The Functional and Lexical and Semantic Particularities of Denominations of Dwellings and Outbuildings and Their Parts

The aim of the article is to determine the structure of the lexical and semantic group “terms of types of dwellings, terms of types of houses, and their parts terms” and to identify its functional and semantic features. The material for the
study was obtained by the method of continuous sampling from dictionaries of the Ossetian language, from historical and ethnographic literature, and the author's field data was also used. The ethnolinguistic study of the terms of dwellings and
outbuildings in the Ossetian language, which we have undertaken for the first time, has revealed that the main source of enrichment of the lexicon under study is the internal resources of the Ossetian language; local peculiarities in the terms of both dwellings and outbuildings characteristic exclusively of the Ossetian language have been discovered; at the same time, the lexical and thematic group contains notions indicating common features with the construction culture of neighboring peoples. Along with Iranian, there is a Caucasian layer of terms, as well as inclusions from Turkic, Adyghe, and Russian languages, indicating that these languages took part in the formation. The lexicon associated with construction has a rich history and specific features and has a mythological image. The lexical and semantic group ‘terms of dwellings and types of houses and their parts in the Ossetic’ has been developed over centuries, but at the same time it is very similar to the corresponding lexicon of the North Caucasian and Transcaucasian languages and is the result of close and long-lasting contacts between the peoples of the areal.