Structural Aspects of Connotative Toponyms in the Modern Ukrainian Language

The article explores the methods of forming casual topolexemes, their connotative meaning and stylistic colouring. The aim of the research is a structural-semantic analysis of connotative toponyms in common speech and teen slang, which function in the internet communication and in other forms of informal communication and also represented in the dictionaries of teen slang and jargon vocabulary. From the semantic point of view, all informal equivalents of the official city names, including teen slang, are expressively rich, non-trivial, and have connotations of different meaning in their semantics. By their structure, they can be one-word, compound or complex word combinations: Лохнеса, Чорноморська Пальміра, перлина біля моря (Odesa). Most of the compound nominations, namely, periphrasis, positively characterizes these topo-objects, emphasizing styles or individually specified cognitive features. Connotation also characterizes official names of the Ukrainian cities and villages: Бовдури, Крижопіль, Зачепилівка, etc. The most active way of forming connotative informal topolexemes, including topo-slang, is contraction — reduction of a word part, abbreviation, letter abbreviation: Крам (Kramatorsk), Херс (Kherson), Хмель (Khmelnitsk), Фриско (Ivano-Frankivsk), ЗП (Zaporizzha). Teen slang names should be seen in contrast to the ”basic” official names as their expressivelyevaluating or verbally-palyful equivalents with the lower (more often) social-language status. The significant role in word formation is given to the topo-suffixes -к/ -івк(а), -ах(а), and the suffixoid -сіті: Македонівка (Makiyivka), Констаха (Kostyantynivka), Кривбас-сіті (Kriviy Rig). The ironically-humorous effect, the “jocular proclamation to the world”, mostly specific to the teen slang, is produced by the derivatives, which are formed by the model of the foreign toponyms, naming huge, world-famous, ideal (in the nominator’s opinion) world metropolises: Криво-де-Жанейро (Kriviy Rig), Ріо-де-Житомир, Сан-Харцизько, Волна-Вегас (Volnovakha), Хьюстон (Donetsk). An important feature of informal topolexemes is the formation of semanic-stylistic paradigms, synonymyc chains, which can reach quite a significant amount; it reflects the systems organization of this onomastis area. All of the above indicates the immense word-forming possibilities of the Ukrainian language in the field of connotative topolexemes.