DERIVATIONAL POTENTIAL OF CHINESE TOPONYMS IN THE MODERN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
This article is concerned with the word-formation features of Chinese toponyms and the specifics of their functions in the modern Russian language. With the deepening of cooperation and the expansion of intercultural contacts between China and Russia, the number of loan words derived from Chinese toponyms is continuously increasing in Russian. Given that the Chinese and Russian languages belong to different language families, the research into the usage of Chinese toponyms in Russian appears to be necessary and relevant, especially from the perspective of derivatology and cultural linguistics. The purpose of this article is to research the derivational potential of Chinese toponyms in the functional-linguistic and communicative aspects. This work explores five groups of Chinese toponyms, fixed in two Russian dictionaries. The article analyzes the structure and semantics of the derivatives, according to the way of their derivation. We have also summarized the most productive word-formation models and found typical derivational paradigms of Chinese toponyms in Russian. The research allowed us to draw a conclusion that the names of administrative units and cities of China have a great derivational potential and many of them actively participate in the word-formation process. Based on these words, adverbs and agent nouns with the meaning “resident” are formed. These derivatives are widely used in political and economic discourse, in journalism, in literature, on the Internet, etc.