LINGUIST List 3.932

Wed 25 Nov 1992

Disc: Articles and Names

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , Re: 3.929 Articles and Names
2. Brian D Joseph, Posting for LINGUIST
3. Bill Bennett, Re: [3.929 Articles and Names]
4. , Articles and Names
5. "Ellen F. Prince", Re: 3.929 Articles and Names
6. H. Stephen Straight, Articles in Names: A Minimal Pair
7. Mark Hansell/ Mai Hansheng, "The City"
8. Hartmut Haberland, Re: 3.929 Articles and Names
9. dwight tuinstra, Re: 3.929 Articles and Names

Message 1: Re: 3.929 Articles and Names

Michael Kac writes:

>In outstate Minnesota the Twin Cities metropolitan area is commonly
>referred to as The Cities.

sowawatson.ibm.com writes:

>It's common for every big city to be called "The City" by people who
>live nearby. In New York, "The City" tends to mean Manhattan, even
>for people who live in the other boroughs.

My spouse, who grew up in Rochester, NY, still refers to New York City
as "The City." But when she says "The Cities" (plural) she means the
Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area (we live about 75 miles from the
Twin Cities). In central Minnesota "The U" refers to the University of
Minnesota, Twin Cities.

In South Africa, where I used to live, the southeastern coastal city of
Port Elizabeth is commonly referred to in Afrikaans as "Die Baai," however
I have never heard anyone use its English equivalent, "The Bay."
I understand the Xhosa name for Port Elizabeth is "iBayhi" (?sp), and
that Johannesburg is often referred to as "iGoli" (?the gold).

Aubrey Immelman
Department of Psychology Internet: aimmelmancsbsju.edu
Saint John's University Phone: (612) 363-3198(w) or 654-6007(h)
Collegeville, MN 56321 Fax: (612) 363-3202

To follow up on the discussion in 3.918ff. on elliptical place names
with a definite article and especially William Dowling's observation
concerning "in-group" status associated with the ellipsis, let me offer
an anecdote my father loved to tell. A New Yorker, he went to college
at McGill in Montreal, and upon arriving was waiting in a line when he
overheard someone near him say that he was from "the Island"; my father
said to him "Oh, you're from Long Island? I'm from New York" and the
other guy responded "Long Island? No, I'm from Prince Edward Island.
What the hell other island is there?"

Regarding the etymology of Istanbul from Greek eis ten poli, I agree
that that is the accepted etymology and in some ways the obvious one,
there being parallels for place names elsewhere incorporating the
preposition, but I should point out that it is not uniformly accepted
by all scholars of toponyms and onomastics. I recall an article by
Demetrius Georgacas (though I cannot for the life of me recover the
source), who knew about as much about Modern Greek place names as
anyone in the world, disputing this "obvious" etymology for Istanbul,
at least in the way it is usually presented (for instance, treating
the name Istanbul as deriving from a reduction of the full name
Constantinople (in Greek pronunciation, roughly konstandinu'poli(s)),
though it involves some perhaps gratuitous assumptions about the
proceses of reduction, gives a source for the -a- vocalism in
Istanbul). If I can track down the Georgacas reference, I will
post it.

--Brian Joseph (Ohio State University, or, as it is officially
 known around here, The Ohio State University, another
 can of worms that many LINGUIST readers are familiar with
 from their own institutions).

I haven't been paying special attention to the discussion. As an interested
bystander, could I point out the familiar/pejorative use of article with name
in French, e.g. la Marie, le Jean, le pe\re Goriot? And has anyone commented on
the North American "the John"?
Regards
 Bill Bennett

Yet another bean for the pot...

Sunday morning I encountered the following phrase on NPR:
 "...warships entering the territorial waters of the former
 Yugoslavia..."

The crypto-perfective adjective "former" obviously seemed to
call for an article to form a definite NP. This is probably
akin to the phenomenon in "The Lowlands", "The Fenlands",
and "The Netherlands". More generally, it seems to apply to
any place name with more than one word (perceived to be) in
it. Hence "The Yucatan (Peninsula)", "The Yukon (Territory)",
etc.

Is there a term referring to the gradual withering of such
head nouns? They seem to decay into traces, leaving behind
only the article that once introduced the full phrase.
How about Cheshire nouns?

