A corpus-based study of names in Lovecraft's fiction

Abstract

In the case of H. P. Lovecraft's stories the more important creatures can be divided between humans and monsters. The monster names in Lovecraft's texts have been subject to several studies, but it is apparent that the human names have not been thoroughly examined in the context of this particular story world. Thus, the main aim of this study is providing an analysis of character names with the use of collocations, etymology and semantic prosodies. This study focuses on higher social status as the possible key trait for human characters, since it could indicate positive sematic prosody within the context of Lovecraft’s writing.