Is there a word for that quality which a word or phrase may have that marks it to our ears as a proper noun? Depending on your frame of reference certain words are obviously names, such as David or James, and other names are understood to have non-proper homophones, such as Bob or Sally. Other names, depending on your cultural background, at first seem not to be names, such as many Native American names, but one acquires a familiary with them so that, for example, Sitting Bull or Dances With Wolves immediately sound like a proper names rather than descriptions of a reclining male of the subfamily Bovinae or a lupine cotillion.

So, is there a name for the characteristic itself, that ring of nomenclature?

Just because I would like to understand the question better:
How could a phrase be marked to our ears as a proper noun? (A phrase containing nouns only, does it exist?)

How could a phrase be marked to our ears as a proper noun? "Dances With Wolves" is a phrase. It is a name of a (fictional) person. The first time I heard the phrase, it did not strike me as a name at all, but rather something else. I grew accustomed to the sound of it, and when I hear the prhase now I do not experience the same lack of understanding. It sounds like a name. How it happened is I guess simply a process of acclimation.

A phrase containing nouns only, does it exist? I make no such assertion, so I will decline to answer. But a phrase may serve as a proper noun (i.e. a name) per my examples above.

> I make no such assertion, so I will decline to answer.<

You just did. Now I understand the question. Thank you.
Just like Mark (proper noun) and mark (noun)and mark (verb).

not to be ron (or flip) about it, but I suggest 'nouniness', of which OED3 suggests "Also (Linguistics): the state or condition of being noun-like.", and cites as follows:

1978 Language 54 356 There are still further distinctions to be made among English nominal constructions with regard to their degree of ‘nouniness’.

so, Proper Nouniness

-ron o.

Nouniness. God, that's awful. Now I'm sorry I asked.

lupine cotillion Ha!

Well--though less accurate than tsuwm's find, I offer recognition as a key. Not always recognition of the name itself; often we go by context. (And sometimes we literally have no clue.)

I decided to try looking up definitions, and this one seems to offer a hint:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
proper noun
–noun Grammar. a noun that is not normally preceded by an article or other limiting modifier, as any or some, and that is arbitrarily used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have, as Lincoln, Beth, Pittsburgh.

Also called proper name.
link

Oh, why be sorry? Nouniness sound like a lovely word to my ear.
A toddler's lulleby:
'Ninna nanna nouniness, I'll give you lovely words to guess'...

ninna nanna

>>>ninna nanna nouniness...

Hey, that's cute - and it would work at making a kiddy remember nouns because of the sing-song.

you guys can make fun of nouniness for being banal, or childish; but I find it refreshing that linguists can occasionally come up with a functional word and not get all pedantic and unapproachable.

I suppose that for some the word might smack too much of truthiness (which, by the way, dates back almost 200 years and was *not really coined by Stephen Colbert).

-joe (uncreditworthiness) friday

you guys can make fun of nouniness for being banal, or childish;.....

How about serious? I'm not making fun of, but I see a way to have fun with the word and I know my grandchild loves those made up songs.There's nothing wrong with the word. (words)
It would as belMarduk mentions be a fun-learning thing. Imagine.

The YTube vidoe is nice. Sounds's nice, images sugar sweet like cinnamon bun. And I don't talk Latin. And finally I'm angry.

but I find it refreshing that linguists can occasionally come up with a functional word and not get all pedantic and unapproachable.

Tumet ipse quoque, Josephe‽

And you, zmjezhd, can Heu vae wherever you wanna go too!

where's Bigwig?

Thanks Etaoin !
(Though he isn't educating toddlers exactly))

Sine dubio.

-joe (nice interrobang, jheem) friday

Not banal or childish at all, Tsuwm mon chou.

Sing-songs are phenomenal memory aids and tend to stay with you long past the time when monotone sentences, uttered by stoic teachers, have long been forgotten.

Take "interjections" as an example. No matter how old I get, the Schoolhouse-Rock song about interjections will always twitter through my head to remind me that

"Interjections, show excitement,
or emotion,
They're sometimes set apart from a sentence
by an exclamation point,
Or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong."

