ANIMAL NAMES IN COLLOQUIAL SPEECH

The article deals with colloquial names of dogs, parrots, turtles and some other animals. Some of them originated quite a long time ago and are either still in active use (cf. собачка ‘little dog’, черепашка ‘little turtle’), or have left the speech of native speakers over time (cf. черепашица ‘turtle’). Nowadays some old words actualize one of their meanings (as happened with the word псина, which was originally used mainly in the sense of ‘dog’s flesh’, and later it has become actively used in relation to the dog as a living creature). The ways of forming colloquial names of animals are analyzed: truncation clipping of the initial word — as a rule, the name of an animal or the name of its breed, including the formation of masculine forms from feminine words, which do not have such correspondence in literary speech (e. g., собак ‘dog’, птиц ‘bird’); addition of various diminutive and affectionate suffixes, as well as the addition of various letter combinations, due to which the name of an animal sounds like a pseudo-foreign word (e. g., собакен ‘dog’). In conclusion, the article considers the question of what may be the reason for the appearance of a large number of colloquial animal names. It is suggested that several factors are involved in this process, first of all, the tendency to save speech effort, as well as the expression of a special attitude towards pets through such names.