Psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and onomastics

Abstract

Psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and onomastics

The paper demonstrates that onomastics may significantly benefit from the results of psycho- and neurolinguistics, while the limits on the use of these advances are also discussed. In psycholinguistics, the category of proper names has appeared only rarely for many decades; the word group has only been researched since the 1980s. However, these relevant analyses are still considered relatively peripheral. In the 2000s, interests in the representation of proper names in the nervous system were expressed by neuroscience, especially in neurolinguistics, akin to psycholinguistics. Since then researchers have applied rapidly developing electrophysiological and imaging techniques, and have been eager to explore the relevant neural relations. The author highlights four fields in which the results of these research projects may help name studies: 1. the meaning of proper names, 2. the categorisation of proper names into a word class, 3. the unit status of proper names, 4. the acquisition of proper names.