Panel at LIV Simposio de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística: The Morphosyntax of Proper Names (Spain, 26/01/2026-29/01/2026)
Date: 26-Jan-2026 – 29-Jan-2026
Location: Madrid, Spain
Contact Person: Javier Caro-Reina
Meeting Email: javier.caroreina@uni-koeln.de
Web Site: https://www.sel.edu.es/liv-simposio-madrid-2026/
Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Sociolinguistics; Syntax; Typology
Call Deadline: 30-Sep-2025
Description:
During the last years there has been a growing interest in the study of the morphosyntactic behaviour of proper names (Ackermann & Schlücker 2017; Dammel & Handschuh 2019; Caro Reina & Helmbrecht 2022; Stolz & Nintemann 2024). From a typological perspective, it has been shown that proper names can, to varying degrees, morphosyntactically differ from common nouns. As a consequence, some scholars speak of a special onymic grammar (Nübling et al. 2015) while others propose a special anthroponymic grammar and a special toponymic grammar (Stolz & Levkovych 2022). This is due to the fact that place names can morphosyntactically pattern with either personal names or common nouns or even morphosyntactically deviate from both.
The morphosyntactic behaviour of proper names has been described for several languages (see Fernández Leborans 1999 and Bajo Pérez 2002 for Spanish). However, proper names do not constitute a homogeneous class. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish not only between proper name classes (such as personal names, place names, etc.), but also between proper name subclasses (such as names of cities, countries, regions, etc. in the case of place names) to carry out a systematic study of their grammatical behaviour. Moreover, language varieties may differ with respect to the morphosyntax of proper names. Such is the case with the use of the definite article with personal names and the gender assignment rules of city names in Spanish.
Thus, the morphosyntax of proper names has opened up new lines of research, which include linguistic typology, historical linguistics, and language variation.
Goals:
The aim of this panel is to examine the special morphosyntax of proper names (as well as proper name classes such place names and proper name subclasses such as city names) from a synchronic, diachronic, contrastive, and typological perspective. Examples of the most productive lines of research in this area are the following:
1) Definite article: The use of the definite article with personal names and place names has been the subject of numerous studies. While the occurrence of the definite article with place names seems to be the result of a grammaticalization process that diachronically goes from less prototypical place names (such as river names) to more prototypical place names (such as country names), the occurrence of the definite article with personal names seems to be the result of a complex pragmaticalization process whereby the role of semantic-pragmatic, lexical, morphosyntactic, and sociolinguistic factors changes depending on the variety (see Caro Reina 2022 for Romance languages).
2) Gender: The gender of common nouns is mainly determined by phonological, semantic, and lexical rules. In contrast, gender may be assigned to proper names according to semantic and referential rules. In Spanish, for example, semantic gender assignment applies to personal names (Pedro, María) and animal names (Pluto, Lassie) while referential gender applies to other (less prototypical) proper name classes such as object names and proper name subclasses such as river names. More specifically, river names are masculine regardless of their ending (el Ebro, el Guadiana, el Guadalquivir) since gender assignment is based on the basic level noun –that is, the hyperonym río ‘river’, which is masculine. However, gender assignment rules may overlap, giving rise to variation. This is the case with city names in Spanish, where they can be either masculine or feminine (Madrid es bonito vs. Madrid es bonita ‘Madrid is beautiful’).
3) Differential Object Marking (DOM): DOM is a morphosyntactic phenomenon whereby some direct objects are marked while other are not depending on factors such as the referentiality of the direct object (animacy and definiteness/specificity), verbal semantics (telicity, affectedness, and agentivity), and information structure (topicality) (Aissen 2003). In Old Spanish, for example, DOM is obligatory with personal names, but optional with place names (country names and city names) and human definite NPs (Laca 2006).
4) Hypocoristics: The formation of hypocoristics offers a large number of derivational suffixes depending on diatopic variation and phonological, morphological, and sociolinguistic factors (see Marqueta Gracia & Cañete Lairla 2023 for Spanish).
