Starting from the premise of a consideration of onomastics as a transversal and interdisciplinary science, at the crossroads of linguistics, history and geography, we propose a reflection on the role of the toponym as an “interpretative tool” for the differentiation of space and, particularly, of landscape forms. In a more specific way, in the communication we approach the idea of the place name as a landscape indicator. This is to say: the consideration of the place name as a linguistic entity that provides us with some referential elements that, properly limited and contextualized, they allow us to make a “semantic reading” of the environment. In other words: they allow us a logical and concatenated interpretation of the similarities and differences that manifest themselves in the geographical space and that, through place names, end up implying the fixation of certain meanings, at different scales, of the physical environment.We complete the theoretical proposal with the consideration, from this point of view, of a region in the central sector of the Pyrenees, La Terreta, in the middle basin of the Noguera Ribagorçana river, in the border between Catalonia and Aragon, as a case study (case study which we materialize on the analysis of twenty particularly significant toponyms). This region is characterized, on the one hand, by a geological structure of great diversity – which gives rise to a physical environment with marked contrasts and differences; on the other hand, by a linguistic substrate (in the framework of North-western Catalan dialect, known as ribagorçà) of great lexical and onomastic richness. These qualities make the area of study a kind of “natural laboratory” especially suitable for our research purposes.

Joan Tort Donada, Xavier Planas Batlle
Universitat de Barcelona, Ministeri de Territori i Habitatge. Govern d’Andorra

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ID Abstract: 972