=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3171/paper49
|storemode=property
|title=A Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3171/paper49.pdf
|volume=Vol-3171
|authors=Oksana Nika,Svitlana Hrytsyna
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/colins/NikaH22
}}
==A Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3171/paper49.pdf
A Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-
Century Original Text
Oksana Nika1, Svitlana Hrytsyna1
1
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, 60 Volodymyrska St, Kyiv, 01033, Ukraine
Abstract
In this paper, we have shown the features of our work at different stages of creating the Frequency
Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text – from preparing the ancient original
text, compiling the Dictionary of Proper Names, classification of proper names into groups to the
calculating the frequency of proper names in the text and presentation of the obtained results in a
dictionary constructed in the descending frequency order. This is significant because: 1) the historical
specificities of the textual material of the 17th century and its disclosure at the preparatory and subsequent
stages of compiling this dictionary are taken into account; 2) groups of proper names are as detailed as
possible, which makes it possible to establish both the ratio of proper names to the total number of words
in the text and the frequency representation of each of the 24 groups of proper names; 3) the homonymy
of proper names is removed by establishing hypero-hyponymic relations and contexts; 4) single- and
multicomponent proper names are taken into account; 5) the problem of proper names variation is
analyzed; 6) the figurative usage of proper names as part of stylistic tropes is also taken into account. The
novelty of the scientific problem is in supplementing and adjusting certain stages in the algorithm for
compiling a Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in view of the historical specificities of the text
(diacritics, variance, graphics, orthography, features of text generation), the necessity for correlation with
texts of different genres, corpus related research, comparison of corpora.
Keywords
Proper names, frequency dictionary of proper names, usage frequency, seventeenth-century original text.
1. Introduction
Dictionaries of proper names are often compiled on the basis of historical materials (“Słownik
staropolskich nazw osobowych” [1], I. Mytnik’s “Słownik historyczno-etymologiczny antroponimii ziemi
chełmskiej 16 – 17 wieku” [2] and others), but less attention is paid to the creation of diachronic frequency
dictionaries.
Frequency dictionaries are often compiled on the basis of an original text/texts and aim to characterize
the onomastic space in a work/genre/style [3]; they take into account the special features introduced by
interlingual interference [4]. Furthermore, “the statistics can be used in typography, stenography,
psychology, psychiatry, language teaching, cryptography, software production, etc” [5, p. 1]. According to
V. Perebyinis, there are a number of factors affecting the speech; “…language laws (laws of composition
of language units used in speech), laws of language unit collocation in a speech chain, genre laws, the theme
and purpose of utterance, the author’s taste, their psychophysical state at the moment of speech and others…
speech composition will have certain features, which can be revealed by the statistics” [6, p. 8].
COLINS-2022: 6th International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Systems, May 12–13, 2022, Gliwice, Poland
EMAIL: nikaoksanaiv@gmail.com (O. Nika); sv.grytsyna@gmail.com (S. Hrytsyna)
ORCID: 0000-0001-6387-3835 (O. Nika); 0000-0002-8612-3372 (S. Hrytsyna)
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
The potential of the stylometric approach is shown in the study of the ancient Greek text of the New
Testament addressing the controversial issues of authorship of some of its parts [7].
Statistical methods are conventionally employed in textological and stylometric studies of written
monuments to detect their authorship and time attribution.
The frequency of words used in the sermons was compared with various subcorpora of the historical
corpus, which made it possible to identify meaningful words and intertextual connections. O. Nika and
S. Hrytsyna described the peculiarities of compiling a frequency dictionary of common names used in the
ancient text Otpys (Response) by Kliryk Ostrozkyi, a frequency dictionary of an original Cyrillic monument
of the late 16th century, which was created for the first time [8, p. 277].
In its use of onomastic terminology this article relies on the following sources: “List of Key Onomastic
Terms” [9], “Słowiańska onomastyka. Encyklopedia” [10], dictionaries by D. Buchko and
N. Tkachova [11] and others.
The centrality of the issue discussed in the article is linked to the necessity of theoretical justification of
the diachronic specificities of compiling frequency dictionaries, detecting proper name text frequency,
explaining the frequency discrepancies, as well as using the results (together with the text corpora) to
describe thought and language structures depending on the episteme type.
