Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Albert Vermes: Proper names in translation: a case study
3 What is a proper name? 3.1 Definitions of proper name Let us begin our search for a suitable elucidation of the term by quoting some definitions from various English and Hungarian grammar reference books. "Proper nouns are basically names, by which we understand the designation of specific people, places and institutions [..,]. Moreover, the concept of name extends to some markers of time and to seasons that are also festivals (Monday, March, Easter, Passover, Ramadan)" (Greenbaum and Quirk 1990: 86-7). "A proper noun (sometimes called a 'proper name') is used for a particular person, place, thing or idea which is, or is imagined to be, unique" (Alexander 1988: 38). "Nouns that are really names are called proper nouns. Proper nouns usually refer to a particular, named person or thing" (Hardie 1992: 122). "[A tulajdonnevek] a sok hasonló közül csak egyet neveznek meg, és ezt az egyet megkülönböztetik a többi hasonlótól" ([Proper names] name one from among many of a similar kind and distinguish this from all the other similar ones) (Rácz and Takács 1987: 122). Later on they give the following types of proper names: personal names, animal names, geographical names, names of institutions and organisations, titles of pieces of art, periodicals and newspapers, and brand names. This list is probably not meant to be exhaustive - it is still interesting to note that while in the English-speaking tradition the concept is generally supposed to include the names of days, months, and seasons, it is not so in the Hungarian linguistic tradition. There seem to be some inconsistencies between these definitions. First, they do not make clear the difference between a proper noun and a proper name. Proper nouns like Michael or Exeter are a subclass of the grammatical class of nouns, whereas proper names are simple or composite expressions formed with words from any of the traditional word classes. For instance, an adjective like Fluffy would make a good name for a dog, or a noun phrase like The Green Dragon might well be used for a pub. Another question arises concerning the specificity, or uniqueness, of the entity that bears the name. What do we do with stock names like Emma ? There may be thousands of people with this name at any particular time in history. For a solution, we have to clarify what it means that a name refers to an entity. The term reference is commonly taken to characterise the relationship between a variable in a propositional representation and the 165
