PROBLEMY TOPONOMASTÓW
TOPONOMASTIC SCHOLARS’ PROBLEMS

Summary/Abstract: Toponomastics principally deals with research on and description of the differences between geographical names and common names. This paper focuses on troublesome place names derivated from faunal and floral appellatives (toponyms). Not all place names can be easily classified. First, it is caused by source material deficiencies. Some toponomastic scholars put forward hypotheses concerning the nature of a specific place name, others classify it unambiguously, and yet others are inconsistent in their decisions in terms of classification. Most problems are caused by place names ended in -ów, -owa, -owo, because apart from their toponymic nature they can be possessive forms as well. Examples of such names were excerpted from S. Rospond’s The Etymological Dictionary of Towns and Municipalities of the People’s Republic of Poland and Kazimierz Rymut’s monograph entitled The Names of Polish Towns. A separate attention was paid to place names with ambiguous appellative grounds. Topographic names are sometimes the only remnants of words that no longer are used in the Polish language. Examples of such names were excerpted based on Stanisław Rospond’s word entitled Names Tell a Story. KEY WORDS: toponomastics, toponyms, onomastics, etymology, derivation, appellative, proper names.

• Details
• Contents