Morpho-syntactic typology of place names (TYPTOP)

地名的形态句法类型学 (TYPTOP)

• 批准号: 516330900
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Thomas Stolz
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Fach Linguistik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/516330900?language=en
• 关键词: Morpho; syntactic; typology; place; names

The history, etymology, and internal structure of place names form part of the research domain of onomastics. The behaviour of place names in syntax, however, has hitherto been largely neglected by onomasticians. The project aims at proving that it is worthwhile linguistically to study the morpho-syntax of place names in-depth by way of comparing cross-linguistic data from a wide range of genetically, areally, and structurally diverse languages. Previous studies conducted by members of the TYPTOP project-team reveal that in many languages from different parts of the world, place names obey to rules which differ markedly from those which determine the ways in which common nouns and/or person names can be employed in syntax. A structural trait shared by probably hundreds of languages across the world map is the possibility of leaving spatial relations such as Place, Goal, and Source unspecified in constructions which involve a place name whereas the same categories must be expressed overtly if the construction involves a person name or a common noun. In Maltese, for instance, it is widely common to drop the preposition fi ‘in’ in combinations with a place name as in it-tifla marret Ø il-Belt ‘the girl went to Valletta’ (where Ø marks the absence of the preposition). In contrast, if il-Belt ‘Valletta’ is replaced with a person name or a common noun, the use of prepositions is obligatory as in it-tifla marret għand Pawlu ‘the girl went to Paul’s’ or it-tifla marret f’il-kċina ‘the girl went (in)to the kitchen’. Unrelated languages like Aromanian, Tswana, Matlatzinca, etc. reflect similar patterns. Seemingly unpredictable commonalities between otherwise dissimilar languages call for closer inspection from the perspective of language typology. Moreover, place names differ from person names and common nouns not only in the case of zero-marking of spatial relations but there are further sectors of grammar in which evidence of Special Toponymic Grammar (STG) can be found such as the use of different prepositions for identical functions (German ich fahre nach Köln ‘I go to Cologne’ as opposed to ich fahre zu Dieter / zur Kirche ‘I go to Dieter’s / the church’). As yet, there is no comprehensive catalogue of STG phenomena. TYPTOP is intended to fill this gap. To this end, pertinent data are extracted from the descriptive grammars of 250 languages representing all macro-areas and 76 language families (including isolates) to build a first empirical data-base. More often than not, descriptive grammars tacitly pass over place names and their properties so that it is necessary to consult directly with language experts to complement the data collection. Native speakers of the sample languages are invited to comment upon the raw data as well as their analysis. The results of TYPTOP promise to impact the extant typological theories of word-class distinctions.

地名的历史、词源和内部结构构成了专名学研究领域的一部分。然而，迄今为止，地名在句法中的表现在很大程度上被专名学家所忽视。该项目旨在通过比较来自广泛的遗传、区域和结构不同语言的跨语言数据，证明深入研究地名形态句法在语言上是有价值的。 TYPTOP 项目团队成员之前进行的研究表明，在世界不同地区的许多语言中，地名遵循的规则与决定普通名词和/或人名在语法中使用方式的规则明显不同。世界地图上可能有数百种语言共有的一个结构特征是，在涉及地名的结构中，可能会留下诸如地点、目标和来源等空间关系未指定的可能性，而如果结构涉及人名或普通名词，则必须公开表达相同的类别。例如，在马耳他语中，普遍省略与地名组合的介词 fi“in”，如 it-tifla marret Ø il-Belt“女孩去了瓦莱塔”（其中 Ø 表示介词的缺失）。相反，如果 il-Belt ‘Valletta’ 被人名或普通名词取代，则必须使用介词，如 it-tifla marret għ 和 Pawlu “女孩去了保罗”或 it-tifla marret f’il-kċina “女孩去了厨房”。阿罗马尼亚语、茨瓦纳语、马特拉津卡语等不相关的语言也反映了类似的模式。不同语言之间看似不可预测的共性需要从语言类型学的角度进行更仔细的检查。此外，地名与人名和普通名词的不同之处不仅体现在空间关系零标记的情况下，而且还有其他语法领域可以找到特殊地名语法（STG）的证据，例如使用不同的介词来表达相同的功能（德语 ich fahre nach Köln ‘我去科隆’与 ich fahre zu Dieter / zur Kirche ‘我去 迪特/教堂”）。迄今为止，还没有 STG 现象的全面目录。 TYPTOP 旨在填补这一空白。为此，从代表所有宏观领域的250种语言和76个语系（包括孤立语）的描述性语法中提取相关数据，建立第一个经验数据库。通常，描述性语法会默认地忽略地名及其属性，因此有必要直接咨询语言专家来补充数据收集。邀请样本语言的母语人士对原始数据及其分析发表评论。 TYPTOP 的结果有望影响现有的词类区分的类型学理论。