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Familiarity-based splits in the grammar of toponyms

  • Thomas Stolz EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 29, 2025

Abstract

This paper argues for considering familiarity a candidate for the status of parameter in the domain of the Grammar of Names. The evidence in support of this claim is drawn from the Special Toponymic Grammar of twelve genealogically, typologically, and geographically different languages. It is shown that place names of the same class are frequently subject to a division into two subcategories, namely, on the one hand, place names that are familiar in some way to the participants of the communicative event and, on the other hand, place names which speakers and/or hearers are not familiar with. The different degrees of familiarity correlate with structural differences on the expression side. The rules that determine the morphosyntactic behaviour of familiar place names do not correspond one-to-one with those that regulate the morphosyntax of non-familiar place names. The data suggest that familiarity is spelled out differently across the languages of the world. It is concluded that further cross-linguistic research might reveal that familiarity is not restricted to the Special Grammar of Toponyms. This is why familiarity needs to be investigated in-depth in follow-up studies.


Corresponding author: Thomas Stolz, University of Bremen, FB10: Linguistics, Bremen, Germany, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

This paper elaborates on the subject of the identically entitled talk I delivered at the workshop Proper names and their morphosyntactic behaviour – special or not? on occasion of the 15th Meeting of the Association of Linguistic Typology (ALT XV) at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore (4 December, 2024). I am grateful to my audience for their thought-provoking comments. I especially thank Alexandre François for his valuable remarks. Judit Kozma, Zsófia Ludányi and Dorottya Jakab kindly gave me permission to quote from the slides of their talk delivered at the cok2025 in Prague. Ursula Doleschal and Valéria Tóth provided useful reading matter. Kevin Behrens, Nataliya Levkovych, Julia Nintemann, and Maike Vorholt kindly discussed the draft version of this paper with me and thus helped me immensely to increase its quality. The map reflecting the different types of Hungarian toponyms has kindly been created by Nataliya Levkovych and Julia Nintemann. All remaining shortcomings are exclusively my own responsibility. The paper forms part of the research project Morphosyntaktische Typologie der Toponyme / Morpho-syntactic typology of toponyms (TYPTOP) (STO 186/27-1, eBer-22-55215) financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) 2023–2026. I dedicate this paper to the memory of the late Johannes Helmbrecht who used to be a figure-head of the research programme my study forms part of.

Abbreviations

acc

accusative

adess

adessive

anth

person name (anthroponym)

cl

class

comm

common noun

def

definite

dem

demonstrative

dist

distal

du

dual

ess

essive

excl

exclusive

f

feminine

fam

FAM

foc

focus

fut

future

gen

genitive

go

goal

hum

human

ill

illative

imp

imperative

impf

imperfect

in

interior region

incl

inclusive

iness

inessive

ipfv

imperfective

l

lenition

lig

ligature

lk

linker

loc

locative

m

masculine

neg

negative

nf

non-future

nfam

non-familiar

nm

noun marker

nom

nominative

oblig

obligation

part

participle

pfv

perfective

pl

plural

pnct

punctual

poss

possessive

pred

predicative

pret

preterite

prox

proximate

prtv

partitive

pst

past

sag

Special Anthroponymic Grammar

sg

singular

sog

Special Onymic Grammar

stg

Special Toponymic Grammar

subl

sublative

supess

superessive

topo

toponym (place name)

tr

transitive

1/2/3

1st/2nd/3rd person

cl1/2/3/4/23

class 1/2/3/4/23

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Published Online: 2025-07-29
Published in Print: 2025-07-28

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