Two-Part Personal Names in the Proto-Slavic Language

Abstract

The paper deals with the Proto-Slavic two-part personal names reconstructed in the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages (EDSL), vols. 1–42. Indo-European by their origin, these names retained their use among all Slavs even after the adoption of Christianity and the assimilation of the Christian name set. The author examines the set of lexical units that occur in two-part proto-Slavic anthroponyms, the rules of their design (pure basis, truncated basis, word form) and connection with one another (the presence or absence of a connector). It is shown that the first and second parts of a compound name have different properties: the first element can be represented by verbal, substantive, adjective bases, pronominal bases, adverbs, prepositions / prefixes, while the second — only by verbal, substantive, and adjective bases. Most certainly, EDSL does not claim to incorporate all binominal anthroponyms of this type in the Proto-Slavic language but provides a clear idea on the anthroponymic and wordbuilding patterns of compounds in the Proto-Slavic language, as well as their syntactic and semantic features. These patterns are quite similar to those existing in appellative vocabulary and anthroponymic systems of other Indo-European languages. The lexical and ideographic inventory of the units indirectly refers to the value system underlying the onomastic tradition (cf. the popularity of such concepts as ‘dear,’ ‘friend,’ ‘guest,’ ‘glad,’ ‘peace,’ ‘glory,’ ‘holy,’ ‘love,’ ‘praise,’ etc.).

Keywords

• anthroponymy
• proto-slavic language
• etymology
• reconstruction
• composites
• vocabulary
• morphological types of word bases
• semantics
• internal syntax of composites