MAP2TEXT

This project aims to compile a list of place names based on a cartographic corpus, with two objectives in mind:

1. Develop knowledge of proper noun (PN) linguistics;  
2. To expand understanding of how language models space through the process of naming.  

Project description by the research team:

The proper noun (PN) is a subcategory of the noun (N) studied first by logicians and later by linguists. At present, the scientific literature in linguistics provides general insights: the grammar of the PN (Gary-Prieur, Kleber, etc.), which does not distinguish between different types of PNs and yields incomplete or even erroneous results. Contributions may focus on specific cases of proper nouns (onomastics). Onomastics, in fact, allows for a very precise understanding of individual proper nouns (their origin, their evolution, etc.), but significant gaps remain regarding the functioning of the proper noun as a category. These gaps are largely explained by the heterogeneity of the proper nouns under investigation. Our research project aims to strike a balance between a general theoretical approach and an analysis of specific cases. It focuses on a specific type of proper noun: toponyms. Last year, we conducted an initial study to identify oronyms (named entities whose referent is a feature of the terrain: a depression or an elevation). This year, this work continues with the aim of expanding the types of toponyms studied: oronyms, names of watercourses, and names of administrative territories (counties, provinces, nations, and city names). We would like to foster dialogue between the disciplines of cartography and linguistics in order to better understand how each captures and represents geophysical space. On the linguistic side, we are drawing in particular on cognitive linguistics (Langacker, Fauconnier) to gain a deeper understanding of how cognitive activity shapes our understanding of space through language. On the cartographic side, a more nuanced understanding of our cognitive processes allows for a better grasp of how maps are constructed and interpreted (Gilmartin, Eastman, Lloyd). 

Language and Space
Naming the geophysical space is the result of numerous and complex cognitive and linguistic processes: exploration, identification, division, attempts at naming, and the perpetuation of names… Analyzing a corpus of specific texts containing numerous place names allows us to observe this chain of linguistic and cognitive phenomena in context through the lens of corpus linguistics. The next step will be to describe the commonalities and specificities among these place names in their context to explain how we perceive space, how we name it, and the motivations and methods behind these processes. This entire approach will shed light on our understanding of how the relationship between language and space enables humans to make sense of space in order to better explore, utilize, inhabit, and transform it.