Dialectological methods in onomastics Cover Image

Metody dialektologiczne w onomastyce
Dialectological methods in onomastics

Author(s): Ewa Rzetelska-Feleszko
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Sociolinguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego

Summary/Abstract: Dialectology and onomastics are two lines of linguistic science. Dialectology aims at presenting the dialectal system as a whole; onomastics examines only a part of the lexical system - the proper names. There are two features common for these two lines of research; the geographical location of linguistic facts and the diachronic approach. Their methods are intertwined. However, due to the earlier development of dialectology (both European and Polish) it is only natural for the slightly younger onomastic linguistics to draw on the dialectological research methods. It is especially true of ways in which the linguistic data are collected and in which the results are published (the use of folk dialects etc.). Dialectal material has become a basis for the onomastic analysis, especially in studies of country locality names, folk personal names and zoonymy. The adaptation of dialectological methods is even more prominent in the publication of results where onomastics makes use of synthetic cartographical formulations patterned on the formulations characteristic of dialectology. Onomastic maps usually present little technical complexity; they serve for presentation of the distribution of a studied type of names in the researched area or on the whole of Polish territory. Some authors (e.g. S. Rospond, A. Zaręba) introduce certain cartographical innovations in their formulations. An example of a parallel analytical and synthetic formulation are maps by J. Duma and by the author of this paper in a study A Research of River-Names in Pomerania arid Great- -Poland by Cartographical Method ' ( "Onomastica" 1980). The most serious onomastic undertaking patterned on dialectal atlases takes form of attempts to compile a Slavonic onomastic atlas.

  • Issue Year: 1986
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 69-78
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Polish