Some notes on peripheral items and features in eponymy

Abstract

The article’s subject matter is the study of eponymy from the viewpoint of the opposition between centre vs. periphery, both externally (i.e., concerning eponymy as a whole) and internally. The author argues that eponymy itself is a peripheral category regarding deappellative formation, since the semantics of eponymic inner form, while sharing common features with the latter (such as metaphor and metonymy), can also manifest ones that are unique to it (sanctifying, honorific, commemorative, and image-creating naming). Proceeding from the broad understanding of eponymy (as represented by any linguistic entity, both lexical and phrasal, formed with the help of proper nouns) as well as the three main parameters of the eponymic relationship (the underlying name, the derived eponym, and the relation thereof), the author proposes an approach to the said problem along these parameters. Then he concentrates on those peripheral eponymic entities and features that are linked to underlying names’ characteristics. There he investigates transitory cases (most of them informal epithets), working out their tentative typology (eponyms derived from artificial proper names, eponyms with reinterpreted underlying items, and eponyms with double underlying items), and substantiating it with evidence drawn from Ukrainian, Polish, English, and other languages. Finally, he discusses cases in which the reinterpretation of inner form components was influenced by their functioning in ideological and propagandist discourse.