Proper Names and the Definite Article

Abstract

This paper compares fairly orthodox looking proper names like 'Ginza Station' and 'Hyde Park' with naming expressions of a slightly more complex nature like 'The Ginza Line' and 'The Ritz Hotel'. Names of the first type have no definite article while those of the second type do and the main purpose of the paper is to try to provide some rationale for the difference. A variety of objects named in the two different ways are compared and contrasted and a synthesis of key differences is presented. While these differences may not provide a perfect guide to usage, they do seem to point to a clear way forward. For the most part names without the article are used for things with a very clear identity and a specific place in a particular community relative to other places, etc, in that community. Names which require the article instead tend to be used for things which are picked out in the first instance as members of types identified by the head noun. When we come to name this latter type, we seem to be more interested in the function of the thing in question rather than its position in the world. Accordingly, the name does not appear to tie the object it names to any particular area or space, or mark where it is relative to other places or things, etc.