scholarly journals The Specifics of Functioning of the Personal Proper Name

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (3) ◽  
pp. 30-37
Author(s):  
Wan Yi
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
Current Events ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Collective Meaning ◽  
High Degree

The article researches the specifics of how personal proper names function in the Russian and the Chinese paroemia genres. Proverbs and sayings are traditionally considered paroemia because they represent a collective evaluation of various situations of life. The idioms that express a position of evaluation towards the current events are not included in the category of paroemiological units, for their components have lost their lexical meaning and acquired a high degree of reinterpretation. The article uncovers the types and the forms of the personal name that perform different functions in the Russian and the Chinese paroemia genres. Anthroponyms, mythonyms, chrononyms and hagionyms can be considered characteristic for the Russian proverbs and sayings, and the subjectiveevaluative forms are predominant in the Russian proverbs, where the name functions in a generalized, collective meaning. While the Russian paroemia genres express evaluative connotation explicitly, the Chinese proverbs and sayings are based on the association of a specific personal name, which is known to the majority of the native speakers, with a real historical figure, a specific mythological character or a personality of fiction.

Neurolinguistic and syntactic evidence for basic level meaning in proper names

1999 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Van Langendonck
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Common Noun ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
The Status ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Basic Level

This paper is intended to be an interdisciplinary investigation of the status of proper names, although it takes linguistics as its point of departure. In this study I will define proper names in terms of the currently developing Radical Construction Grammar, as promoted by Croft (to appear). Starting from the referential and semantic functions of proper names, I discuss the opposing theses of the language philosophers John Searle and Saul Kripke, and then formulate my position that proper names are assigned an ad hoc referent in an ad hoc name-giving act, i.e. not on the basis of a concept or predication as with common nouns. This ad hoc assignment can be repeated several times, so numerous people can be called John. Proper names do not have asserted lexical meaning but do display presuppositional meanings of several kinds: categorical (basic level), associative senses (introduced either via the name-bearer or via the name-form) and grammatical meanings. Language specifically, this referential and semantic status is reflected in the occurrence of proper names in certain constructions. I thus claim that close (or 'restrictive') appositional patterns of the form [definite article + noun + noun], e.g. the poet Burns, are relevant to the definition of proper names in English and also to the categorical (often basic level) meaning of the name. From proper names we can also derive nouns that appear as a special kind of common noun, e.g. another John. From a methodological viewpoint it is imperative to distinguish here between (proprial) lexemes or lemmas in isolation (dictionary entries) and proprial lemmas in their different functions (prototypically: proper name, nonprototypically: common noun or other). To corroborate the above theses, I will adduce recent psycholinguistic and especially neurolinguistic evidence. The overall argument will be based mainly on material from Germanic languages, especially English, Dutch and German.

scholarly journals Variability of the language norm in the functioning of toponyms: Problems and contradictions

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-632
Author(s):  
Dmitrii Yu. Ilyin ◽  
◽  
Elena G. Sidorova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Basic Notion ◽  
Lowercase Letter ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Geographical Maps ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Content

The article examines the linguistic content of the language norm related to the spelling of geographic proper names. As the basic notion, the authors use Ludmila Verbitskaya’s definition of the norm recognizing orthographic standards as a particular case of a language norm. The significance of a research in this area is due, firstly, to specificities of spelling norms, and secondly, difficulties of proper name codification. The orthographic norms are characterized by a significantly higher degree of strictness in comparison with other types of linguistic standards, hence, the avoidance of toponymic orthographic doublets creating problems in place-name identification. Normally, place names are not present in popular orthographic dictionaries and other non-specialized lexicographic sources. Not infrequently, the spelling of a particular locality in a codified form can only be found either on geographical maps and atlases or in gazetteers and registries of geographical names of a particular region. As a result, the spelling norm becomes established in the the native speakers’ linguistic competence primarily through the assimilation and application of the corresponding rules. It was revealed that the most significant contradictions in the implementation of the spelling norm take place when choosing an upper- or lowercase letter in compound proper names, as well as when representing the elements of compounds (separately, as one word or hyphenated). The resultss of the present research can be used in revision of orthography of both existing and newly formed place names to make them concordant with the principles of linguistic ecology

scholarly journals Investigation of the semantics of the proper name as a phenomenon of linguistic consciousness (according to psycholinguistic experiments)

