Abstract
Corpus linguistics is, to date, still an underexplored methodology in onomastics. This article seeks to advance the field through a theoretical discussion of onomastic issues from a corpus linguistic point of view. It presents an overview of the linguistic status, meaning and grammar of proper names in order to highlight aspects that lend themselves to corpus linguistic inquiry. Earlier onomastic research is adduced, to highlight how corpus linguistic methods have substantially improved our understanding of names in language use. While previous onomastic work has often concentrated on the description of names in their own right, without necessarily taking the usage context into account, it is argued that the investigation of the semantics and the grammar of names needs to be complemented by work that draws on usage-based, corpus linguistic evidence. A stronger integration of four types of corpus linguistic analysis (frequency analysis, concordance analysis, collocation analysis, keyword analysis) is suggested for future research.
Highlights
Onomastic research has drawn on a broad range of methods to shed light on topics such as the history and etymology of names, the meaning and grammar of names, and the social relevance of naming practices
This article, seeks to outline the theoretical foundations for establishing a stronger connection between onomastics and corpus linguistics. It delineates central features of proper names and highlights which name-related properties can usefully be studied with corpus linguistic methods
The more traditional usage refers to any linguistic dataset that is used as the basis for an onomastic study
Summary
Onomastic research has drawn on a broad range of methods to shed light on topics such as the history and etymology of names, the meaning and grammar of names, and the social relevance of naming practices (see Eichler et al 1995). This article, seeks to outline the theoretical foundations for establishing a stronger connection between onomastics and corpus linguistics It delineates central features of proper names and highlights which name-related properties can usefully be studied with corpus linguistic methods. The more traditional usage refers to any linguistic dataset that is used as the basis for an onomastic study Such corpora are often historical, non-computerised and may well consist of material that constitutes a list of names or data such as address books, telephone books or name indexes (Greule 1995). This is not the type of corpus that is relevant here. The final section makes suggestions for future corpus-based onomastic research by outlining which kinds of research questions can be explored using corpus linguistic methods (Section 6)
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