Types of Toponymic Bases in Russian Don Dialects: Semantic Features

Linguists around the globe study the semantics of toponymic bases. The aim of our article is to identify the types of toponymic bases used for the nomination of microtoponyms in Russian Don dialects, as well as to examine the motivational features of toponyms. The material for this article was collected from the card catalog of the toponymic dictionary of the Don and Azov regions maintained by the Department of General and Comparative Linguistics at the Southern Federal University. In Russian Don dialects, the toponymic bases include names of plants, animals, geographical appellations, anthroponyms, and names based on the properties
or characteristics of objects from which the microtoponym is derived. These toponymic bases are the most common in Russian Don dialects and are also universal because they are found not only in Slavic languages. Words of Slavic origin dominate among the toponyms, but it should be noted that loanwords of Turkic or other origins can be combined with typically Slavic suffi xes, which is a characteristic feature of Don toponymy.