NAMES OF SNAKES IN EAST SLAVIC CHARMS: PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION OF ONOMASTIC CHAINS

The article is devoted to the search for formal and semantic principles of the organization of such onomastic microsystem as the names of snakes in East Slavic charms against a snake bite. Lists, or chains, of snake names can contain a different number of lexical units with different onomastic status and origin. The most clear chains are the binomial ones, those in which the opposition by gender plays a key role — it manifests semantically and grammatically. Another kind of chains of names, which is based on semantic unity, are lists of characteristic definitions of snakes or names which related to them genetically. The basis of the characteristic definitions is a designation for the habitat of the snake, its color, behavior, mode of movement, appearance, harmful effects, etc. However, in many name chains, only formal patterns of articulation of elements are revealed. These include: 1) rhyming of the elements of the chain; 2) acrophony; 3) correlation of the syllabic structure of names; 4) shortening/extension of the basis of the lexeme-beginner; 5) implementation of the “2+1” model (combining names into such triples, where the first two elements are closely related, and the third is significantly different from them).