PRECEDENT EUPHEMISMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The article examines euphemistic potential of precedent units in the English-speaking cultural tradition. The topicality is determined by scarcity of intertextual euphemisms research due to difficulty of identifying precedent phenomena, instability of the precedent euphemistic vocabulary boundaries and rapid loss of allusive euphemisms relevance. The author analyzes the English precedent-marked euphemistic units of various historical periods and presents lexical-semantic groups that abound in precedent phenomena. The sources of the examples, i.e., precedent marked euphemistic units, for further study and analysis included the English dictionaries of euphemisms and modern English-language mass media discourse. The paper considers precedent units types productivity and precedent proper names euphemisation potency, in particular toponyms and personalities. Besides the so-called traditional precedent units of euphemistic character, the author turns to the peculiarities of the onomastic rhyming slang functioning as euphemisms. On the basis of the euphemistic examples analysis undertaken the following commonly socially tabooed and euphemized topics were revealed: impaired mental and physical conditions, diseases, age, sexual relations, moral vices, crimes and physiological functions. It has been established that the political sphere is a prolific source of precedent euphemization; famous politicians’ names and significant events become a significant basis for generation of euphemisms appealing to background knowledge. The study reveals the main characteristics of precedent euphemisms: national and sociocultural markedness, rapid contamination. The empirical material under study clearly shows that precedent phenomena successfully implement a euphemistic function in almost all spheres of human activity and function throughout the history of the English-speaking culture development. Precedent based euphemistic vocabulary presents a nationally specific narrative - a source of information about important historical events, lifestyle, values and traditions of the people; study of precedent euphemistic units reveals transformation peculiarities of the cultural matrix axiological component.