Nameheads

Proper names often have shorter variants, e.g., the Boston Common < = = > the Common, New York City < = = > New York. A description of this phenomenon is proposed that decomposes it into four sub-processes: Category Ellipsis, Location Ellipsis, Appellation Formation, and Explicit Metonomy. Discussion focusses principally on the former two processes, which produce "nameheods"-briefer alternations of proper names that preserve the naming function. It is argued that the name shortening processes (a) operate in a lexical domain; but (b) are non-grammatical. An extra-grammatical analysis of the processes is outlined. © 1983.