the perceived objects and their importance for people as reference points in spatial cognition. As a result, four categorization frames are distinguished which reflect both key senses reflected in place names, and the constructive character of creating the system of names.

place name (toponym), semiotics, syntactics, semantics, pragmatics, sigmatics, idea of an object, categorical idea of an object and its characteristics

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