Příspěvek k lidové etymologii pomístních jmen - na příkladu anoikonym ze Sedlčanska

Folk etymology is usually characterized as an erroneous etymological-semantic interpretation of a word. So far, the research of this phenomenon in the Czech context has focused almost exclusively on appellatives and oikonyms (names of settlements); folk etymology in anoikonyms (names of non-settlement objects) has been the subject of research very rarely. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to fill this gap by presenting a case study based on an analyse of folk etymologies in anoikonyms in the Sedlčany region in the Central Bohemia. It analyses and compares the scholarly and folk etymologies in ten chosen anoikonyms. The main goal of the research is to identify both linguistic and non-linguistic factors leading to the development of folk etymology and affecting its form and result. The linguistic factors can be identified on lexical-semantic, word-formative and phonetic levels. The affected names usually contain low frequency appellatives (e. g. dialect, archaic words), and their form can be also affected by various sound changes. The language users create a new interpretation of an etymologically non-transparent name by association with an acoustically similar word, often using not only their fantasy, but in some cases also a very good knowledge of the named object and its surroundings.