THE ONOMASTICON OF IRYNA SHUVALOVA’S POETRY COLLECTION “AZ”

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive description of the onymic space of Iryna Shuvalova’s poetry collection Az (2014). The material comprises the 72 poetic texts of the book, from which onymic units were extracted by continuous sampling. The descriptive method was applied, together with contextual, componential and quantitative analysis and with the comparison of onymic and appellative nominations within a shared context. The onomasticon of the collection proves to be markedly asymmetrical: toponymic poetonyms dominate both numerically and functionally, whereas anthroponymic poetonyms are represented mainly by hagionyms, mythonyms and paratextual dedications. Notably, the poems do not contain any Ukrainian toponyms: the onymic space unfolds between the Aegean and the Baltic Seas, and the concept of one's own is represented not by a place name but by a grapheme – the title letteronym Az. The decisive formal factor is the consistent lower-case writing of the book. The absence of the capital letter deprives the proper name of its principal graphic marker, so that the proprial lemma (in W. Van Langendonck’s terms) is realised as a potentially ambiguous unit. This generates regular zones of onymic-appellative indeterminacy that cannot in principle be resolved. The article also describes the appellativization of onyms and its grammatical means (the plural form, enumerative series), and demonstrates the existence of an intermediate phenomenon: a systematic weakening of the boundaries of the onymic category. The Odyssean onymic plot is traced, unfolding from the self-nomination nobody to the toponym ithaca. The study identifies quasi-etymological onymic chains built on paronymic attraction and a metaonymic layer organised around the lexeme name. The distribution of graphic registers is described separately: the majuscule exists only in the paratextual sections of the edition, that is, precisely where language is institutional rather than poetic. It is concluded that deonymisation in Az is not just a graphic device but also a systemic principle of poetics, isomorphic with the central theme of the whole book.