Nomination of Dangerous Meteorological Phenomena in Dialect Speech (a Case Study of the Ukrainian Eastern-steppe Local Dialect)

Abstract

The article examines the nominations of meteorological phenomena dangerous to humans on the basis of Eastern-steppe dialects, in particular, the nominations of rain with snow, prolonged rainfall, thick fog with light rainfall, showers, blizzards, snowfall, ice, severe frost, whirlwind, cold wind and freezing temperatures, storms, heat, droughts, etc.

The comments of local residents contributed greatly to revealing the dialect peculiarities of the meteorological nominations use. Among them there are synonymous names (dryï^ïzhak, zaï^ïmerzly, zaduï^ïbily, zakï^ïlakly, proï^ïmerzlo do kisï^ïtok; svysï^ïtyt, reyï^ïve, huï^ïde, ^ïïvyie (zavy^ïïvaie) ^ïviter; ^ïïsype, ^ïïvale, meyï^ïte (zamy^ïïta) and others, comparisons (taïkyĭ ^ïïviter / sho do kisï^ïtok promeyrï^ïzaie, tuï^ïman ta^ïkyĭ / sho yak stiï^ïna sto^ïïiit, doshch yak z vidï^ïra etc.), and the phraseological units (ch'ort ^ïïzhenits':a, etc.)

The comments of local residents testify to the nomination peculiarities of some meteorological phenomena and related concepts and processes. Fixed names are most often represented by one-word, less often – multi-word phrases (mostly attributive – lodaï^ïnyĭ ^ïïviter, ^ïïtykhyĭ snih, ^ïsylnyĭ moï^ïroz, laï^ïpatyĭ snih, etc., less often – proï^ïmerzlo do kisï^ïtok, etc.). The analysis of the use frequency of the studied demonstrators proves that the vast majority of them are commonly-used words and some nouns have variants in other speech continua.

Some nominations are known in the modern Ukrainian literary language, having the identical semantics (^ïvikhola, sniho^ïpadt, ozhey^ïledytsa, ^ïviter, ^ïbura, ^ïvykhor, s^ïpeka, etc.). They are also used in other dialects where they have phonetic (metélytsa, zaméta, vikhόr, etc.), word-forming (súpaty(sy), holoshchák, kotútysy, etc.), and semantic (lapátyi, vúkhor, zásukha, etc.) variants.