2. Database and methodology
The theoretical basis of the study were works on mathematical linguistics [5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14],
onomastics [2, 3, 10, 11], historical linguistics [8].
This study aims to compile a frequency dictionary based on the seventeenth-century texts (sermons by
Antonii Radyvylovskyi).
The object of the study is principles and methods of compiling a frequency dictionary of proper names
in the early modern sermon of the 17th century. The subject of the study is diachronic specificities of
compiling a frequency dictionary of proper names sorted in the decreasing frequency order.
The objectives of the paper are a) demonstrating the novelty of compiling a frequency dictionary of
proper names in early modern texts; b) describing the stages of frequency dictionary compilation and their
application to original ancient texts; c) specifying the preparatory stage of dictionary compilation and
principles of tokenization of Cyrillic seventeenth-century texts; d) showing the specificities of stemming
and lemmatization with regard to phonetic, orthographic and grammatical word and word-form variation;
e) discussing the text frequency of proper name use, frequency discrepancies, division into groups and
subgroups.
This frequency dictionary is historical: its compilation and results focus on describing the characteristics
of the genre (a sermon), cultural model (baroque), period (Early Modern period, 17th century); monolingual
(Ruthenian language with reference to ways of rendering proper names from other languages via Latin), a
headword is a proper name (hyponym); its hyperonym is given if used in the texts.
The novelty of the scientific problem is in supplementing and adjusting certain stages in the algorithm
for compiling a Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in view of the historical specificities of the text
(diacritics, variance, graphics, orthography, features of text generation), the necessity for correlation with
texts of different genres, corpus related research, comparison of corpora.
The obtained results can be used for theoretical and applied works, as well as in the teaching of statistical,
corpus linguistics, history of language, lexicography. Linguistic and statistical parameterization of the
17th century originals can be used to study other genres in synchrony and diachrony.
The main methods and techniques employed in the study are: methods of quantitative and statistical
analysis combining quantitative methods (to determine the number of proper names (lexemes and word
forms), frequency of their use in the text, their division into groups and subgroups, creating a Frequency
Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text, frequency discrepancies in proper
name use);
distributional analysis (to identify the distribution of proper names in the text, collocation of single- and
multicomponent proper names and their variation (phonetic, orthographic, structural), to differentiate the
cases of homonymy and classification of proper names into groups and subgroups);
componential analysis (to establish the meaning of words and their belonging to a certain group or
subgroup in the process of lemmatization and distinction of homonyms, to determine the primary and
secondary nomination, to classify proper names into groups and subgroups);
descriptive method (for empirical research of language material, for description of quantitative
characteristics of proper names in the studied original text of the seventeenth-century and their
interpretation).
The frequency dictionary is based on the metagraphed seventeenth-century texts by Radyvylovskyi,
Index and Dictionary of Proper Names, containing headwords (with their graphic, orthographic and
phonetic variants) and their meanings, both primary and secondary (contextual) with contexts given.
Text Representation. The genre of sermon was well-developed in Early Modern Europe. Oriented
towards the audience of different social status, the sermon explicated precedent proper names. Antonii
Radyvylovskyi was one of the popular seventeenth-century authors, who combined in his writings
European models and “Kyiv literary traditions”. The multilingual sources he referred to increased the
enlightening and persuasive effect of his works, which represent the qualitative and quantitative ratio of
proper names used in the Early Modern sermons.
The textual basis for the frequency dictionary of proper names is the publication Radyvylovskyi Antonii.
Barokovi propovidi 17 stolittia (Radyvylovskyi Antonii. Baroque sermons of the 17th century) [15].
Radyvylovskyi was unique in expanding the range of proper names used in his sermons, which was
influenced by the broad variety of sources and Baroque character of presentation.
