On the structure of toponyms

This paper offers an account of toponyms (e.g. London, Shanghai, Roma, Kulosaari), in four languages on a cline of increasing morphological complexity: English, Mandarin, Italian and Finnish. The common morphological processes that underlie these four sets of toponyms are connected to their syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. An account is thus offered within a minimal version of Type-Logical syntax, coupled with a simple semantic analysis