Aspects of research the connotation in compounds with color component (On the example of Uzbek place names)

Abstract

Problems related to nomination or simply “naming” have always been a topical item for scholarly disputations. People were interested in the nature of naming, how people name an object in his/her language and why one and the same object is named quite in another way. In other languages starting with ancient Greek philosopher Plato, this problem was touched on by hundreds and thousands of scholars. Giving a name to a place is not so difficult to compare with names of people and things. People see the nature and see the specific features of the nature, landscape and compare them with other rivers, mountains, hills, villages, plains using their knowledge and give name to them. Up to now linguists saw no problems here but starting with the rise of cognitive linguistics, scholars began noticing some interesting features of place names. In the article the authors analyzed the features of place names with color component on the material collected from the maps of 5 regions of Uzbekistan: Tashkent, Djizakh, Ferghana, Andijan and Namangan regions. The material was collected from the special maps having metric detalisations to villages with springs, streams; pathways etc. Authors analyzed the degree of the correspondence between the elements of place names as compared to the real landscape of the named place. Statistical data are used to compare the distribution of the name in an area. This is all, what was done from the point of linguistics. Each time the authors see a place name they try to give its etymology and compare it with existing etymological and translation dictionaries. And the authors found that the place name can be used in its primary, dictionary meaning but also it can be used metaphorically or connotatively. In this article the authors made an attempt at finding solutions to such problems.