Proper nouns are word and word groups that express names of substances, events, places, units of universe and so on. Basing on these facts we can conclude that every proper noun should bear besides purely semantic meaning also cultural and spiritual features of the language. Lingvocultural character of proper noun can be traced in all kind names. In this content religious believes play a significant role. This role is prominently seen in personnel names.
a) English people being Christianized mostly use Christian names which are taken mostly from the Biblical characters or for honour of saints. In this content place names stand dominating role in English. E.g. St.Jones, Abbotsford (town in British Columbia), Church Hill (town in Virginia, US)
Besides that some place names are considered as borrowings, although they belong to church or religious content. For instance old Welsh word “ian” –“church” mostly was used to form place names in changed form as “Lan-”. That’s why many of present day place names that are considered simple in fact are compound forms e. g. “Lancaster-church place, Landulph- church crossing” and so on.
But personnel names with compound structure of Christian origin occur very rare. Even existing compound names have already lost their belonging to religious. E.g. John and Jonson were originated from latin “Ioan”, “Maryanne (Mary+Ann), Joanne (Ioan+Ann), Josephine (Iosiph)
The religious impact on throponymy and anthroponomy of Uzbek is also dominating. But differing from English Islamic or religious names belong only persons, never to place and geographical names. E.g.
– Muhammadkarim (Muhammad+karim),
– Saidibrohim (Said-“relative”+Ibrahim), Saidjamol,
– Shohyunus (Shoh-“king”+Yunus),
– Hayriddin (Hayr-“endowment” + “din”-“religion”)
– Nuriddin (Nur-“light”+ “din”= Light of religion”)
b) Compound proper nouns belong to place and geographical names usually formed from words meaning description of the place, that is descriptive naming. In this mean words expressing relief of place are widely spread. But most part of these morphemes are borrowed from other languages in historic times and have became archaic so proper nouns can hardly classified as compound. Here we can note the following words: E.g.
1) words expressing relief;
– Comb (old Scandinavian “top” or “wave”) -!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– Knoll (Celtic “small hill”) -
– Wood- Monkwood, Cauperwood
– ber, -bury (Old Eng. verb. “beorg” — mount) Limber, Modbury, Salesbury
– den (Old Eng. “derm” — пастбище) Thornden,
– den (Old Eng. “denu” — долина) Debden,
The same linguistic phenomenon can be found in the same way even in Uzbek. There too many compound proper nouns formed by means of words “kurgan, tepa, kuduk” that are expressing relief of the place. E.g.
–Kattakurgan, Okkurgan, Turakurgan,
–Oktepa, Uratepa, Uchtepa,
– Jalolkuduk, Uchkuduk and so on.
2) Words expressing part of land
– fild- Chesterfield, Clanfield.
–ham (Welsh “land”)- Needham Market, Bromham.
–ton (Scandinavian “land, castle”)- Knighton, Brighton, Briton.
–Shire (Welsh “land”) — Berkshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire.Oxfordshire,
–Ley (meadow) Helmsley, Ridley
Some times there could be found some misunderstanding in origin of such proper nouns caused by identical form of words with present day English or Latin. Thus “Skipton” should be 'Shipton' (Old English scipetun — 'sheep farm') and has nothing to deal with present meaning of the word “skip”, although we have too many identical words in English or Latin.
The Uzbek people living on peasantry and handcrafting less frequently used to name places by breeding words. Though we can find some proper nouns bear similar expressing. For instance “Shahrisabz” — meant “city of green grasses” but caused naming basing on not breeding but as “a place for spring settlement in nature”. There we can occur many words taken from farming and gardening composed from the word;
–“-zor” as in: Olmazor, Urikzor, Uzumzor,Bodomzor.
–“dehkon” (peasant): Dehkonchek, Dehkonobod, Kizildehkon.
– “galla”(corn, corp): Gallaorol, Gallakent, Gallamozor.
Besides that in English we can find many proper nouns composed by words expressing forestry as it also counted as important branch of society. Here we can note such words as:
– “Ash- a tree”. (Ashfield — Ashford — Ashley — Ashover, Ashcombe)
– “wood” –“forest”. (Woodborough, Woodhouse, Tender wood, Cauperwood)
– “weald”- forest, “holt-foresrty hill” (Greenweald, Setonweald, Drusdenholt and so on)
In Uzbek no any proper nouns composed by words expressing forestry, as it doesn’t belong to national culture of the nation.
3) Words expressing water
– Bath (scand. “sring”) –
– Brook(scotish “river”) — Hidenbrook, Brookfield, Brookland.
– Fleet (Welsh “stream”) — Saltfleet, Berbarfleet.
– Loch(scotch “lake”) — Loch Ness,
This feature is also relevant to Uzbek. Unlike English here we use words belonging to melioration. For instance “daryo-river” “buloq-spring” as in:
–Kashkadaryo, Sirdaryo, Surhondaryo,
–Buloqboshi, Ettibuloq, Oydinbuloq, Qizbuloq, Toshbuloq.
4) Words expressing buildings, roads.
– Bow — Greenbow(town near London)
–Street — Burtsstreet, Wall Street, Oad Street.
–Wall — Cornwall,
– Castle — New Castle,
– Bridge- Pinebridge, Beambridge, Ninebanks
These phenomena are also peculiar to Uzbek in the same content. E.g.
– Kizilkuprik — Red bridge, “Tahtakuprik”- wooden bridge.
– Chorguzar- four street, crossing.
– Turkucha –crossing.
c) Proper nouns on their semantics usually express nation’s culture and history.
In this point proper nouns may be formed from the words belonging to; profession, living place and other social features of people. Among these words lexemes expressing profession are widely occur. E.g. English word “smith” semantically expresses “a person who works with iron” basing on his profession, and as a words it serves to form other compound proper nouns as: Blacksmith, Greensmith, Whitesmith, Goldsmith.
But such kind of compound proper nouns is not occur in Uzbek.
Differing from English we have special compound proper nouns which belong cultural, traditional and moral believes of nation. For instance in Uzbek families where died many previous children, call their child as:
– Turgunmurod — “constant wish”,
– Tuhtamurod — “stop wish”, Muhammadtursun, Hudaybergan” and so on.
In conclusion we pointed out that compound Proper Nouns are universally belong to both of compared languages in identical structural-semantic features. They may consist of at least two components which joined directly or descriptively identify the objects. The components of Compound Proper Noun may lose their primarily meaning and exist only in Proper Noun.
- Anderson, John M. (2003): «On the Structure of Names». Folia Linguistica 37: 347–398.
- Anderson, John M. (2007). The Grammar of Proper Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Carroll, John M. (1983): «Toward a Functional Theory of Names and Naming». Linguistics 21: 341–71.
- Sloat, Clarence (1969): «Proper Nouns in English». Language 45: 26–30