Urbanonymy in the national-cultural aspect: Philosophical approach

Abstract

The urbanonymic space in the world’s countries, as well as the toponymic space as a whole, is in constant development, renewal, and improvement, acquiring a new historical and cultural essence and reflecting universal and national values. Proper names of city objects appeared both recently and several hundred years ago and currently have a wide meaning for expressing the city’s cultural component. Investigating them makes it possible, in turn, to restore linguistic and folk-historical facts significantly. After all, the names of streets, alleys, avenues, boulevards, etc. have not only a special significance in the city’s geography, but also in its history, reflecting the national and cultural background of the settlement. In this regard, studying topographical names in the city is extremely relevant. In addition, the result of the research made it possible to establish that in order to create a thorough, comprehensive scientific work on the national and cultural aspects of urbanonymy, it is worth investigating separate urbanonymic spaces. They give a clear idea of the emergence, development and regularities of the functioning of the urbanonymic subsystem, which will allow determining its place in the city’s toponymic system. The purpose of the present research is to investigate the main directions and trends in studying the national issue of urbanonymy in the scientific literature, as well as to clarify linguists’ and historians’ viewpoints regarding certain practical national and cultural aspects of urbanonymy. The uniqueness of urbanonymy as the subject of the study and the purpose of the current academic work prompted the selection of the primary research method, description. It was applied to understand the theoretical fundamentals and modern guidelines for studying the city’s onym space. At different stages of the scientific work, the following methods have been applied: the etymological method for reconstructing the primary meaning of city names; the comparative-historical method to reveal the historical background of the nomination; the formant method, according to which certain word-forming tools are also used. In addition, methods of structural-semantic and component analysis were applied for inventory, systematization and classification of names, interpretation of their lexical-semantic, structural-derivative and functional-pragmatic features. According to the research results, the features of national and cultural aspects in urbanonymy were studied, and the viewpoint of scientists regarding the principles, components and place of objects of urbanonymy in the society’s social and cultural environment was clarified.