The morphological structure of complex place names: the case of Dutch

In the theoretical literature, it is generally assumed that place names are morphologically simplex, at least from a synchronie perspective. This derives from the observation that constituents of complex place names often become opaque over time. Along these lines, place names like Dutch Amsterdam c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics 2015-10, Vol.18 (3), p.183-212
Main Author: Köhnlein, Björn
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accentuation
Comparative Linguistics
Dutch language
Germanic Languages
Linguistics
Morphemes
Morphological analysis
Morphological complexity
Names
Naming
Opacity
Original Paper
Phonetics
Phonology
Phonotactics
Semantics
Social Sciences
Stress
Suffixes
Syntax
Theoretical Linguistics
Toponymy
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Summary:In the theoretical literature, it is generally assumed that place names are morphologically simplex, at least from a synchronie perspective. This derives from the observation that constituents of complex place names often become opaque over time. Along these lines, place names like Dutch Amsterdam cannot be synchronically compositional because Amster- does not exist as an independent morpheme in Dutch. Contrary to this view, this paper argues that many (Dutch) place names are in fact synchronically complex, in spite of their semantic non-transparency. Evidence comes from the phonological behavior of the names in question: in Dutch, place names are often the sole apparent exceptions to otherwise strong restrictions on stress assignment and phonotactics. Yet under close inspection, it becomes evident that these names are not phonologically exceptional at all: they display regular phonological behavior that is characteristic of morphologically complex words, derived via suffixation or compounding. Furthermore, it is argued that the complex structures found in Dutch place names are by no means idiosyncratic to this group of words: similar patterns are found in place naming in various other languages as well as in the formation of some types of nominal compounds in Dutch (such as the formation of names for ball games).
ISSN:1383-4924
1572-8552
DOI:10.1007/s10828-015-9075-0