The interpretation of urbanonyms in discourse: Reconciling theoretical accounts with experimental results

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to offer an account of the discourse properties of urbanonynms in Italian (e.g. Via Roma, Piazza di Spagna). The paper introduces urbanonyms as a sub-type of toponyms (place names) whose linguistic properties have received little attention so far. The paper proposes an experimental study that shows how urbanonyms can enter in anaphoric relations mediated via urbanonyms’ lexico-grammatical properties. Via these experimental results, it is shown that urbanonyms can act as antecedents of indexical pronouns (e.g. qui ‘here’), and complex noun phrases (e.g. questa via ‘this street’). It is also shown that urbanonyms can involve co-referring patterns in sentences including verba nominandi (chiamarsi ‘to be called’). These results are discussed against the theoretical proposals investigating toponyms and other proper names. It is suggested that the two main “rival” theories on names, the description theory and the causal reference theory, can only address the novel data if combined into a new theoretical synthesis.