PROPER NAMES OF NATURAL SATELLITES OF THE PLANETS: DENOTATIC-CHARACTERISTIC, ETHYMOLOGICAL-WORD-FORMING AND FUNCTIONAL FEATURES

Abstract

According to the International Astronomical Union, 317 natural satellites have been discovered, including 199 space objects with official names. There are also 243 alternative names.
During the analysis it was established that such onyms belong to the onym field of space objects’ names, subfield of cosmoorbitonyms, segment of monocosmoorbitonyms. They are abionyms, realonyms, individual micro-, meso- and macro-names.
Official forms are simple new and newest nominal propriatives of artificial origin, which have a known and opaque etymology, borrowed from ancient Greek and other languages, formed by the actual semanticization, mainly from mythonyms. They are variable or unchangeable.
Alternative forms are new and newest associative-qualitative names of artificial origin, which have a known and transparent etymology. They are syntactically formed most often from names of space objects and numerals. Thus, they are derived from onyms and appellatives and are hybrid names, mostly unchangeable.
The main functions of natural satellite names are nominative and informative, which are relatively common in scientific and artistic styles. Such onyms mostly do not have connotative, associative, symbolic and ethnocultural features and differences in pronunciation and writing, belong to the macroconcept “Expanse” and the mesoconcept “Space” and at the same time – to passive vocabulary, are used in language, are little known. They are low-frequency and emotionally neutral.
In the future, it is planned to characterize other categories of proper names of space objects according to this algorithm: asteroids, galaxies, stars, comets, constellations, etc.