The seventeenth-century original texts (23 sermons covering 226 pages in total) have been reproduced
through metagraphing (an ancient text publication with maximum saving of the original features). These
texts come from the collections Ohorodok Marii Bohorodytsi (The Garden of Virgin Mary) (1676) and
Vinets Khrystov (The Wreath of Christ) (1688), as well as their manuscript versions dating to 1671 and
1676–1683, which are kept in the Department of Early Printed Books and Rare Publications at the
Manuscript Institute of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine [15, p. ІІ]. As for their themes, most
sermons are festive ones, while two of them are war-themed.
After creation The Dictionary of Proper Names, used in the text, the compilation process of the
diachronic frequency dictionary had several stages: text preparation – tokenization, homonymy
differentiation (the proper names identification in the text was made by Python script, based on The
Dictionary of Proper Names, used in the text); frequency dictionary compilation procedure – identifying
the ratio of proper names to the total number of words in the text, classifying proper names into 24 groups
and subgroups, determining the frequency of proper names in the decreasing order within the groups.
Frequency ranging demonstrates proper name coverage of the text, number of proper names and their
variety in the text.
3. Text preparation
The work with the text started with its tokenization. Since proper names were of primary interest, all
manipulations in the text, such as the removal of syntactic characters, the removal of the tilde (a superscript
which was often drawn by the author over the names of persons to emphasize their holiness), etc., were
made only with proper names. It should be noted that margin notes, so-called glosses, were not taken into
account for the calculation purposes. They are usually abbreviated names of the sources cited, which are
quite voluminous and expand the basic information, and therefore warrant a separate study. We did not take
into account the title of the collection “Sermons from the Collections Ohorodok Marii Bohorodytsi (The
Garden of Virgin Mary) (1676) and Vinets Khrystov (The Wreath of Christ) (1688) by Antonii
Radyvylovskyi” either, but the titles of all 23 sermons were taken into consideration.
Proper name homonymy is quite a frequent phenomenon, and it was addressed by adding a special
character serving to distinguish homonyms. For instance, proper names Нwg//Noie/Noah, Нwи/Noi/Noah
and word combinations вторїй Нwg/vtoryi Noie/the second Noah, новый Нwg/novyi Noie/new Noah
were put into different groups//. In the first case, the proper name Нwg//Noie/Noah, Нwи/Noi/Noah belongs
to the subgroup of Biblical Anthroponyms. In the second case, вторїй Нwg/vtoryi Noie/ the second Noah,
новый Нwg/novyi Noie/ new Noah is a metaphoric description of Theodosius of the Caves (Fgwдосїй
Пgчgрскї(й)/Feodosii Pecherskyi), so it belongs to the subgroup Hagionyms. Names of Ruthenian Saints.
Homonymic proper names Нилъ/Nil/Nile were put into different groups, as their different meanings
were clarified based on hyperonymic-hyponymic relationships – рhка Нилъ/rika Nil/ river Nile and Нилъ
стый/Nil sviatyi/ Saint Nilus. Judging by its context, in the phrase такъ мовитъ Нилъ стый: Нg
можgт(ъ) мл̃твы чи(с)тои до Бга прgслати / tak movyt Nil sviatyi: Ne mozhet molytvy chystoi do
Boha preslaty/ Thus says St. Nilus: he cannot send a pure prayer to God [15, p. 198] the proper name Нилъ
стый/Nil sviatyi/ Saint Nilus belongs to the subgroup Hagionyms. Names of Saints and Martyrs. Names of
Christian Theologians and Church Fathers.
To avoid errors in the calculation, multicomponent stemmas of proper names were placed at the
beginning.
4. Frequency Dictionary compilation procedure
Lemmatization of proper names, used in the text, was made manually. Each lemma-proper name
represents a set of stemmas, i.e. word forms that have the same lexical meaning and correspond to the same
proper name. Due to different graphic representations of the same sound, stemmas belonging to the same
lemma (Мwvсgй/Moisei) could also look as follows: Мwvс:: Моvс/Mois. Here the parallel spellings w///o
are observed. Quite frequently, a variant spelling of the same proper name occurs in the same grammatical
case, for example: Гgдgwна/ Hedeona:: Гgдїwна/Hedyona; Дв(д)дъ:: Дв(д)ъ:: Двыдъ::
Двдъ/Davyd.
