| Titlu: | “Conventional” and “non-conventional” in microtoponymy. A case study in Catalonia (Spain) |
| Autor: | Joan Tort-Donada |
| Publicația: | Numele și numirea. Actele Conferinței Internaționale de Onomastică. Ediția a III-a: Conventional / unconventional in onomastics, p. 577 |
| ISBN: | 978-606-543-671-8 |
| Editori: | Oliviu Felecan |
| Editura: | Editura Mega, Editura Argonaut |
| Locul: | Cluj-Napoca |
| Anul: | 2015 |
| Rezumat: | The “conventional” and the “non-conventional” are, from the point of view of knowledge in general, highly complex categories heavily loaded with ambivalence. This contention, which takes on particular relevance in all questions relating to language, is expressly manifest in the field of onomastics. To what extent can a name – a toponym or an anthroponym – be considered a simple convention? There is no straightforward answer to this question if we consider the infinite variability of names – be they place names or names of people – in space, through time and across languages. From the perspective of the philosophy of language, the multiplicity of names is equal to the multiplicity of meanings (that is, the infinite diversity of meanings with which reality presents us). And to reduce this multiplicity to a simple outline, to a list of conventions, is ultimately to reduce the possibilities of language to express the essential diversity of the world through names. In the context described, this paper seeks to explore the extent to which, in toponymy, the theoretical juxtaposition between the “conventional” and the “non-conventional” can be justified in a study conducted at the micro scale. That is, when we concentrate on the field of microtoponymy; i.e., the quantitatively most significant type of toponyms but, at the same time, the most complex to study because of their intrinsic multiplicity, variability and diversity. The study takes as its point of reference the microtoponymy of a small area of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: the comarca or district of el Baix Camp (in the province of Tarragona, Catalonia), comprising 29 municipalities, with a total area of 695 km2 and a population today of nearly 200,000 inhabitants. In this territory a total of 16,500 current place names have been recorded (in the main, microtoponyms), which, duly organised and geographically located, form the basis of our analysis. An examination of the results is conducted around three questions of particular significance: a) the idea of a toponymic system as a possible means to organise toponyms and to facilitate our understanding of them; b) the interaction of the physical environment and the human environment as an underlying explanation of toponymic diversity; and c) the dialectal variation of toponyms depending on the variation of the geographical characteristics of the territory. Finally, two important conclusions are drawn: the first, that in microtoponymy, the “conventional” and the “non-conventional”, far from being differentiated, merge and blend together; and the second, that the study of the microtoponymy of any region in the world requires, by way of methodological principle, unifying two perspectives of analysis: the philological and the geographical. |
| Cuvinte-cheie: | microtoponymy, micro scale, toponymic system, Catalonia, Baix Camp (comarca), geography and onomastics |
| Limba: | engleză |
| Linkuri: |  pdf |
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