Tulajdonnév és köznév, jelnév és szónév határterületeinek vizsgálata Fekete István állatnevei alapján

Absztrakt

Borderline cases of proper names and common nouns, sign names and word names on the basis of animal names invented by István Fekete    

Examining the animal names created by István Fekete in his short novels “Vuk”, “Csí” and “Toronyban” this study seeks an answer to the theoretical question of whether there are borderline cases between common nouns and proper names, and between what are called “sign names” and “word names”. sign names and word names. To respond, the author examines the words used by the animal characters of the novels to name each other. Most of these names are of onomatopoetic origin, thus are motivated by animal sounds. Apart from names of a single referent one can also find name forms whose denotation is ambiguous, i.e. they do not refer to a single entity in space-time coordinates, so their state of proper noun is doubtful (e.g. Unka’s folks as a name type, the names of all animals not acting as protagonists in the actual novel). Formally speaking, the latter expressions are close to proper names; still they can not be used for unambiguous identification without adding distinctive features to them, so they must be treated as transitional forms between proper names and common nouns. As most subjects in a small experiment could identify the species of animals on the basis of the sound sequence in their names, the author concludes that animal names under discussion, though they lack standardized meaning, can not be perceived as “sign names”.