The theonym Іsus Khrystos/Jesus Christ has the greatest number of phonetic and orthographic
variants (85) in the text.
Sometimes the textual representation of a proper name was so variable that the set of stemmas consisted
of word combinations: Два Мріа/Diva Mariia:: Црца Нбна# Мрї#/Tsarytsa Nebesnaia Mariia:: Мтри
Цр# нб(с)наго/Materi Tsaria Nebesnoho:: Двw Прgнайстhша#/Divo Prenaisviatishaia:: Бцg
Дво/Bohorodytse Divo:: Бцы и пр(с)нw Двы Мріи/Bohorodytsy i Prisnodivy Marii, or Писмw
Стоg/Pysmo Sviatoie:: Писанїg Стоg/Pysaniie Sviatoie.
The study proves that multicomponent proper names in the text may have up to 7 components, thus
increasing the number of variants.
Orthographic variants include capital and small letters in spelling proper names in the original text. The
ancient text also has a specific division into words. Two separate words пр(с)нw Двы/ prisno Divy
corresponds to one word Prisnodivy according to modern orthographic rules.
On the basis of the Dictionary of Proper Names in Radyvylovskyi’s Sermons, the proper names were
divided into 24 groups, which are as follows: Biblical Anthroponyms; Theonyms. Christian Theonyms;
Theonyms Denoting Gods of the Greco-Roman Pantheon; Theonyms. Names Denoting Slavic Deities;
Hagionyms. Names of Biblical Prophets; Hagionyms. Names of Evangelists; Names of Angels and
Archangels, Apostles; Names Denoting Biblical Demons; Hagionyms. Names of Saints and Martyrs.
Names of Christian Theologians and Church Fathers; Hagionyms. Names of Ruthenian Saints;
Anthroponyms. Names of Thinkers, Historians and Poets, including Classical Ones; Anthroponyms. Names
of World History Figures; Anthroponyms. Names of Ruthenian Princes; Anthroponyms. Names of Parable
Characters; Toponyms (geographical names). Astionyms (proper names of cities); Hydronyms (proper
names of water bodies); Oronyms (proper names of any landforms); Horonyms (proper names of any
territory, region, administrative and territorial unit); Insulonyms (proper names of islands); Ecclesionyms
(proper names of rite venues and places of worship of any religion; includes names of churches, chapels,
crosses, and monasteries); Demonyms (names of inhabitants of a certain area, correlate with toponyms);
Ethnonyms (names of ethnic groups); Biblionyms. Titles of Religious Texts; Names of the Seven Wonders
of the World.
It is worth mentioning that we were interested in performing further break-up of proper names into
groups and subgroups, as the aim was to single out each proper name in the text; here we relied on
conclusions about the importance of frequency [13] for “understanding the text, its role in the statistical
structure of the text” [3, p. 69], “revealing the functional significance of onyms in a given text” [4, p. 414].
5. Statistical data
1. Numerical data was obtained through a specially developed Python scripts. The total number of
words in the text is 51,821 (N). 270 unique proper name lemmas (PN) were used for the analysis, which
formed 811 (PNf) unique word forms. The total number of proper names in the text (lemmas + their word
forms) or their absolute frequency is 2,611 (PNn). It means that a unique lemma or a unique word form
could be presented several times in the text.
N = 51,821
PN = 270
PNf = 811
PNn = 2,611
2. The percentage coverage of the text with proper names (PNс), i.e. the ratio between the total
number of proper names in the text (PNn) and the total number of words in the text (N), is 0.0503.
𝑃𝑁𝑛 2 611
𝑃𝑁𝑐 = = = 0.0503 (1)
𝑁 51 821
3. The diversity of the proper name vocabulary (Bpn), i.e. the ratio between the total number of proper
name lemmas (PN) and the total number of proper names in the text (PNn), is 0.1034.
