This book proposes a new synthesis of the functions of proper names, from a semantic, pragmatic and syntactic perspective. Proper names are approached constructionally, distinguishing prototypical uses from more marked ones such as those in which names are used as common nouns. Since what is traditionally regarded as 'the' class of names turns out to be only one possible function of name-forms (though a prototypical one), the notion of 'proprial lemma' is introduced as the concept behind both proprial and appellative uses of such categories as place names and personal names. New formal arguments are adduced to distinguish proper name function from common noun or pronoun function. The special status of proper names is captured in a unified pragmatic-semantic-syntactic theory: a proper name denotes a unique entity at the level of langue to make it psychosocially salient within a given basic level category. The meaning of the name, if any, does not determine its denotation. An important formal reflection of this characterization of names is their ability to appear in such close appositional constructions as the poet Burns or Fido the dog. The neurolinguistic finding that proper names constitute a separate category is introduced and interpreted within a general linguistic frame of reference. The different kinds of meanings associated with names (categorical, associative, emotive, and grammatical) are shown to be presuppositional in nature. In addition, the book proposes an entirely new classification of proper names as forming a continuum ranging from prototypical (personal and place names) to nonprototypical categories (brand and language names) to citations and autonyms, and a new diachronic classification of family names and nicknames. This book fills an important gap in the current literature, because the most recent linguistic book in English on name theory dates back to 1973. It is explicitly interdisciplinary, taking into account linguistic, philosophical, neurolinguistic, sociolinguistic and dialect geographical aspects of proper names.

"This volume contains Proper Names and its companion piece On Maurice Blanchot. Together they provide and important philosophical consideration of a wide range of modern writers and thinking, including Buber, Derrida, Kierkegaard and Proust."--Book jacket.

It's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't remember her name." Lots of people have difficulty remembering people's names, even though they can easily recall other information about the person. As memory and retrieval processes are central to cognitive psychology and neuropsychology the study of proper names makes a fascinating and practical focus of study. Using an information processing approach, Valentine, Brennen and Bredart consider evidence from speech production, face recognition and word recognition to develop a new functional model of the production and recognition of people's names. This book will be valuable to all those studying cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology and linguistics. It makes a suitalbe text for higher level undergraduates and postgraduates and those engaged in research.

The Book of Proper Names is set in contemporary Paris, its main character an orphan named Plectrude. Before the child's birth her nineteen-year-old mother shoots and kills her nineteen-year-old (and somewhat feckless) father because she hates the names he's devised for their child--she fears they will doom their unborn child to mediocrity. The mother confesses openly to what she has done, and why. She is arrested and thrown into prison, where she gives birth to the child, names her, to everyone's bafflement, Plectrude--an obscure saint, and an albatross of a name--and then hangs herself. The novel therefore begins on the borderline between tragedy and absurdity, but as Plectrude grows--raised by a loving, indulgent, and eccentric aunt--it becomes a deeply moving and simultaneously chilling portrait of girlhood. Plectrude's great gift turns out to be for ballet, and she throws herself into dance as if her life depended upon it. Few novels have shown us the implacable and unforgiving world of ballet with more intuitive sympathy, yet also with a keen-eyed assessment of the true price of artistic perfection.. Inevitably, the doom hovering over Plectrude's life from birth returns to haunt her, and in the end she learns to survive in the only way she knows how--by committing an act of deadly self-preservation her mother would have perhaps understood best. The Book of Proper Names is vintage Amelie Nothomb--alternatively mordant and poignant, a portrait of adolescence that is fierce and funny at the same time. There is nothing mediocre either about Nothomb nor her creations.

This book proposes a new synthesis of the functions of proper names, from a semantic, pragmatic and syntactic perspective. Proper names are approached constructionally, distinguishing prototypical uses from more marked ones such as those in which names are used as common nouns. Since what is traditionally regarded as 'the' class of names turns out to be only one possible function of name-forms (though a prototypical one), the notion of 'proprial lemma' is introduced as the concept behind both proprial and appellative uses of such categories as place names and personal names. New formal arguments are adduced to distinguish proper name function from common noun or pronoun function. The special status of proper names is captured in a unified pragmatic-semantic-syntactic theory: a proper name denotes a unique entity at the level of langue to make it psychosocially salient within a given basic level category. The meaning of the name, if any, does not determine its denotation. An important formal reflection of this characterization of names is their ability to appear in such close appositional constructions as the poet Burns or Fido the dog. The neurolinguistic finding that proper names constitute a separate category is introduced and interpreted within a general linguistic frame of reference. The different kinds of meanings associated with names (categorical, associative, emotive, and grammatical) are shown to be presuppositional in nature. In addition, the book proposes an entirely new classification of proper names as forming a continuum ranging from prototypical (personal and place names) to nonprototypical categories (brand and language names) to citations and autonyms, and a new diachronic classification of family names and nicknames. This book fills an important gap in the current literature, because the most recent linguistic book in English on name theory dates back to 1973. It is explicitly interdisciplinary, taking into account linguistic, philosophical, neurolinguistic, sociolinguistic and dialect geographical aspects of proper names.

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This special issue brings together studies that analyse the nature of retrieval failure for proper names and evaluate whether a common memory system can adequately account for the representation and retrieval of both proper and common names.