Ellipsis and Cultural Conceptual Compression in the Linguistic Structures of Thai Toponyms: A Case Study of Village and Community Names in Mueang District, Samut Sakhon Province

Abstract

This study examines the naming processes of Thai toponyms found in village and community names in Samut Sakhon Province in order to analyze their linguistic structures, the cultural concepts embedded within them, the types of omitted elements, and the role of ellipsis in shaping cultural conceptual meanings. The research focuses on the partial ellipsis of structural components in village names and its effects on the transmission of cultural meaning. Data were collected from 47 village names and analyzed using a six-component linguistic framework: toponym, base element, embedded element, core element, head word, and omitted element. The findings reveal that toponyms convey cultural concepts ambiguously due to conceptual compression resulting from ellipsis, which can be classified into ten types, with nouns being the most frequently omitted. Ellipsis in toponyms is not merely a grammatical mechanism but a process of conceptual compression through which communities communicate cultural meanings concisely. However, the elliptical elements may reduce the effectiveness of village names as cultural markers and may contribute to the erosion of cultural landscapes at the micro-structural level. The findings support applications in toponymic database development, geospatial information management, and the preservation of linguistic and cultural heritage at the community level.