About the dialect lexical formants: concerning the problem statement (on the material of the lexical-semantic group “Berries”)

Structural features of the words of the lexical-semantic group(LSG) “Berries” are considered on the basis of data of the “Dictionary of Russian folk dialects”, the dialect dictionaries of the Perm Krai and the field materials which are received in the Perm Krai. About 900 names of berry plants and their fruits with using a variety of different word-formation means were revealed. According to V.A. Merkulova’s opinion, in the diverse names the process of formation of sustainable lexical-derivational series is realizing. It’s discovered, however, that this hypothesis finds no confirmation in modern dialectal facts. At the same time a substantial part of the nominations has the variants of suffixes of compact group (-ig(a),-ik(a),-in(a),-ikha(a),-its(a),-k(a), -nick), which were previously allocated by the researchers. Historically most of these morphemes are phonetic variants of the same suffix, now its can be complicated suffixal and interfixal elements. As a result the question of the advisability of introducing the concept “formant” (as the affixal part of the appellative, indicating the affiliation of lexeme to the words of LSG with escapement meaning or to the terms and ensuring the similarity of word-formation and phonetic structure of words of this group) is put. Experience of onomastic researches in which the theory of formants apply long and productively, is indicating a high interpretative and informative potential of the formant method in addressing issues of dialectology.