𝑃𝑁 270
𝐵𝑝𝑛 = 𝑃𝑁𝑛 = 2 611 = 0.1034 (2)
4. The onomastic diversity of the text (Bn), i.e. the ratio between the total number of proper name
lemmas (PN) and the total number of words in the text (N), is 0.005.
𝑃𝑁 270
𝐵𝑛 = 𝑁 = 51 821 = 0.005 (3)
5. The average repetition rate of proper names (Аpn), i.e. the ratio between the total number of proper
names (PNn) and the number of proper name lemmas (PN), is 9.6703.
𝑃𝑁𝑛 2 611
𝐴𝑝𝑛 = 𝑃𝑁 = 270 = 9.6703 (4)
6. The calculations have also identified the least frequently used proper names. Therefore, we found
123 proper names with frequency 1, the so-called “hapax legomena”.
PN1 = 123
7. The uniqueness index for proper names (Epn), i.e. the ratio between the number of “hapax
legomena” (PN1) and the total number of proper names in the text (PNn) is 0.047.
𝑃𝑁1 123
Е𝑝𝑛 = = = 0.047 (5)
𝑃𝑁𝑛 2 611
8. The vocabulary uniqueness index (Ed), i.e. the ratio between the number of proper names with
frequency 1 (PN1) and the number of proper name lemmas (PN), is 0.4555.
𝑃𝑁1 123
Е𝑑 = 𝑃𝑁 = 270 = 0.4555 (6)
9. The text proper name uniqueness index (Et), or the ratio between the number of the “hapax
legomena” (PN1) and the total number of words in the text (N), is 0.0023.
𝑃𝑁1 123
Е𝑡 = 𝑁
= 51 821 = 0.0023 (7)
10. The vocabulary concentration index (Ecd), i.e. the ratio between the number of highest-frequency
proper names in the text having frequency of at least 10 (PN10 = 41) and the number of proper name lemmas
(PN), is 0.1518.
𝑃𝑁10 41
Ес𝑑 = 𝑃𝑁 = 270 = 0.1518 (8)
11. The specific proper name concentration index (Eco), i.e. the ratio between the number of highest-
frequency proper names in the text having frequency of at least 10 (PN10) and the total number of proper
names in the text (PNn), is 0.0157.
𝑃𝑁10 41
Есо = 𝑃𝑁𝑛 = 2 611 = 0.0157 (9)
12. The text proper name concentration index (Ect), i.e. the ratio between the number of the highest-
frequency proper names in the text having frequency of at least 10 (PN10) and the total number of words in
the text (N), is 0.0007.
𝑃𝑁10 41
Ес𝑡 = 𝑁
= 51 821 = 0.0007 (10)
6. A Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original
Text
The computer calculations have also identified the most and the least used groups of proper names. The
highest-frequency group is “Theonyms. Christian Theonyms” with 1265 word tokens. Then come “Biblical
Anthroponyms” with 355 and “Hagionyms. Names of Saints and Martyrs. Names of Christian Theologians
and Church Fathers” with 219. The next groups that are of a similar size are “Hagionyms. Names of
Ruthenian Saints” with 134 word tokens, “Names of Angels and Archangels, Apostles” with 126 and
“Hagionyms. Names of Biblical Prophets” with 117. The lowest-frequency groups are “Insulonyms” – 1,
“Oronyms” – 4, “Theonyms. Names Denoting Slavic Deities” – 5, “Anthroponyms. Names of Parable
Characters” – 6; and “Names of the Seven Wonders of the World” – 6.
For illustration purposes, we show the usage frequency of proper name groups in the following chart, with
more precise data below it.
