Poetic language in Mordva-Erzya lamentations of funeral cycle

Introduction. The research problem of the phenomenon of the funeral lamentations, particularly through the study of the folklore language, is one of the most topical ones due to the folklore being a real repository of the information about history, ethnography, beliefs, customs, national psychology and behavior, as well as human values. The object of the article is lamentations texts of funeral cycle; the subject discusses the most expressive poetic means, the typical range of the poetic images of Erzya funeral cycle referring to the ethnographic context. The article aims at studying the poetic features of the Mordva-Erzya funeral lamentations, some poetic and stylistic devices, the figurative devices, the semantics of the verbs associated with the deplorable culture. The article can be used to for courses in oral folk art and poetics. Materials and Methods. The study combines methods of descriptive and comparative analysis. The empirical data is based on established folklore collections with the historical, cultural and scientific value which are borrowed from the oral poetic culture of Mordovian peoples. Results and Discussion. The paper is making an attempt to identify the most typical verbs associated with the deplorable culture that predominate in this field as the folk-linguistic picture of the world. The folklore works used for the research are undoubtedly the indisputable evident base for the understanding of the mentality of Mordovian ethnic group, and the identification of the basic constants of Erzya culture, as they preserve the traces of the phenomena of life and culture disappeared from our consciousness forming “confession of the peoples”. Conclusion. In the poetic structure of the Mordva-Erzya lamentations the Mordovian peoples’ poetic talent is reflected in the verbs that indicate a particular form of audio behaviour: лайшемс/laishems, авардемс/avardems, лажамс/lajams, кукордомс/cucordoms; in the pairs of synonyms: лайшемс-авардемс/lishems-avardems; in the synonyms and tautological combinations using the images of birds and plant symbols, the metaphorical substitutions, such as: вечной тарка “the eternal life”, вечной эрямо “the eternal life”, вечной кудо “the eternal home”.