Mandarin Chinese numeral classifiers receive considerable at-tention in linguistic research. The status of the general classifier 个 gè re-mains unresolved. Many linguists suggest that the use of 个 gè as a noun classifier is arbitrary. This view is challenged in the current study. Relying on the CCL-Corpus of Peking University and data from Google, we investigated which nouns for living beings are most likely classified by the general clas-sifier 个 gè. The results suggest that the use of the classifier 个 gè is motivated by an anthropocentric continuum as described by Köpcke and Zubin in the 1990s. We tested Köpcke and Zubin’s approach with Chinese native speakers. We examined 76 animal expressions to explore the semantic interdepen-dence of numeral classifiers and the nouns. Our study shows that nouns with the semantic feature [+ animate] are more likely to be classified by 个 gè if their denotatum is either very close to or very far located from the anthropo-centric center. In contrast animate nouns whose denotata are located at some intermediate distance from the anthropocentric center are less likely to be classified by 个 gè.

Wir wollen an dieser Stelle in Thesenform Prinzipien des toponymischen Vergleichs zwischen Böhmen und Sachsen darlegen, um Anregungen für künftige komparative Forschungen zu geben.

In this article the author recommends a hierarchically structured data base, called MemoMaster, as a mighty tool to replace traditional card indexes in the preparatory stage of onomastic research. Referring to Karlheinz Hengst’s exemplary monograph on place names in the South-West of Saxony, he demonstrates how MemoMaster enables the scholar to store and structure information in folders, subfolders, and “memos“ to be utilized in a manuscript later on. His explanation is supported by two screenshots.

The article continues to discuss the origins and the history of the Saxon place name Leipzig. Several questions are under scrutiny. Starting out from recent research which gives the oldest historical evidence of the place name Leipzig as Lib-, it deals with certain new doubts regarding explanations that try to date the origins of the place name in pre-monolingual times. The question whether one can assume an original Slavonic form to the Slavonic root *lib- is dealt with in detail. The results of this discourse are: Today’s research cannot give a satisfactory explanation that the primary place name is derived from Slavonic. Furthermore, the hypothesis of an existing pre-monolingual form is newly evaluated. In this regard also the formerly existing geographical setting of the area around Leipzig is considered as the deciding motive in naming the place.

In 2009 the oldest documents concerning the place Greiz in Eastern Thuringia were published by a historian. This article now provides a linguistic approach to that publication and its interpretation of the mentioned area in Medieval times. The results may be considered as a contribution to a book of reference for place names of Eastern Thuringia. In this respect some questions have been asked, e. g. whether the region along the river Weiße Elster between the places Weida and Plauen had really been an unsettled area until the 12th century. There is hard evidence that the historian’s assumptions are wrong because of the obvious Slavonic names of settlements in this area dating from the 8th until the 10th centuries. Based on a document from 1209 – respectively its copy from 1510 – as well as on a document from 1225 several facts are discussed in detail with consequences for toponymy and history of settlement with the help of historical linguistics. Thus it becomes evident that it is necessary to exchange ideas and to communicate for representatives of history as well as linguistics. At the same time it is obvious that the publication of documents and their analysis by historians will always be very helpful for linguistic exploitation. As a result the prospective edition of a historical dictionary of place names in Thuringia or of Eastern Thuringia respectively has been asserted as dependent on the continuous co-operation between historians and linguists.

