The article is devoted to the names of the shrubs and bushes in the dialects of European North of Russia. The whole complex of lexemes is analyzed in relation to the origin and semantic connections of the words. The article determines the etymological origins of the key lexeme in the group – «a bush» with a reconstructed meaning «to stand, to stick out of the ground» .
The research describes dialect derivatives of the root «kust-«. The author
identifies contaminated words on the basis of the seme «dense». Northern Russian dialect names of the bush or shrub are considered in the onomasiological, semasiological, and lexical aspects. The article performs analysis of collective forms derived from «vitsa» as a flexible man-made rod, a branch, and «prut» as «a thin broken or cut branch without leaves» with Slavic origin. The active use of Russian roots like «ros- / rost- / rast-» of Indo-European antiquity is noted. Moreover, the article describes numerous species names. The largest number of nominations is discovered for the willow shrub: five roots are involved.
The root «iv-« in dialects appears both in the original version and with
metathesis (>«vi-«). In Northern Russian dialect zone the most active word formations are derived from the proto-Slavic origin of the root «bred-«. They form an extensive word-formation nest. The author interprets species appellative names of juniper, cherry bush, rose hip, hawthorn, gooseberry, hazel bushes.
The article points out a wide use of names used to describe a dense bush with a root «chap- / tsap-» in the dialects of European North of Russia.
The article analyzes the lexemes used to name the shrubs growing on the
hills. The most numerous words are the names of water-bushes. Secondary names of shrubs and bushes growing on the hills or in the forests and marshlands are more rarely used. Descriptive names of scrup in abandoned fields are used in only one context. Pragmatic and metaphorical names are infrequent.