Folia onomastica Croatica, No. 12/13, 2003.
Original scientific paper
Personal Name and Countability
Marija Znika
; Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics, Zagreb, Croatia
Maja Znika
Abstract
A personal name is a linguistic unit without any meaning. Thus, it cannot be countable. In the grammatical category of number the marker [– countable] signifies a singular form. The pluralia tantum uncountable names have a plural form, such as the Vinkovci type. The plural form is also used to signify more bearers of the same name: U razredu su tri Ane. The plural form of an eponym derived from a personal name indicates that its content can be realized in the sense of many, such as the type: Pojeo je dva sendviča. A personal name can be appellativized, such as the type: lazar, ksantipa, volt, amper, mercedes … The opposite procedure is deappellativization of appellatives, such as the type: Bog, raj, Sunce, Mjesec. Both the cluster of personal names and the cluster of appellatives are open clusters, which renders conversions possible. Since a personal name has a referential, identifying function, its accompanying adjective has a specific form as an attribute. The identification is made possible by the characteristic expressed by the adjective.
Keywords
proper name; countability; Croatian
Hrčak ID:
23297
URI
Publication date:
28.3.2007.
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