Scottish place-names as a lexicographical resource

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the value of Scottish place-name evidence as a tool for the historical lexicographer of the Scots and English languages, and to identify some of the areas of lexical research where this tool could be applied more rigorously than in previous studies. Although the major Scottish lexicographical projects, the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST) and the Scottish National Dictionary (SND), have included some onomastic material of relevance to specific items of lexis, the contribution of place-name evidence to the Scots language has not yet been fully realized. Since the known literary record of Scots does not begin until the late fourteenth century, place-name evidence is of particular significance to the early history of this language, and to the transitional period between the 'end' of Anglian Old English in Scotland, around the year 1100, and the 'beginning' of literary Scots. From collected data I have selected several examples of specific cases which demonstrate how such material can contribute to our understanding of the history of Scots and English, simultaneously furthering our knowledge of the onomasticon of the British Isles