5) Kinship names: Kinship terms constitute an intermediate class between proper names and common nouns since they can morphosyntactically behave like personal names. This distinction can be lexically encoded in doublets such as mom/mother, dad/father, etc. In European Spanish, mamá/papá behave like proper names because they lack the definite article, while madre/padre behave like common nouns because they take it (see Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2001 for more examples). Further evidence for the onymic status of kinship terms comes from morphosyntactic phenomena such as case marking and possessive constructions.
6) Spatial relations: With regard to the coding of the place roles locative (location), allative (goal) and ablative (source), place names can be distinguished from common nouns by asymmetric coding differences involving shorter (or even zero) coding as opposed to longer (adpositional rather than affixal) coding (see Stolz et al. 2014; Haspelmath 2019).
Abstracts:
With this CfP, we invite abstract submissions for oral presentations (20 minutes) that focus on one of the thematic areas covered by the monographic session. Abstracts should use the corresponding template (“plantilla para el envío de propuestas”) and be submitted in English or Spanish via the registration website (“página web para la solicitud de participación”) (https://www.sel.edu.es/liv-simposio-madrid-2026/cuotas-e-inscripcion/).
References:
Ackermann, T. & Schlücker, B. (eds.) (2017). The morphosyntax of proper names [Special issue]. Folia Linguistica, 51(2).
Aissen, J. (2003). Differential object marking. Iconicity vs. economy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21(3), 435–483. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024109008573
Bajo Pérez, E. (2002). La caracterización morfosintáctica del nombre propio. Noia: Toxosoutos.
Caro Reina, J. (2022). The definite article with personal names in Romance languages. In J. Caro Reina & J. Helmbrecht (eds.), Proper names versus common nouns: Morphosyntactic contrasts in the languages of the world, 51–92. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672626-003
Caro Reina, J. & Helmbrecht, J. (eds.) (2022). Proper names versus common nouns: Morphosyntactic contrasts in the languages of the world. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672626
Dahl, Ö. & Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. (2001). Kinship in grammar. In I. Baron, M. Herslund & F. Sørensen (eds.), Dimensions of possession, 201–225. Amsterdam, New York: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.47.12dah
Dammel, A. & Handschuh, C. (eds.) (2019). Grammar of names [Special issue]. Language Typology and Universals, 72(4).
Fernández Leborans, M. J. (1999). El nombre propio. In I. Bosque & V. Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, vol. 1, 77–128. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Haspelmath, M. (2019). Differential place marking and differential object marking. Language Typology and Universals, 72(3), 313–334. https://doi.org/10.1515/stuf-2019-0013
Laca, B. (2006). El objeto directo preposicional. In C. Company Company (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Primera parte: La frase verbal, vol. 1, 423–478. México: UNAM.
Marqueta Gracia, B. & Cañete Lairla, M. (2023). Análisis teórico-cuantitativo de la constitución formal de los hipocorísticos en español peninsular. Pragmalingüística, 31, 265–286. https://doi.org/10.25267/Pragmalinguistica.2023.i31.12
Nübling, D., Fahlbusch, F. & Heuser, R. (2015). Namen. Eine Einführung in die Onomastik. Tübingen: Narr.
Stolz, T., Lestrade, S. & Stolz, C. (2014). The crosslinguistics of zero-marking of spatial relations. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783050065304
Stolz, T. & Levkovych, N. (2022). On Special Onymic Grammar (SOG): Definiteness markers in Fijian and selected Austronesian languages. In J. Caro Reina & J. Helmbrecht (eds.), Proper names versus common nouns: Morphosyntactic contrasts in the languages of the world, 237–264. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672626-009
Stolz, T. & Nintemann, J. (2024). Special Onymic Grammar in typological perspective: Cross-linguistic data, recurrent patterns, functional explanations. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111331874