Topographical Names in Polish Plateonymy – Scope and Evolution of the Term

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the current understanding of the term topographic names in relation to Polish urban names, especially street names. The material for analysis has been extracted from numerous linguistic works published during the period between the 1960s and the second decade of the 21^st century. Topographical names were introduced to Polish linguistics by Witold Taszycki, who considered them an important semantic category of local names. This term was later used in the divisions of the urban nomenclature. For years, however, it has not been possible to create a generally accepted definition of topographical street names. All proposals in this respect oscillate between a narrow (represented e.g. by Mieczysław Buczyński) and a broad (accepted e.g. by Danuta Kopertowska) understanding of this group of onyms. The review of chronologically diversified linguistic approaches to the discussed category of the title leads to the conclusion that the disputable definition issues boil down to the following questions: motivation, status of natural names, taking into account natural or artificial objects of the area, appellative or proprial basis, referring to subjective or objective properties of the object. Taking them all into account, the article eventually proposes the introduction of a new division into topographical names proper and mixed topographical names.