2021 ◽  
pp. 228-239
Author(s):  
Mairbek R. Makhaev ◽  
Iosif A. Sternin
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Verbal Stimuli ◽  
Limited Volume ◽  
Dictionary Entry ◽  
Proper Name

This article deals with the problem of the semantics of proper names. It is stated that onyms, in addition to lexicographic meanings recorded in toponymic dictionaries, also have psycholinguistic meanings. Lexicographic meanings are traditionally described in dictionaries in accordance with the principle of reductionism, which involves minimizing the features included in the meaning with a limited volume of the dictionary entry. Numerous experiments have allowed us to discover a new kind of meaning, which we call psycholinguistic. Psycholinguistic meaning is a meaning that is actually represented in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers of a particular language. The psycholinguistic meaning is identified and described in accordance with the algorithm developed by us in 5 stages: 1) conducting psycholinguistic experiments 2) constructing associative fields of word-stimuli, which are a set of associative responses to verbal stimuli, ordered in descending order of frequency, obtained during psycholinguistic experiments 3) semantic interpretation of associative fields and identification of semantic components 4) sememic attribution of semes and the formulation of the final psycholinguistic meaning 5) contrastive analysis, it includes a comparison of regional variants of psycholinguistic meanings. In this article, this algorithm is described by analyzing the semantics of the toponym “Voronezh”. The psycholinguistic meaning of the toponym “Voronezh” was revealed as a result of semantic interpretation of the data obtained during psycholinguistic experiments in Voronezh and Grozny. The brightness indices of semantic components and sememes, according to which their field affiliation is determined, are calculated. False semes were detected. A comparative analysis of regional (Voronezh and Grozny) variants of meanings with each other, as well as with the lexicographic meaning of the toponym “Voronezh”, recorded in the dictionary of E. M. Pospelov, is carried out.

scholarly journals PAREMEOLOGICAL WORLD VIEW OF ITALIAN SPEAKERS

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-55
Author(s):  
М. І. Гольцева
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
World View ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
National Language ◽  
The World ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Cultural Sphere ◽  
Modern Mass ◽  
Linguistic Approach

In the proposed research, the analysis of paremiological picture of the world of Italian language is performed; the notions of “picture of the world”, “linguistic picture of the world”, “paremiological picture of the world” are analyzed; the connection between the linguistic and paremiological picture of the world is distinguished; the frequency of using mythological proverbs with the proper name is set. According to the conducted research, it is possible to distinguish the following notions : 1) picture of the world is the way people see this world, how they communicate with each other, etc.; 2) linguistic picture of the world deals with the linguistic approach in seeing the world, how with the help of words people express their feelings towards different things; 3) paremiological picture of the world deals with proverbs and sayings, with the help of which people show their attitude to different things. As a result, it is possible to notice that this research of proper names in Italian proverbs in the paremiological picture of the world promotes reconstruction of one of important components of a national language picture of the world which is a cultural sphere of any language. We have distinguished that proverbs and sayings with the proper name are mythological, religious, historical, literal, toponymic, from various spheres of social and individual activity of native speakers. As a result, in the studied proverbs and sayings the features connected with mythology come to the first place among the rest of them. Never before have the scientists studied proper names in the light of meaning and form. While investigating proverbs with proper names it is possible to notice the link between ancient myths and modern mass media where we have found the majority of our examples during the research. And it is noticed that the majority of analyzed proverbs in mass media have examples in political and economic articles. From the studied proverbs and sayings we can make the conclusion that it is a vital source of national and cultural wisdom that is worth analyzing.

