LINGUIST List 3.914

Fri 20 Nov 1992

Disc: Articles and Placenames

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Dan Slobin, Re: 3.908 Placenames
2. Thomas E Payne, "The" and colonial status
3. , Re: 3.904 Names, Spanish
4. Larry Horn, Re: 3.908 Placenames
5. Gregory Ward, LA freeway nomenclature
6. "Don W.", 'The' 5
7. Melody Sutton, Re: 3.908 Placenames
8. Robert Beard, Ukraina
9. "Michael A. Erickson", Re: 3.908 Placenames
10. , Articles in place names:

Message 1: Re: 3.908 Placenames

Paul Chapin notes a recent change in Southern California
freeways ("the 101"). The same freeway runs through
San Francisco, but I've never heard "the 101" up North
(though we also have models with names and articles,
such as "the Nimitz Freeway," (or "the Nimitz"),
and also street names with articles
("the Arlington," "the Alameda"--in Berkeley).
It will be interesting to see if the pattern
spreads (has spread?) north.

Dan Slobin

I don't know if there is an either\or answer to the question of why "the"
is associated with colonial places, at least in my mind. It may be, as
you suggest, just coincidence that so many places that were once colonies
(such as "the" United States of America) happened to be referred to in the
plural and therefore tend to take the article. But even if this is a
coincidence, its frequency has, I believe, led to an "association" (i.e.
a form-meaning relationship) between place names that take the article and
colonial status. My native speaker intuitions attest to this, at least for
my own idiolect, but if that's not sufficient there certainly are examples
of nations that have dropped "the" from their English names when they
became independent countries, whereas I don't think there are any that
*added* "the". Certainly there are some that kept "the", but these neither
support nor refute the claim.
 As for "the" being inherently associated with colonialism, I wouldn't make
that strong a claim. However, there may be something to it. Plural nouns are
less individuated than singular nouns, so there may be a tendency for "the
colonies", being less individually significant to the people who remain at
home in the colonizing nations, tend to be referred to in the plural, quite
apart from the obvious tendency to treat groups of islands, etc., as plural.
(Sorry about the bad syntax in the previous sentence). Some possible examples
of this tendency are expressions like "the ends of the earth", "the far reaches"
"the nations", "the arctic wastes", etc. Treating these places in the plural
reflects their lack of individual definition, something that could conceiv-
ably haveen transferred to colonies and other relatively undifferentiated
places "out there somewhere". This is just speculation, not a claim. I would
claim, though, that whatever its etymology there is a contemporary form-
meaning relationship ("association") between "the" plus place name, and
colonial status.

Tom Payne

Message 3: Re: 3.904 Names, Spanish

Just to point out that el/la estudiante is so common as to be pretty
close to the norm in politically correct Spanish circles

Message 4: Re: 3.908 Placenames

Re Paul Chapin's observation about a diachronic shift in referring practice
vis-a-vis Southern California freeways: I don't know what the current
situation is (I guess we can all, or many, check it out in early January!),
but my memory of past practice is somewhat different. As I recall, "the 605
Freeway", or "the 605" for short, which at the time didn't have a non-numeric
label (or at least not one that was ever used), always was so designated,
while the ones with names AND numbers never got an article when you used the
numeric type of reference. That is, the San Diego Freeway and the Hollywood
Freeway were generally so-called, and if you HAD to use their numbers, they
were just 5 (or I-5) and 101, never 'the 5', etc. Essentially, then, the
standard names were always "the X Freeway".

 Larry Horn

As a native Los Angeleno, I can attest to the change in freeway
nomenclature that Paul Chapin referred to in a recent posting. In the
late sixties and early seventies at least, most people in LA referred
to freeways by their names and virtually never by their numbers. (I
remember finding it odd when I moved to Philadelphia and no one could
tell me what I-95's `name' was.) In fact, I distinctly remember the
first exception to this pattern: when I-605 opened (early seventies?)
it was referred to as "The 605 Freeway", which sounded quite odd to me
at the time (and still does). Later, I learned its `real' name was
"The San Gabriel River Valley Freeway" or something equally prolix.
Now, every time I visit LA and listen to traffic reports while stuck
in it (#), I'm always amazed at how widespread this pattern has
become.

