The manual presents the basics of the methodology of scientific knowledge in the study of categories and directions of onomasiological and onomastic studies, a comprehensive philological analysis of language units from the point of view of their nominative or representative functions, the corresponding terminological apparatus. The material of the manual orients students to a deeper penetration into the essence of the specifics of motivated and unmotivated signs, signs with varying degrees of dismemberment in the presentation of language content.