scholarly journals Associative Identification of Proper Names: A Cognitive Approach

wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-203
Author(s):  
Natalia ALEKSIEIEVA
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Controversial Subject ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
The Common

Mental lexicon is a storage which holds the data about everything we know until it is required to be used. Onyms are stored in the mental lexicon in the form of concepts as individual units of knowlegde which reflect personal experience of the human being. The goal of the research is to explore the common ways of associative comprehension of proper names in order to better understand their essence and meanings they exhibit. The view is substantiated that transition from traditional to cognitive onomastic research will help to settle disputes among onomasticians and language philosophers as to the controversial subject of semantic and referential status of proper names. The study is carried out on the material of the English official horse names as they are considered to be one of the proper name classes with the highest degree of arbitrariness of nomination. In this research, the author conducts a free associative experiment with 250 English native speakers. As the experimental material 5 stimuli of official hipponyms were chosen as well as the results of a free associative experiment of total quantity of 1136 reactions. The result of the study was the conclusion that the ways of associative identification of onyms depend not only on our presuppositional knowledge, direct or indirect experience in connection to a certain proper name, but also on a set of proprial and linguistic features peculiar to each name. The specificity of each proper name in this sense will determine the main mechanism of its associative identification.

scholarly journals On the translation-proper of toponyms in Romanian translations at the beginning of the 19th century

Diacronia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinu Moscal
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Incipient Stage ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Real Challenge

The translation of certain toponyms that had not yet been assimilated to the Romanian language at the beginning of the 19th century represented a real challenge for translators at that time. A first aspect to be considered here is the linguistic status as proper names and the possible translation options that could not be correlated to any tradition. A second aspect is the precarious stage of Romanian geographical terminology, reflected by the terminological variation for the same concept and the lack of semantic affinity, either real or related to the actual terminology. This article addresses mainly the first aspect mentioned above. The issues addressed are as follows: a concise presentation of the concept of proper names translation, the distinction between untranslatable and translatable or partially translatable proper names, the factors motivating the option of translating or not the translatable terms from a toponymic collocation. Our corpus reflects the incipient stage of the translation of translatable or partially translatable toponyms in Romanian, a stage in which the translator is free to decide upon translatability. Compared to the actual norm, the different choices from one translator to another or even those opted for by the same translator—especially the option of not translating toponyms that are nowadays translated in most languages—reveal the lack of importance of linguistic meaning (that is the lexical meaning of the etymon) of the proper name as far as its functioning was concerned, as well as the role of this non-functionality in identifying the linguistic status of a proper name.

Variable article use with acronyms and initialisms

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-78
Author(s):  
Elena Callegaro ◽  
Simon Clematide ◽  
Marianne Hundt ◽  
Sara Wick
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Common Type ◽  
Common Noun ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Full Form ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Marked Preference ◽  
Data Driven Approach

Abstract Shortening is a common type of word-formation in many languages. Crystal (2008) distinguishes two kinds of abbreviation: initialisms and acronyms. Article use in English is variable with both acronyms and initialisms used as proper names (e.g. (the) UKIP, at the UN vs. at MIT). The question is whether variability is largely dependent on the semantics of the underlying full form (i.e. whether this is derived from a proper name or common noun) or whether the two types of abbreviation show different behaviour with respect to variable article use. This paper uses data from CoStEP, a new, word-aligned version of EuroParl, and a data-driven approach to investigate variable article use with abbreviations and their full forms uttered by English native speakers and compares the findings to data from parallel German and Italian corpora. The results show higher article variability in English and a marked preference for and near categorical article use in German and Italian. Furthermore, our evidence confirms that acronyms tend towards the proper name end of the cline, while initialisms behave syntactically more like common nouns.

