The interpretation of urbanonyms in discourse: Reconciling theoretical accounts with experimental results
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Francesco-Alessio Ursini
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to offer an account of the discourse properties of urbanonynms in Italian (e.g. Via Roma, Piazza di Spagna). The paper introduces urbanonyms as a sub-type of toponyms (place names) whose linguistic properties have received little attention so far. The paper proposes an experimental study that shows how urbanonyms can enter in anaphoric relations mediated via urbanonyms’ lexico-grammatical properties. Via these experimental results, it is shown that urbanonyms can act as antecedents of indexical pronouns (e.g. qui ‘here’), and complex noun phrases (e.g. questa via ‘this street’). It is also shown that urbanonyms can involve co-referring patterns in sentences including verba nominandi (chiamarsi ‘to be called’). These results are discussed against the theoretical proposals investigating toponyms and other proper names. It is suggested that the two main “rival” theories on names, the description theory and the causal reference theory, can only address the novel data if combined into a new theoretical synthesis.
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Appendix A: Selected test sentences
In this appendix, we report sample sentences illustrating the sentence types used in the experiment (cf. (3)–(12), and two of the corpus examples used as models (cf. (1)–(2)). We only offer translations, for reasons of space. Abbreviations read as follows: FI=Filler; SE= (simple) sentence; DI=discourse; VN=Verba nominandi type. The presence of generic terms is marked as ±GEN; the presence of complex generic terms (i.e. sequences of generic terms) as ±COM. Examples marked as “SE”, i.e. single sentence types, were used to test the effect of generic term complexity on RT’s (whence the distinction) between “–COM” and “+COM” (third prediction). In discourse-type examples (i.e. “DI” types), we also mark anaphor types. For instance, questa via ‘this street’ is +GEN, -COM; qui is –GEN. It is an indexical pronoun rather than a demonstrative NP including a generic term:
| (1) | Come ho già detto il corteo è arrivato fino in via Pò, qui la polizia l' ha fatto fermare di nuovo , non potevo immaginare che dopo si sarebbe scatenato l' inferno ....... comunque , la fermata dei manifestanti imposta dalla polizia stava durando più di quelle precedenti […] |
| ‘As I already have said the manifestation arrived in Pò Street, here the police stopped it again, I could not imagine that afterwards Hell would have broken loose…anyway, the stopping of protesters imposed by the police was lasting more than the previous (stops) […]’ (http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/840780.php, retrieved from PAISÀ query search tool https://www.corpusitaliano.it/it/access/simple_interface.php, accessed July 7, 2020) |
| (2) | Proseguendo verso est e oltrepassando piazza Vittorio Emanuele II , su cui si affaccia il teatro Comunale , si giunge in via Roma e da lì si arriva alla chiesa di Santo Stefano. |
| ‘Continuing towards East and passing beyond Vittorio Emanuele Secondo Square, over which the City Theatre faces, one arrives in Rome Street and from there one arrives to Saint Stefan’s Church.’ (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belluno, retrieved from PAISÀ query search tool https://www.corpusitaliano.it/it/access/simple_interface.php, accessed July 7, 2020) |
| (3) | Mario legge un libro. (FI) |
| ‘Mario reads a book.’ |
| (4) | Le macchine sono parcheggiate dietro al primo muro. (FI) |
| ‘The cars are parked behind the first wall.’ |
| (5) | I Giacometti vivono in Via Nazionale. (SE; +GEN; −COM) |
| ‘The Giacomettis live in National Street.’ |
| (6) | Giuseppe parcheggiò la macchina in Viale Monte Bianco. (SE; +GEN; +COM) |
| ‘Giuseppe parked the car in Mount Blanc Avenue.’ |
| (7) | Livio vive in Vico Pallonetto di Santa Lucia. Li ci vive pure Ezio. (DI; −GEN) |
| ‘Livio lives in Santa Lucia’s alley network. Ezio also lives there.’ |
| (8) | Sono in Via Olgiata. Questa via si trova alla tua destra, se guardi dritto. (DI; +GEN) |
| ‘I am in Olgiata Street. This street is on your right, if you look straight.’ |
| (9) | La capitale della Germania è Berlino. Questa città ha una vibrante vita notturna. |
| ‘The capital of Germany is Berlin. This city has a pulsating night life.’ (DI; +GEN) |
| (10) | Piazza San Marco è dedicata al santo patrono di Venezia. (VN; +GEN; +COM) |
| ‘Saint Marco Square is dedicated to the Saint Patron of Venice.’ |
| (11) | Via dei Calzolai riceve il suo nome dalle molte botteghe di calzolai che si trovavano qui in passato. (VN; +GEN; −COM) |
| ‘Shoemakers’ Street receives its name from the many shoemakers’ workshops that were located here in the past.’ |
| (12) | Pineto è un paese sorto vicino a una pineta, da qui il nome. (VN; −GEN) |
| ‘Pineto is a village founded near a pine forest, whence the name.’ |
© 2022 Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
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Articles in the same Issue
- Table of contents
- Construction-specific effects of phonological similarity avoidance
- Can L2 learners acquire native-like typicality representation in categorization?
- The interpretation of urbanonyms in discourse: Reconciling theoretical accounts with experimental results
- Are Polish “DLA” and “KU” really synonymic purposive prepositions?
- Polgem – The recorded corpus of Polish geminate consonants
- ‘I would never…’: Deictic shift and moralizing in anti-immigration reader comments
- L2 rhythm production and musical rhythm perception in advanced learners of English
- The Cambridge handbook of systemic functional linguistics