 -John Lawler
 University of Michigan

Message 5: Re: 3.929 Articles and Names

>From: frnk301!frnk405!willuunet.UU.NET (William Dowling)
>Subject: Articles in place names, highway names
>
>Re The 405 (etc.): The definite article can serve as an in-group marker (this
>must be a consequence of something Grice said.) If in fact there is more
>than one city we might be talking about, and I say "the city," you've got to
>be in my group to know what I'm talking about. Someone commented that the
>definite article in this context sounded "trendy." Cf. rowers at Oxford
>referring to "the race", etc.

as one who grew up in brooklyn, where _the city_ was used to denote manhattan,
i wonder exactly *who* the term was supposed to be an in-group marker *for*.
perhaps for some anthropologist/linguist observing our quaint ways, but
certainly not for us, where there was no 'out-group' to distinguish ourselves
from. of course, there was no other possible city to be referring to in our
domain of discourse (newark?!?) and it was no more a 'marker' than, say, _the
Statue of Liberty_ or _the Lower East Side_ or _the zoo_. just because some
item isn't transparently clear to an outside observer doesn't mean that the
insider's purpose in using that item is to distinguish insiders from outsiders.

a related term, but one lacking an article, is _downtown_. for brooklynites,
_downtown_ tout court is manhattan and _downtown brooklyn_ is an area of
brooklyn. once in manhattan, one distinguishes _downtown_, _midtown_, and
_uptown_ as areas of that borough, but, from the point of view of brooklyn, all
of manhattan is _downtown_. as a small child, i was very perplexed that i had
to take the _uptown_ subway to go _downtown_ or to _downtown brooklyn_ (since
both were in fact north of my neighborhood) and the _downtown_ subway to come
back home, but then i learned, as a good little new yorker, that the point of
reference was manhattan, not brooklyn, and that what's relevant with subways
is the direction, not destination. life is complicated.

"Yucatan" = the state of Yucatan, Mexico
"The Yucatan" = the peninsula of Yucatan (comprising the states of Campeche,
Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, plus Belize and parts of Guatemala and Chiapas

However, people using the latter term, an abbreviation of "The Yucatan
Peninsula", will occasionally be chastised for doing so. The complaint has
never been articulated clearly to me by any of the chastisers, but I gather
(from previous poostings on this topic here) that it is a mixture of
colonialist (The Philippines) and peripheralist (The Ukraine) connotations that
offends. There's also, of course, "The Outback" and "The Yukon" and "The
Everglades" to convey a mysteriouus, uncharted quality to the construction.

H. Stephen Straight, Binghamton University
<sstraighbingvaxa> or <sstraighbingvaxa.cc.binghamton.edu>
607-777-2824 FAX: 607-777-2477

Here in Minnesota, of course, it's always "the cities".

Message 8: Re: 3.929 Articles and Names

I'm afraid that the story about Istambul having been derived from 'is tim
boli' is a hoax, although I have seen the story many places. The most obvious
problem with it is explanation of the 'a' in Istambul (where the Greek phrase
has an 'i'). It doesn't help to invoke Greek dialects (like Dorian) that had
an a in the article, since they were not spoken in the relvant areas and
certainly not at the relevant time. I don't have the details here (but can try
to retrace them if somebody is interested), but I saw another etymology which
claims to get the Turkish-internal facts right as well, and which derived
Istambul from Konstandinupoli > Stanpuli > Stambuli > I + stambul (prothetic)
which seems to make more sense. (Konstandinuoli is the Modern Greek
pronunciation of Constantinople.)
Of course, Istambul or Constantinople is still called 'i Poli', the city, by
Greeks today. I also like the minimal pair politiko/s 'civil, political' with
stress on the ultimate, vs. poli/tikos 'of the City, like in Constantinople'
(often found on Greek tavern menus; penultimate stress).

Message 9: Re: 3.929 Articles and Names

Ever listen to Handel's "Messiah"? No, no one has. It's
Handel's "The Messiah".

Also, re redundant place names: in the Adirondack Park, one
can find highway signs reading "Lake Placid Lake". I seem to
recall another saying "Lake Saranac Lake". I tried asking
some residents about local usage, but what I got was an
explanation about the geography -- in each case, the lake
in question is outside the village. The lake(s) in the
village have other names. I doubt if locals use the redundant
names, but I wonder about the many tourists -- especially
those not familiar with English.

 --dwight tuinstra