Aportaciones de la toponimia a la investigación de la historia del léxico hispánico

Abstract

Place names contain, in fossilized form, abundant lexical information that can be used to supplement the historical record of the living language reflected in texts. By studying place names specific aspects of the history of lexicon can be investigated, such as chronological details of the historical development of words, the existence of phonetic variants and derivatives, changes in the geographic distribution, among others. Sometimes proper names even attest lexical items never documented as common nouns. In order to explain the principles on which this research should be based we will study a number of cases of place names based on Castilian, highlighting (not without warning of the difficulties involved in the subject) the contribution of the material examined to the history of Spanish lexicon and to etymology.