LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF DEMONYMS IN PARAGUAYAN AND URUGUAYAN SPANISH

The present article analyses demonyms in Paraguayan and Uruguayan Spanish in a close correlation with a developing discipline that is linguistic geography. Denominative adjectives, also called demonyms, when they obtain the meaning of a noun, are directly connected with toponymy. Toponymy often reflects geographical, historical and cultural features of places it denominates and has a significant rolein lexicology of any language. Besides giving a detailed descriptions of the notions of toponymy and demonyms, the author also pays special attention on the formation of demonyms via suffixation and enumerates the most productive suffixes, as well as the rare ones. Moreover, the present article offers the suffixation analysis in two South American countries - Paraguay and Uruguay, showing that “-eño” appears to be the most productive suffix in Paraguay, whilst “-ense” is the most frequent one in the Uruguayan system of demonyms.

demonyms, Spanish, national variants of Spanish, toponymy, linguistic geography, linguistic analysis, suffixes