THE TERMINOLOGY DENOTING POLITICAL ORGANISATION AND COMMON DESCENT IN THE DÄFTÄR-I ČINGIZ-NĀMÄ

Research objective and materials: The paper examines selected lists of terminologies which define certain features (common descent and political organisation) of ethnic identity in the Däftär-i Čingiz-nāmä. These words often occur in coordinate compounds in the text. Compounding is not very well researched in Turkic linguistics, nor was it being considered in earlier philological works on Turkic historical texts. The author defines the problem of identification of such compounds in the text, and offers a morpho-syntactic criterion which can be used as a tool for identification. Novelty and results of the research: Based on the semantic relation between the compound's components, the author distinguishes two types: Those compounds, the components of which have identical meaning: These were probably used for elaborate speech. Those compounds, the components of which do not have identical meaning: These arrived at a new, different concept from the components' meaning. Three such compounds have been identified, which more or less arrive at a similar concept to ethnos. Finally, the author compares the meaning of these compounds to that of Old Turkic bodun – ‘people', and el – ‘realm'.