Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 109. kötet (2013)
Tanulmányok - Rácz, Anita: Ethnic groups and settlement names in Hungary 255
Ethnie groups and settlement names in Hungary 257 szerecseny, pólyák ~ polány, komán, bajor, korontál, görög, kölpény, sváb, szerb, avar, örmény. Here I only want to show in outline what kind of overall picture we can draw at the present time of the role played by name-forming ethnonyms in that layer of names belonging to the early name stock of Hungary. 2. There are significant chronological differences between the various types of place names constructed on the basis of ethnonyms. Those which either don’t use a name formant or simply use a suffix added to the ethnonym are much older than those which are formed from ethnonym + other lexeme (e.g. common nouns or adjectives referring to a geographical locality). In studying the relationship between ethnonyms and toponyms, linguists established from the very beginning that settlement names can be constructed on the basis of singular nominative forms of ethnonyms without any difficulty. Indeed, these lexemes (together with the names of tribes and occupations) have a collective meaning even in the singular form (Kertész 1939: 37, Kniezsa 1943: 124), being so-called social group names. Early typologies considered this name group as the first type of construction, and in my taxonomy I have also taken this name structure into consideration, indeed I have slightly expanded the traditional framework. While previous studies only considered name elements of the type Besenyő, Német, Székely type of name forms were recorded here, I considered that name forms name forms such as Bogorbesenyö, Felnémet, Püspökszékely etc. also belong here, as the basic form of the salient ethnonym often occurs in an attributive structure, playing a role in the second part of the name. All such names are, however, the result of a secondary development, the primary form of ethnonym-based place names being the nominative singular. In fact, the result of the emergence of tag complementation can be taken into consideration even in cases where there is no concrete evidence for a specific form of the name in extant written records. For this purpose the name taxonomy itself provides enough proof. Just how natural this name pattern is in Hungarian is shown by the fact that, out of 39 ethnonyms which I considered in my samples, 36 were turned into settlement names on the basis of this very pattern. Furthermore, when we look back to the first appearance of all the settlement names based on ethnonyms, roughly one third are traceable in origin to name forms of this type. Regarding the chronology, several researchers agree that the use of settlement names referring to peoples without recourse to a name formant was probably established during the 10th century. László Makkai listed them together with place names derived from tribal names and discussed them as one unit, restricting their development exclusively to the 10th century (Makkai 1947: 112), a conclusion echoed by György Györffy (1958: 60-87) as well as the authorial team András Mező and Péter Németh (1972: 116). Typologically it is clear that these names can be linked to place names based on personal names without
