Zoonyms in the courtly novel

The author analyzes words nominating images of animals. Analytical and inflectional ways of expression of grammatical meanings in the studied lexico-semantic group (zoonyms) on the material of the courtly novel "Erik and Enid" are investigated, the symbolical importance of zoonyms in the diachronic text is defined. The brief nominations expressed by a noun serve the material for the analysis as the most frequent ones. The article makes a contribution to the development of history of language, cultural science, literary criticism and foreign literature, intending for language history courses at faculties of foreign languages.