From Starafjall to Starling Hill - Scottish Place-Name Society

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From Starafjall to Starling Hill
As stated above, of-periphrasis is a Scots construction. Thus,
periphrastic names are inherently Scots formations and their generics
are always Scots (cf. 7.1.3). 29
8.3.3. Preposition names
A number of West Mainland names have the form of prepositional
phrases. The pattern is most frequent in Harray, which boasts a
number of fields called Above the Boats, Atween the Dykes etc.
These have parallels in England: Above Town, Beneath the Town,
Between Ways, Tweengates (Field 1993: 143, 268 ff.), and Cameron
gives early examples of prepositional names. 30 Thus, the Harray
examples may have been coined according to British patterns. However,
some of the Orkney prepositional names are clearly coined
from ON elements, e.g. Quinamillyoar < kvína milli á and Milahamer
< milli hamra.
Most prepositional names lack generics. In names such as Above
the Boats and Atween the Dykes do not specify the type of locality
that is found above the boats or between the fences, they are merely
located in relation to other features. This is also the case for Norwegian
preposition names: unde Bergo ‘under the cliffs’ and me Vatne
‘by the lake’. Apart from Milahamer, all Orkney examples have
been coined from Scots words, e.g. Tween Burns.
29 There seems to be nothing in Scandinavian toponomy to support ofperiphrasis
(cf. Nicolaisen 1976: 63). A vaguely similar pattern emerges when
names are specified by a prepositional phrase, e.g. Gran på Hadeland and Mo
in Rana (cf. 8.3.3). However, these are parallel to Stoke on Trent and Newcastle
upon Tyne, and the word order cannot be reversed. In ON, personal names
are often specified by a prepositional phrase: Þóra á Rimul, but place-name
examples are hard to find. And even if Toomal o’ Curcabreck could be derived
hypothetically from ON *túnvöllr á Kirkjubrekku, this would only account
for a fraction of the periphrastic names.
30 Cameron treats preposition names of the type atten Ashe > Nash in connection
with elliptical names (1997: 95–101). His examples contain reflexes of
case morphology. However, the pattern seems to be limited to certain areas, in
particular Devon.