Abstract:

The purpose of the article is to study manifestations of paradigmatic relations in folklore lexicon in order to establish a classification of folk synonyms and folk oppositions found in folktales. Achieving this goal requires using integrated multi-disciplinary research methods such as descriptive, comparative and classification methods. The study also involves specifically linguistic research procedures: the component analysis to describe the semantic content of the considered language units, the logical and semantic procedures in text analysis. English is used as the basis for the research, the collection of folktales edited by J. Jacobs and Folktales of the British Isles by James Riordan serve as the material for the empirical analysis. The study has resulted in the following findings: paradigmatic relations in folklore lexicon are represented by contextual, situational and formulaic synonyms and oppositions. The term “oppositions” is chosen over the term “antonym” as it has a wider application. Situational and formulaic relations prevail over contextual ones which is explained by the fact that these types folk synonyms and oppositions can perform analogical functions in the folktale plot.

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