DIRECTIONS OF ASSOCIATIVE IDENTIFICATION OF PERSONAL NAMES

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (28) ◽  
pp. 118-128
Author(s):  
Olena Karpenko ◽  
Tetiana Stoianova
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Mental Lexicon ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
Communicative Process ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Scientific Value ◽  
The Brain

The article is devoted to the study of personal names from a cognitive point of view. The study is based on the cognitive concept that speech actually exists not in the speech, not in linguistic writings and dictionaries, but in consciousness, in the mental lexicon, in the language of the brain. The conditions for identifying personal names can encompass not only the context, encyclopedias, and reference books, but also the sound form of the word. In the communicative process, during a free associative experiment, which included a name and a recipient’s mental lexicon. The recipient was assigned a task to quickly give some association to the name. The aggregate of a certain number of reactions of different recipients forms the associative field of a proper name. The associative experiment creates the best conditions for identifying the lexeme. The definition of a monosemantic personal name primarily includes the search of what it denotes, while during the process of identifying a polysemantic personal name recipients tend have different reactions. Scientific value is posed by the effect of the choice of letters for the name, sound symbolism, etc. The following belong to the generalized forms of identification: usage of a hyperonym; synonyms and periphrases or simple descriptions; associations denoting the whole (name stimulus) by reference to its part (associatives); cognitive structures such as “stimulus — association” and “whole (stimulus) — part (associative)”; lack of adjacency; mysterious associations. The topicality of the study is determined by its perspective to identify the directions of associative identification of proper names, which is one of the branches of cognitive onomastics. The purpose of the study is to identify, review, and highlight the directions of associative identification of proper names; the object of the research is the names in their entirety and variety; its subject is the existence of names in the mental lexicon, which determines the need for singling out the directions for the associative identification of the personal names.

Transposing Proper Names in Frank McCourt’s Memoir Angela’s Ashes from English into Maltese

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Grima
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Common People ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Conventional Meaning ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Processing Effort

This paper focuses on the transposition from English into Maltese of the various proper names encountered in Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes (Chapter 1). To achieve this aim, an extended practical translation exercise by the author himself is used. Eight different categories of proper names were identified in the source-text ranging from common people names to nicknames, titles and forms of address. Four different categories of cross-cultural transposition of proper names were considered, although only two were actually used. Various translation strategies were adopted ranging from non-translation to modification, depending on whether the particular proper name has a ‘conventional’ meaning or a culturally ‘loaded’ meaning. Although cultural losses were unavoidable, cultural gains were also experienced. Wherever possible, the original proper names were preserved to avoid any change in meaning and interference in their functionality as cultural markers. Moreover, a semantic creative translation was preferred, especially with proper names that were culturally and semantically loaded to reduce the amount of processing effort required by the target-reader and to minimize the cultural losses of relevant contextual and cultural implications in the target-text.

scholarly journals The polyfunctional lexeme /fard/ in the Arabic dialects of Iraq and Khuzestan

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Bettina Leitner ◽  
Stefan Prochazka
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
Text Corpora ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Spoken Arabic ◽  
Very High

Abstract The primary aim of this paper is to explore the functions of the word /fard/ in Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic. The study is based on the analysis of various text corpora and the elicitation of further examples from native speakers of the varieties investigated. The analysis of these data has shown that /fard/ is a polyfunctional item. Its various functions are the result of several grammaticalization processes. In the first stage, the noun “individual” has become a quantifier that expresses singularity. From this stage it developed into an intensifier, a marker of approximation and the scalar adverb “only.” It has been demonstrated that, from its use as a presentative marker, it developed toward an indefinite article. In contrast to the definite article, which is a grammatical category in nearly every variety of Arabic, the use of an indefinite article is rarely found in spoken Arabic. In Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic, /fard/ is an indefinite article that possesses a wide range of applications and only a limited set of constraints. Its use, however, remains optional to a very high degree. Its main function is that of a presentative—i.e., introducing a new referent into a discourse. In addition, it also functions as an individuation marker, as a marker for expressing the speaker’s epistemic status (knowledge/ignorance) regarding a referent, and indicating free choice from a set of potential referents. Related to this last function is its use as a mitigating device in imperatives and polite requests.

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