Gregory Ward
(wardpico.ling.nwu.edu)

Re Paul Chapin's observation about "the" 5, "the" 101: it sounds
like a trendy Los Angelesism to me. Here in Sacramento, I'd say
"If you want to bypass the rush-hour traffic, take 50 to I-5
north and then take I-80 east." I've yet to hear "the 50,"
but then maybe it's already on its way up "the 5."

Or perhaps it's the influence of our French classes, where one
would say "la 50," "la 80." More likely, it's the first step
in completing the trade I've arranged with Canada: Southern
California in exchange for Quebec, with an additional state or
province to be named later.

Don W. (DonWebbCSUS.EDU)

Message 7: Re: 3.908 Placenames

It is certainly true that Southern Californians use the definite article
when referring to freeways ("the 405"). This doesn't seem to be the case
in Northern California, however - at least with my relatives in the San Jose
area. They think it is strange to use the definite article, as I think it
is strange not to. My husband, a recent "immigrant" from N. to S. California
actually seems to use "the" for S. Cal. freeways but not for the ones up
north.

Melody Sutton
UCLA

 A point of clarification on the name _Ukraine_. The Russian
name for Ukraine is _Malorossija_, Maloros(s), or Malorus "Little
Russia" or "Russia Minor". The Ukrainian term _Ukraina_ apparently
comes from the phrase _u kraj_ "to the periphery/edge/border".
The term seems to have originated with the cossacks, Russian peasants
who fled serfdom in the 14th-15th centuries "to the periphery" of
the country, the safest place for peasants who wished to maintain
their freedom. The territory at this time was owned first by the
Lithuanians, then by the Poles, who simply filled the vacuum left
by the retreating hordes of Genghis Khan. The point is that at the
time the term arose, there was no Ukraine; the territory had been
illegally taken from the nation Rus', whose capital was perforce
removed from Kiev to Moscow. I don't see how the facts helps in
understanding the use or nonuse of "the" in the English rendition.
 --RBeard

Robert Beard, rbeardbucknell.edu

Message 9: Re: 3.908 Placenames

In reference to pchapinnsf.gov's note about articles and freeways:

Northern and Southern California are different in this respect (as far
as I know). In Northern CA, 280, 580, and 17, are all article-less. 101
can be either 101 or The 101 or The Bayshore. 880 can be The Nimitz,
but it cannot be The 880 (though I heard a colleague of mine from LA
call it that).

By the way, in the Bay Area, San Francisco is referred to as "The
City". Is this the case in other metropolitan areas?

\MaE

Michael A. Erickson
miericksindiana.edu

I grew up in England saying exclusively: THE Lebanon, THE Gambia, THE
Argentine, THE Sudan, THE Ukraine, and others. In no way did I perceive
these countries as anything other than fully-fledged countries. Indeed
just the opposite. To me they gained in stature by having the article in
front. However, for whatever reason (possibly by moving to N America)
I have now lost the article in all of these place names, save for THE
Ukraine -- but even here "Ukraine" no longer jars on the ear. (For
THE Argentine, I now say Argentina.)

By the way, Jespersen in his monumental MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR (v.7, pp.
549-550) suggests the following reasons for the occurrence of the article:
1) foreign influence, e.g. the Caucasus, the Crimea, the Punjab, 2)
ellipsis, e.g. the Argentine (republic), the Transvaal (republic), and
3) from river names, e.g. the Congo, the Klondike.

A similar phenomenon is observable in German. Formerly, im Libanon,
im Sudan, im Irak were the norm, whereas today in Libanon, in Sudan,
in Irak can also be heard. (See DUDEN 9, l972, pp.291-292 for further
details.)

John Dingley