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Article In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2026
Edited by Remco Knooihuizen, Marloes Oomen and Alex Reuneker
[Nota Bene 3:2] 2026
► pp. 1–

Decomposing place names

Evidence from the Hebrew construct state

 | Utrecht University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This paper claims that place-denoting proper names (i.e., toponyms) are structurally decomposable. Evidence for this claim comes from Hebrew toponyms displaying noun-noun concatenation (e.g., Tel-Aviv). I show that such toponyms share properties with the Hebrew Construct State construction. Using . 2013. The syntactic domain of content. In Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Robert C. Berwick & Andrea Moro (eds.), Generative linguistics and acquisition: Studies in honor of Nina M. Hyams, 205–248. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar typology of Constructs, I investigate how these toponyms pattern with Construct subclasses using a range of diagnostics. Accordingly, it is demonstrated that such toponyms are decomposable in two distinct ways. Specifically, they instantiate two subclasses: (a) toponymic Modificational-Constructs, a grammatically transparent class, and (b) toponymic Compounds, a grammatically opaque class. Each subclass corresponds to a distinct structural configuration. By structural parsimony, I propose that these configurations reduce to structures independently available for Constructs in the language. I further claim that the non-compositional meaning of toponymic Compounds corresponds to geo-ontological categories (e.g., [city], [village], [hill]; cf. Smith, Barry & David M. Mark. 2001. Geographical categories: An ontological investigation. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 15(7). 591–612. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), suggesting a principled mapping between geographical concepts and syntactic structure.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Diagnosing Hebrew toponymic Constructs
    • 2.1Similarities
    • 2.2Semantic headedness
    • 2.3Pronominal anaphora
    • 2.4Non-head modification
    • 2.5Wordhood vs. phrasal status
  • 3.Assigning structure to toponymic Constructs
    • 3.1Internal syntax of toponymic M-constructs
    • 3.2Internal syntax of toponymic compound Constructs
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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