1 1265
2 355
3 219
4 134
5 126
6 117
7 83
8 79
9 72
10 66
11 49
12 23
13 17
14 15
15 14
16 9
17 9
18 8
19 7
20 6
21 6
22 5
23 4
24 1
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Proper name groups
Figure 1: Usage frequency of proper name groups sorted in the decreasing frequency order:
1. Theonyms. Christian Theonyms – 1265; 2. Biblical Anthroponyms – 355; 3. Hagionyms. Names of
Saints and Martyrs. Names of Christian Theologians and Church Fathers – 219; 4. Hagionyms. Names of
Ruthenian Saints – 134; 5. Names of Angels and Archangels, Apostles – 126; 6. Hagionyms. Names of
Biblical Prophets – 117; 7. Biblionyms. Titles of Religious Texts – 83; 8. Anthroponyms. Names of
Ruthenian Princes – 79; 9. Toponyms. Astionyms – 72; 10. Horonyms – 66; 11. Anthroponyms. Names of
World History Figures – 49; 12. Demonyms – 23; 13. Hagionyms. Names of Evangelists – 17;
14. Ecclesionyms – 15; 15. Anthroponyms. Names of Thinkers, Historians and Poets, including Classical
Ones – 14; 16. Hydronyms – 9; 17. Theonyms Denoting Gods of the Greco-Roman Pantheon – 9;
18. Ethnonyms – 8; 19. Names Denoting Biblical Demons – 7; 20. Anthroponyms. Names of Parable
Characters – 6; 21. Names of the Seven Wonders of the World – 6; 22. Theonyms. Names Denoting Slavic
Deities – 5; 23. Oronyms – 4; 24. Insulonyms – 1.
We calculate the proper name group coverage of the text (Gn) according to the formula (11)
𝐺𝑜
𝐺𝑛 = N х 100 %, (11)
where Go is the proper name group, and N is the total number of words in the text.
We calculate the proper name group coverage of the proper name vocabulary (Gd) according to the
formula (12)
𝐺𝑜
𝐺𝑑 = On х 100 %, (12)
where Go is the proper name group, and On is the total number of proper names in the text. The calculation
data are given in Table 1.
Table 1
The proper name group coverage of the text (Gn) and the proper name group coverage of the proper
name vocabulary (Gd)
Group Gn Gd Group Gn Gd
1 2.44 % 48.45 % 13 0.03 % 0.65 %
2 0.69 % 13.6 % 14 0.03 % 0.57 %
3 0.42 % 8.39 % 15 0.03 % 0.54 %
4 0.26 % 5.13 % 16 0.02 % 0.34 %
5 0.24 % 4.83 % 17 0.02 % 0.34 %
6 0.23 % 4.48 % 18 0.02 % 0.31 %
7 0.16 % 3.18 % 19 0.01 % 0.27 %
8 0.15 % 3.03 % 20 0.01 % 0.23 %
9 0.14 % 2.76 % 21 0.01 % 0.23 %
10 0.13 % 2.53 % 22 0.01 % 0.19 %
11 0.09 % 1.88 % 23 0.008 % 0.15 %
12 0.04 % 0.88 % 24 0.002 % 0.04 %
Table 2 shows the results of calculating the proper name frequency distribution on the basis of
A Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text, sorted in the
decreasing frequency order.
Table 2
Calculation results of the proper name frequency distribution
Interval of Number of Proper Interval of Number of Proper
frequencies Names frequencies Names
500 - 999 1 20 - 29 7
400 - 499 1 10 - 19 21
300 - 399 0 9 4
200 - 299 0 8 3
100 - 199 0 7 5
90 - 99 0 6 4
80 - 89 0 5 11
70 - 79 3 4 7
60 - 69 1 3 22
50 - 59 2 2 53
40 - 49 2 1 123
30 - 39 3
The table shows that 1 proper name with a usage frequency in the range of 500 – 999 and 1 proper name
with a frequency in the range of 400 – 499 have been recorded in the text “Antonii Radyvylovskyi. Baroque
Sermons of the 17th Century”. Interestingly, no lemmas fall in the range between 399 and 80, while the
largest number of proper names have a usage frequency of 1, 2 and 3 (see Fig. 2, 3).
Therefore, examples of frequency-rated proper names are displayed for illustration purposes. The
highest-frequency proper names are: цръ нб(с)ный/Tsar Nebesnyi – 677, цръ нба и зgмли хс
спситgль/Tsar Neba i Zemli Khrystos Spasytel – 428, дхо(м) сты(м)/Dukhom Sviatym – 77, мтки
рж(с)тва сна бжgгw/Matky Rozhstva Syna Bozheho – 73, павла/Pavla – 72, писмh стwмъ/Pysmi
Sviatom – 63, антwнїй пgчgрскїй/Antonyi Pecherskyi – 54, илїа/Iliia – 52, ніколаg/Nikolaie – 49,
зарu/Zaru – 46, владиміръ//Vladymir – 38.
