Deverbal personal nomina subiecti with the suffix „-nik” („-lnik”) in the Belarusian language

Abstract

This article is devoted to the semantic and derivational analysis of masculine deverbal nouns belonging to the category of nomina subiecti with the suffix -nik (-lnik) in the Belarusian language. The notion nomina subiecti comprises the designations of people who perform some work or occupation, whether permanent or temporary, with or without material gain. The names analyzed, whose derivational meaning can be defined as “he or she who performs the activity associated with the verb that serves as the derivational basis”, are a collection of 228 Belarusian personal derivatives, taken from Belarusian and Polish dictionaries, lexicographic works in the field of synchronic word-formation of personal names, and the author’s own materials. From the point of view of semantics, this category of derivatives represents vocabulary belonging to the sphere of everyday life, including both designations of professions and performers of temporary or occasional activities, and these names are rooted in the Belarusian language’s derivational system, as they designate the performers of agricultural, industrial and craft activities. The analysis proved that, in Belarusian, the group of personal deverbal nomina subiecti with the suffix -nik (-lnik) is large, yet, at the present stage of development of the language, the formant nik (-lnik) is practically no longer used to create designations of professions. The relatively small amount of neologisms proves that this formant is less popular than other suffixes, especially foreign ones (cf. -аnt, -ist), and this applies above all to the sphere of politics, mass culture, and sport; when it comes to its structure, the suffix shows connectivity with the native word-formation bases, and the process of derivation is characterized by a considerable degree of regularity.