Majid Tame
Abstract
Toponyms or place names are divided into three categories according to their type: uronyms or the name of lows and highs of earth, hydronyms or names of geographical features that refer ...
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Toponyms or place names are divided into three categories according to their type: uronyms or the name of lows and highs of earth, hydronyms or names of geographical features that refer to waters, and oykonyms or names of residential areas. Toponyms are also part of the vocabulary of any language, and the same grammatical rules apply to them as are common to other words in the language. Toponyms can morphologically be divided into two categories, simple and complex. Simple place names are words that consist of only one morpheme. But complex nouns are divided into three categories: derivative, compound, and derivative-compound. Compound or complex toponyms are words that consist of at least two independent and meaningful words. In such compound place names, the meaning of one of the two words present in the compound is usually slightly altered and gradually, as a result of overuse, becomes a topoformant. In Iranian toponyms, these topoformants play a major role, and their use in the construction of place names is more important than derivational affixes. In compound oykonyms of Iran, different topoformants are used. In this paper, those topoformants that are considered as unmarked place names are discussed. To this end, these topoformants in compound oykonyms are examined from both morphological and semantic perspectives.
