Structural and semantic characteristics of Japanese female names in the epic Kojiki

Abstract

The article is devoted to the largest monument of ancient Japanese literature, one of the first written monuments of Japan to the epic Kojiki, structural and semantic characteristics of Japanese female names in the epic Kojiki. The Japanese epic and it’s rich onomastic material are the most important source of study, both the culture of the people and their language, history and worldview. In addition, there is a need for a comprehensive description of the semantic and structural features of female names in the Japanese epic due to their lack of research due to the relative novelty of the science of proper names, onomastics. In the framework of the scientific article, the authors set a goal to identify the structural and semantic features of Japanese female names on the material of the Japanese epic Kojiki. In the work the methods of continuous sampling, statistical, descriptive, contextual were used. The methodological basis of research served as the works of A. V. Superansky, V. D. Bondaletov, E. L. Frolova, N. I. Filippova. In the theoretical part of the study, the authors study the problem of onomastics in General linguistics and describe the peculiarities of the Japanese onomastics, isolated the specificity of naming in Japan. In the practical part, the authors propose a classification of Japanese women's epic names by structure and meaning on the material of the Japanese epic Kojiki. Thus, 50 Japanese women's names were selected and divided into semantic thematic groups and structural indicators. Researchers reasonably come to the conclusion that the Japanese female names in the epic consist of a name and an indicator. In addition, the women's epic name is a required presence in the name of increased social and tribal status, which indicates that Japan of that time was a society with pronounced social hierarchy. As for semantics, it is a large group of women's names formed from the names of natural phenomena, flora and fauna, indicating the proximity of the Japanese to nature and the gods of it.

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