TOPONYMS IN THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM
The article deals with linguistic peculiarities of proper names. The classification of toponyms according to the geopolitical, economic and social and cultural significance of objects denoted by them is given, namely hypertoponyms, macrotoponyms, regionyms (i.e. the names of regions) and microtoponyms. The main attention is focused on the two problems: 1. a comparative and contrastive study of short and full (official, i.e. accepted in the UNO) variants of hyper- and macrotoponyms in the Russian, English, German and French languages; 2. structural modifications of hyper- and macrotoponyms in the process of forming names of persons according to the nation and state they belong to, i.e. ethnonyms. The cases of interlanguage correspondences and, vice versa, of structural asymmetry of toponyms in different languages, regularities of their translation or transliteration, and also “hybrid” toponyms in the structure of which genetically heterogeneous components occur, are especially singled out. The phenomena of variation of hyper- and macrotoponyms and their morphological and morphonological modifications in the process of word formation are also examined. Social factors, historical processes, causing changes in the structure of toponyms are taken into consideration as well.