Cognitive potential development of precedent anthroponym

The article discusses the dynamics of the cognitive potential development of the precedent anthroponym, i.e. a nationally and culturally marked proper name that reflects discursive and pragmatic trends in the evolution of a single language unit within a fixed time frame. The analysis of the data of lexicographic sources along with the data of discourse practices and the psycholinguistic experiment has helped the authors to identify the distinctive features of such lingua-mental phenomenon as the precedent anthroponym. Also, the main types of the transformations that contribute to further development of cognitive potential of the precedent anthroponym have been described. The fact that the differential characteristics of a proper name comprise the perceptual invariant of the precedent anthroponym is of outmost importance. The connection of the precedent anthroponym with some additional knowledge ensures its successful functioning. Hence, one more unique peculiarity of the cognitive potential of the precedent anthroponym is the possibility of conceptual evolution that results in the formation of a new meaning. So, it has been proved that the cognitive potential of the precedent anthroponym enables this linguistic unit to go through several stages of its possible conceptual development in discursive practice: the stage of denotative use, the stage of connotative use, the stage of the external form transformation (word-formation and deonymic conversion), the stage of metaphorization and metonymy, the stage of phraseologization and idiomatization, and the stage of a word play. The results of the study create awareness about the mechanism of secondary conceptualization of knowledge and make a contribution to the development of modern cognitive linguistics.