Interestingly, almost one half of proper names are unique, with a usage frequency of 1:
іuстинїанъ/Iustynyan, днhпромъ/Dniprom, плютархъ/Pliutarkh, іgраполи/Iierapoly, алgkандрu
царицu/Alezandru tsarytsu, гgркuлgсwвъ/Herkulesov, дїwґgнgсъ філозофъ/Diogenes filozof, божница
дїанны богинh ефgскои/Bozhnytsa Diany Bohyni Efeskoi, мuры вавилонскїg/mury Vavilonskiie, рhка
нилъ/rika Nil, etc.
500 - 999
400 - 499
300 - 399
200 - 299
100 - 199
90 - 99
80 - 89
70 - 79
60 - 69
50 - 59
40 - 49
30 - 39
20 - 29
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Number of Proper Names
Figure 2: Graphic representation of the distribution of proper names having frequency between 999 and
20 in the decreasing frequency order, based on Table 2.
10 - 19
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Number of Proper Names
Figure 3: Graphic representation of the distribution of proper names having frequency between 19 and 1
in the decreasing frequency order, based on Table 2.
7. Conclusions
Working with an original seventeenth-century text, we have been able to reveal the specific historical
features of the analyzed material at different stages of the study. Using a sequential algorithm, we compiled
the Frequency Dictionary of Proper Names in a Seventeenth-Century Original Text, sorted in the decreasing
frequency order (based on Radyvylovskyi’s sermons), described the volume of the text and its vocabulary,
the variety of proper names in it, as well as the number of low frequency proper names (words with the
frequency of 1 (hapax legomena)).
The onomastic space of historical records of “ruska mova” (the Ruthenian language) studied through
the prism of quantitative measurement, allows us to draw conclusions about the worldview paradigms of
the seventeenth-century intellectuals and identify proper names which were significant for the preacher and
his audience. In particular, analysis of proper names attested in the publication Radyvylovskyi Antonii.
Barokovi propovidi 17 stolittia (Radyvylovskyi Antonii. Baroque sermons of the 17th century) has shown
that a Baroque preacher saw the Gospel as the main and undisputed authority among books. Thinking in
the context of the Christian doctrine and being a zealous Christian, the author believed that the Holy Trinity,
composed of God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, was the supreme being, and ranked the
Virgin Mary very high as well. This was also determined by the themes of the sermons, most of which were
festive ones.
As a polyglot and erudite, Radyvylovskyi expanded the proper name range of sermons by using proper
names of thinkers, historians and poets: Авзонїй/Avzonii, Аристотgлg(с)/Arystoteles,
Дїwґgнgсъ/Diogenes, Дїwскоридgсъ/Dioskorydes, Оригgнъ/Orihen, Плhнїuшъ/Pliniush,
Плютархъ/Pliutarkh, Пл#то/Platon, Свgтонїй/Svetonii, (frequency 1), Софоклgсъ/Sofokles (2) and
world history figures: Дїwклитїанъ/Dioklytian (9), Юлїuшъ/ Yuliush (3), Нttletпоцїaн/Nepotsian – (1), etc.
The study is important for comparing the frequently used words or “hapax legomena” established in the
Dictionary with the texts of different genres and historical periods in historical corpora to identify
intertextual connections (for example, with the Bible), precedent names.
Further studies are warranted to compare the proper name frequency dictionary based on the
seventeenth-century sermons with other texts of this genre in synchronic and diachronic perspectives, as
well as with texts of other genres, which will add new data on the usage frequency of different proper name
groups, development of their secondary meanings, ratio of one- and multicomponent proper names, etc.
8. Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Oleksandr Malin for his help with calculation of data, preparation of the text and indexes
for calculating statistics.
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