Toponymic Structure of Pomor Settlements

Abstract

The paper analyzes the architectural and spatial design and toponymic structure of Pomor settlements based on authors archival and field data. It also updates structure and elements of cultural landscape, identifies and describes regional features of the architectural and spatial organization of the settlement and the type of its spatial perception by local residents. The authors come to the conclusion about the dominant role of the category of space. Economic factors determine the image of space for the bearers of traditional culture. The category of space reflects the inner world of the people who experience it. Toponymic contexts analyzed from the point of view of language semantics and culture demonstrate typical morphological and morphemic models of word formation, which indicate both the universality of settlement structures, and universal toponyms with a rich internal form generating a vast interpretational field and semantic contamination of a spatial type. The toponyms, formed from anthroponyms, showing territorial belonging and marking the “space — person” relationship, are frequently found. The toponyms that appeared by transition of common names into the proper ones (reverse antonomasia) are of special interest in terms of interpretation. At the same time, reverse antonomasia did not result from the loss of the object’s main function of indicating a specific geographical object, rather, it represented itself in acquiring additional connotations (for example, Volchikha (from the word ‘wolf’), Popov Ruchei (the priest’s creek) withinthe spatial category and use in a generalized way (for example, Niz (bottom), Verkhov’ye (upper reach), Konets (end), Posad (trade quarter). The analysis of toponymic data confirms that, on the one hand, there is a rigidly defined center in the mental image of space — the habitable territory. On the other hand, the image of space for commercial fishermen was characterized by vastness, and their “striving outside” attitude did not only have a pragmatic, but also an existential character.