Das "Etymologische Wörterbuch der geographischen Namen Schlesiens" (Słownik etymologiczny nazw geograficznych Śląska) gehört zu den vier großen wissenschaftlichen Projekten im Bereich Namenkunde und Dialektologie, die Schlesien betreffen und von großer Bedeutung sind. Zu den anderen Vorhaben gehören: Słownik nazwisk śląskich [Wörterbuch der schlesischen Familiennamen; Bde. 1–2: A–K. Wrocław 1967–73], Atlas językowy Śląska [Schlesischer Sprachatlas von Alfred Zaręba. Bde. 1– 8. Katowice 1967– 80] und Słownik gwar śląskich [Wörterbuch der schlesischen Dialekte. Hg. von Bogusław Wyderka. Bde. 1–10. Opole 2000 – 08]. Von den erwähnten Abhandlungen wurde nur der „Sprachatlas Schlesien“ als Ganzes veröffentlicht. Vom „Wörterbuch der schlesischen Familiennamen“ sind lediglich zwei Bände (einschließlich Buchstabe K) erschienen. Am „Lexikon der geographischen Namen Schlesiens“ und am „Wörterbuch der schlesischen Dialekte“ wird weiter gearbeitet, und hoffentlich werden wir in absehbarer Zeit den Abschluss dieser Projekte sehen. Wie zu ersehen ist, könnte Schlesien als einzige Region unter den slawischen Ländern eine volle namenkundliche und dialektologische Dokumentation vorweisen. Die Beendigung dieser grundlegenden Werke wird eine wichtige Forschungsetappe abschließen, deren Ziel es ist, die umfangreichen Quellenbestände dieser Region zugänglich zu machen. In meinem Referat möchte ich sowohl die Genese, die methodologischen und theoretischen Grundlagen des Wörterbuches „Geographische Namen Schlesiens“ als auch seine Perzeption in den polnischen und internationalen wissenschaftlichen Kreisen darstellen.

Die intensive Ortsnamenforschung der vergangenen 50 Jahre hat dazu geführt, dass auch der Name Leipzigs heute in einem etwas veränderten Licht gegenüber den Darlegungen in Band 8 der Schriftenreihe „Deutsch- Slawische Forschungen zur Namenkunde und Siedlungsgeschichte“ von 1960 erscheint. Insbesondere ergaben sich neue Aspekte durch die Sprachkontaktforschung / Kontaktonomastik seit den 1980er Jahren. So bleibt zwar die Deutung des Namens Leipzig – alt *Lipsk(o) – zu dem aso. Appellativ lipa ,Linde‘ unangefochten, doch handelt es sich bei den diesbezüglichen Namenbelegen offensichtlich um die hochmittelalterliche Umdeutung eines älteren Vorgängernamens mit einer anderen Grundlage. Die genauere Überprüfung der Gesamtüberlieferung führte dazu, die abweichenden Erstbelege bei Thietmar von Merseburg und den frühesten anderen Bezeugungen in Urkunden und Annalen kritischer zu bewerten.

In an extensive article the well-known philologist Heinz Schuster-Šewc presented his views concerning our “Book of Place Names in Oberlausitz” (Upper Lusatia). He attempted to refute a substantial number of place name meanings and suggested new explanations. In some instances his interpretations were preferable to earlier explanations; however, in far more cases his arguments were not conclusive, so that the current explanations can still be considered valid.

The paper deals with the German place name type of -leben and tries to give new insights to the discussion about these names using the method of typological analysis. With the classification of the personal names within the -leben names, a new typology will be designed and the subtype bipartide personal name plus primary word -leben will be represented. The analysis gives a survey of the contained root of the personal name and shows the preference and also the absence of specific name elements within the different distribution areas Unstrut- and Bodekreis. The presented analysis is completed and illustrated with a map.

With gaining the independence and the emergence of a new state the linguistic situation in Kazakhstan has been changed. The restoration and return of historical names, the fi xing of unifi ed rules of the transferring of Kazakh toponyms into other languages became the basis of national onomastic policy of independent Kazakhstan. After the law “On languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan” adopted in 1997 the activity on improvement of orthographic norms and formulation of new rules of transferring geographical names from Kazakh into Russian started. As a result of these acts many distorted names of inhabited localities and administrative-territorial units are gradually being put into an appropriate norm. Many of them are still to be corrected according to new “Law on Administrative - Territorial Structure of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (December 8, 1993.) and Presidential Decree (December 29, 1995.), Government Resolution (March 5, 1996.) where the rules on Russian transferring of Kazakh onyms were approved. Due to such activity to former capital of Kazakhstan Alma-Ata was returned its original name Almaty. Thus, in our article we decided to give our point of view on some issues relating to grammatical adaptation of toponym Almaty in Russian language.