Hispanic place names of Uruguay in the context of linguopragmatics

Abstract

The article contributes to the identification and linguistic analysis of the Hispanic toponymic units of Uruguay, and presents the first attempt to classify them. Due to historical factors and geographical location, the Uruguayan toponymic corpus over the centuries have been formed of the European (mainly Hispanic) and autochthonous (mostly Guarani) layers. The author groups geographical names of Spanish origin, giving multiple examples, explaining their etymology and identifying metonymic chains. Along with the description of Hispanic commemorative toponyms, religious allusions, zoo- and phytotoponyms, emotionally colored toponyms and geographical names containing numerals, the author assigns a separate place to folk etymology, shift and repeated names.

Keywords

• place name
• uruguay
• hispanic
• guarani
• toponymic unit