The invited speaker is Prof. Sambulo Ndlovu of the University of Eswatini, with Dr Chrismi Loth of the University of the Free State, South Africa, serving as moderator.
Date: 8 October 2026
Time: 17:00 UTC+2 / GMT+2
Venue: Microsoft Teams
Speaker: Sambulo Ndlovu, University of Eswatini
Moderator: Chrismi Loth, University of the Free State
The Headedness of Proper Names
Proper names are notoriously difficult to accommodate within ordinary noun-phrase analysis. Their highly specific referential function distinguishes them from common nouns and has led to competing proposals concerning their internal syntactic structure.
In his lecture, Prof. Ndlovu will revisit this problem through the question of headedness.
One influential approach, associated with Payne and Huddleston (2002), distinguishes between proper nouns as lexical categories and proper names as phrasal categories, treating the proper noun as the head of the proper-name phrase. This analysis, however, becomes problematic when a name contains several proper nouns - or when a proper name appears to contain no proper noun at all.
Another line of analysis draws on the DP Hypothesis, treating proper names as nominal phrases complementing a determiner within a DP structure, as in the work of Abbott (2002) and Carroll (1985). This solution, too, raises structural difficulties.
Ndlovu’s lecture proposes another possibility. Using X-bar schema, he argues against both the proper noun and the determiner as necessary heads of proper-name constructions and instead proposes a neutral head for proper-name NPs.
The talk therefore promises to be of particular interest not only to onomasticians, but also to scholars working in syntax, semantics, proper-name theory and the grammar of reference.
Keywords: noun, proper noun, proper names, headedness, identity
About the speaker
Prof. Sambulo Ndlovu is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) and a Research Associate at the University of South Africa. He holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Cape Town.
His research spans onomastics, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics and cultural studies. He is Editor-in-Chief of Nomina Africana: Journal of African Onomastics, serves on the Executive Board of the Names Society of Southern Africa (NSSA), and is a member of the scientific board of the International Symposium on Place Names.
His recent books include:
- Naming and Othering in Africa: Imagining Supremacy and Inferiority through Language — Routledge
- Onomastic Performatives: Names and Naming from an Anthropological Linguistic Perspective — De Gruyter Mouton
His LinkedIn profile is available here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sambulo-ndlovu
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For anyone interested in the grammar of proper names and the interface between syntax, reference and onomastics, this promises to be a particularly thought-provoking session.
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