Pseudonymicon of Modern American Rap Culture (on the Material of the Units with the Structural Element "Money")

Abstract

The article is devoted to the multifaceted typology of American rap pseudonyms with the element money in their structure on the basis of the nominative, lexico-semantic, etymological, ontological, and structural features within the English-language pseudonymicon. A rap pseudonym is defined as an anthroponym deliberately created by a rapper for a new identification and unique characterization of their personality in order to emphasize a special status in show business and potentially transform into a successful and famous stage performer. Grammatically, it is characterized by a singular form, based on the referential meaning of the unit, which provides information exclusively about one rap performer. A rap pseudonym functions as a holistic nominative sign with either a morphological (word) or syntactic (phrase or sentence) structure. It was established that such units perform nominative, identificatory, esoteric, representative, communicative, emotive, stylistic, and self-expressive functions. In writing, such rap pseudonyms are capitalized, and the element "money" is fixed lexically and graphically through the dollar symbol "$". It was revealed that while the hierarchy of proper names, including these rap pseudonyms, appears as onym–anthroponym–pseudonym–artist-pseudonym–vocal-pseudonym–rap-pseudonym–rap-pseudonym-money, the hierarchy of nominative groupings to which these units belong is represented as language picture of the world–nominative space–onomasticon–anthroponymicon–pseudonymicon–rap-pseudonymicon. By analyzing various aspects of the rap pseudonyms, we identified and described a series of classifications within the American rap pseudonymicon. These include structural (according to morphological and syntactic structure), componential (according to the number of constituents), semantic (according to the type of meaning), stylistic (according to stylistic affiliation of units), etymological-componential (according to the origin and onomastic status), ontological (according to the real/fictional and original/modified criteria), and semantic-referential (according to the types of semantic classes of components) classifications.

Keywords: rap, onym, anthroponym, pseudonym, rap pseudonym, appellative, nominative space, pseudonymicon.