Article

Name: Names of a person in relation to marriage in the Yakut language

Authors: A. A. Skryabina

Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North of Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk, Russia

In the section Лексикология

Abstract:

This study represents the first attempt to analyze and categorize human names within the Yakut language, specifically in relation to the marital status of a person. The objectives were to identify and systematize the names in terms of their connection to marriage and marital obligations, as well as to provide their classification by lexical and semantic groups. Multiple analytical methodologies were employed, encompassing continuous sampling, descriptive, comparative, historical, and lexicographic approaches. The study findings allowed four main name categories to be identified: premarital, marital, postmarital, and extramarital. In total, thirty-five lexical units related to the thematic group under study were analyzed and characterized. The lexical units were found to be expressed mainly by gendermarked nouns and substantiated adjectives. Some words in the Yakut language proved to lack gender marking: depending on the context, they can convey the meanings of “man” or “woman.” Human status is denoted by specialized monosemantic terms, polysemantic words, and specific expressions. The vocabulary analyzed here includes native Yakut and Mongolian loanwords, as well as Russian borrowings. These lexical and paremiological units reflect the views of the Yakut people on marriage. The marital status of a person has a high positive value, while the names for an unmarried status carry a negative connotation. Future research on vocabulary related to marriage and family could involve sociolinguistic, linguistic, cultural, and comparative studies of other Turkic and Mongolic languages.

Keywords: Yakut language, lexicon, semantics, marriage, woman, man, lexical-semantic group

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