Patrociny Settlement Names in the Carpathian Basin*
Valéria Tóth (Debrecen, Hungary) Patrociny Settlement Names in the Carpathian Basin * 1. Introduction: processing of name types in the literature In Hungarian historical toponomastics only two early toponym types were processed in monographs. MIKLÓS KÁZMÉR introduced the characteristics of a lexical-type toponym, those containing the lexeme falu ’village’, in an inde- pendent volume; and ANDRÁS MEZ Ő compiled a monograph about a semantic category—toponyms formed from the name of the patron saint of a church (1996a). Although the issue of the latter name type (patrociny settlement names) had attracted the attention of several researchers even prior to this, and acknowledged Hungarian etymologists and onomasticians (such as János Melich, István Kniezsa, Elemér Schwartz, Elemér Moór, Károly Mollay, Sán- dor Mikesy, Loránd Benk ő, Lajos Kiss, Gyula Kristó) clarified numerous issues of detail, the turning point in this topic was still ANDRÁS MEZ Ő’s monograph, “Templomcím a magyar helységnevekben” (Patrociny in Hungarian settlement names, 1996a). The author, with his wide knowledge of philology, history and church history, made an attempt to present every detail of this important and colourful group of settlement names. Through this, he showed how a piece of our past, however small, may shed light on broader trends if presented by an expert (HOFFMANN 1998: 109). This monograph set an example for future generations of researchers, not only in defining an onomastic corpus and the methodology for data processing, but also by the definition and use of concepts, discovering the inner and outer relations of the system and by its interdisciplinary approach (loc. cit. and also HOFFMANN 2003: 177–178).
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