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.
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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© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Preface
- Research Articles
- Familiarity-based splits in the grammar of toponyms
- Cross-linguistic comparison of agreement verbs in sign languages, their inventory sizes and motivation for verb class affiliation
- Italian loan conjunctions in the alloglottic non-Romance languages of Italy
- The morphosyntax of (going) home in typological perspective
- Maltese prepositions in coordinating constructions: a corpus-based overview
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Preface
- Research Articles
- Familiarity-based splits in the grammar of toponyms
- Cross-linguistic comparison of agreement verbs in sign languages, their inventory sizes and motivation for verb class affiliation
- Italian loan conjunctions in the alloglottic non-Romance languages of Italy
- The morphosyntax of (going) home in typological perspective
- Maltese prepositions in coordinating constructions: a corpus-based overview