SEMANTIC REFLECTIONS OF HUMAN/ANIMAL GENITALIA IN ALBANIAN PLANT NAMES

Abstract

The plants are integral part of human life for food, medicine or other uses. The language of a speech community reflects the creative ability of its members, so the vernacular plant names reflect semantically the way how they perceive and imagine specific features of plants. In this context, the process of naming plants in Albanian is codified by transferring the meaning through metaphor and metonymy, or word formation (derivation and composition). The plant names often describe some characteristic features of the plant itself or of its part, in which the communities are interested. The aim of this study is to find and explain the plant features on whose basis plants are named in Albanian language, to point out the reasons of naming plants and relationships between the two codes: the human and animal body and plants, and more specifically, reflections of genitalia code and gender message in the plant names in Albanian folk mentality.