Analytical tools for toponymy : their application to Scottish hydronymy
It has long been observed that there is a correlation between the physical qualities of a watercourse and the linguistic qualities of its name; for instance, of two river-names, one having the linguistic quality of river as its generic element, and one having burn, one would expect the river to be the longer of the two. Until now, a phenomenon such as this had never been formally quantified. The primary focus of this thesis is to create, within a Scottish context, a methodology for elucidating the relationship between various qualities of hydronyms and the qualities of the watercourses they represent. The area of study includes every catchment area which falls into the sea from the River Forth, round the east coast of Scotland, up to and including the Spey; also included is the east side of the River Leven / Loch Lomond catchment area. The linguistic strata investigated are: Early Celtic, P-Celtic, Gaelic and Scots. In the first half of the introduction scholarly approaches to toponymy are discussed, in a Scottish and hydronymic context, from the inception of toponymy as a discipline up to the present day; the capabilities and limitations of these approaches are taken into consideration. In the second half
King, Jacob
Celtic studies ; hydronymy ; Toponymy
Analytical tools for toponymy : their application to Scottish hydronymy. It has long been observed that there is a correlation between the physical qualities of a watercourse and the linguistic qualities of its name; for instance, of two river-names, one having the linguistic quality of river as its generic element, and one having burn, one would expect the river to be the longer of the two. Until now, a phenomenon such as this had never been formally quantified. The primary focus of this thesis is to create, within a Scottish context, a methodology for elucidating the relationship between various qualities of hydronyms and the qualities of the watercourses they represent. The area of study includes every catchment area which falls into the sea from the River Forth, round the east coast of Scotland, up to and including the Spey; also included is the east side of the River Leven / Loch Lomond catchment area. The linguistic strata investigated are: Early Celtic, P-Celtic, Gaelic and Scots. In the first half of the introduction scholarly approaches to toponymy are discussed, in a Scottish and hydronymic context, from the inception of toponymy as a discipline up to the present day; the capabilities and limitations of these approaches are taken into consideration. In the second half
analytical_tool application scottish long observed correlation physical quality watercourse linguistic quality name instance river names linguistic quality river generic element burn one_would expect river longer phenomenon never formally quantify primary_focus create within scottish_context elucidate relationship various quality quality represent area study include every catchment_area fall sea river forth round east coast scotland include also_include east side river loch catchment_area linguistic stratum investigate early celtic celtic gaelic scots first_half introduction scholarly approach discuss scottish context inception discipline present_day capability limitation approach take_consideration second_half