Antonomasia is a lexical stylistic device in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa. Its logical meaning serves to denote concepts and thus classify individual objects into groups (classes). The nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning and acquires the new – nominal – component. Nominal meaning has no classifying power for it applies to one single individual object with the aim not of classifying it constituting a definite group, but, on the contrary with the aim of singling it out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object. The word “Mary” does not indicate if the denoted object refers to the class of women, girls, boats, cats, etc. But in the example, “He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, something…” the attribute “each”, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any woman. Here we deal with a case of antonomasia of the first type.
Another type of antonomasia we meet is when a common noun is still clearly perceived as a proper name. Such popular English surnames as Mr.Clerk or Mr.Black used to mean occupation and color. Also, such names as Mr.Snake or Mr.Backbite immediately raise associations with certain human qualities due to the denotational meaning of the words “snake” and “backbite”. Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations (as in “Dr.Fresh Air”) or phrases (as in “Mr.What’s-his-name’).
Research Topics