Heu vae wherever you wanna go too!

Ta, Bran and tsuwm. There's a great interjection of exasperation in Rhenish German: o wei o wei. The first time I heard it used I thought they were trying to say boy oh boy in English.

Alas woe! Rash anger never serves, I know.

Sine dubio.
No doubt,Tumet ipse quoque.
That may happen when you get angry.
O wei owei, for sure. A collision, a misunderstanding. There is no icon for saying:
"I do not ridicule your word". (I just liked it)

Thanks for interfering, zmehjzd.

You're—and your comments're—welcome.

Perhaps you would prefer nounyismnessity?

[quote=Hydra]

Rather 'Nouncy'

Nouniness: a verbal monstrosity
Pray, flee it with utmost velocity
I pronounce without piety
That I prefer propriety
Or perhaps, nomenclaturosity

Oh, you don't know how lucky you are to have 'nouniness'.
'zelfstandignaamwoordachtigheid' would be the shortest and most accurate way to define the same thing in my language and what would rhyme to that?

I suppose that's connected to the Yiddish?

I suppose that's connected to the Yiddish?

Seems probable. In Yiddish אױ װײ (oy vey), the second word, by itself, means 'woe, alas; pain, ache' which is related to German Weh, Latin væ.

I've heard opinions from those whose opinions I would respect that the 'oy' is from Hebrew. Or at least supported by a Hebrew word that sounds the same and means the same. I know there's a known sound shift of German 'au' to Yiddish 'oy' and I've seen Charlie Brown say "Au Weie" in German.

I've heard opinions from those whose opinions I would respect that the 'oy' is from Hebrew.

Hebrew אי לא ('y l'), (which as far as I can tell was vocalized /ʔi:lo:ʔ/), a hapax legomenon occurring at Ecclesiastes 4:10, is cited by some as the origin of Yiddish אױ (oy). The problem with that is the Yiddish is spelled in Yiddish orthography, whereas words of Hebrew/Aramaic origin are spelled in Hebrew orthography. Yiddish oy does correspond to German au (German Frau, Yiddish פרױ froy 'woman'), but it also corresponds to German o (German groß, Yiddish גרױס groys 'big') and eu (German Freude, Yiddish פרױד froyd 'joy' and the good doctor's name). I think it might be a folk etymology, but I'll ask some of my linguist buddies who speak Hebrew.

Oh wee! Oh wee!(pronounced: oh way!) is an interjection in every day Dutch spoken and written language. Could it not have come directly from Latin to German and Dutch and from there to Yiddish?

'Oh wee!Oh wee!' means: 'watch out! Here comes the bogerman!------
'Oh wee!Oh wee!'- He broke his leg!'
'Oh wee!Oh wee!'- The house is on fire!'
Any horror, pain or disaster.

but don't forget the dyslexic rabbi.


yo!

dyslexic rabbi ?

YO!

(it's there, in white...)

:¬ )

etaoin! This is such an intelligent observation!
It's high time for a thorough research on
How just a few anonymous dylslexic writers and printers caused minor persisting spelling changes.

A noble task for the honorable linguists to find out whether they were Jews, Saxons, Celts, Rabbiteaters, Romans, Germanics,
Germans, Danes, Dutch or Hittites.
On top of that stutterers may have thrown in the occasional doubling of syllables.

E.g., MnE bird from OE bridd, MnE third from OE ðridda.

You see? All those anonymous genial stutterers?

A few verbs in Latin formed the perfect stem by reduplication: e.g., cano 'I sing', cecini 'I have sung', do 'I give', dedi 'I have given', pendo 'I consider', pependi 'I have considered.

in white Oh, when will I learn?! [smacking forehead e] I knew your post was too deep for just one line!

I think the answer is no. There is no term because the phenomenon you describe doesn't exist (at least not in English). There is no "nounish" inflexion or indicator, but it is purely grammatical and social context that tells us that it is a name. Or as you put it, frame of reference.

Aside from the conflation of noun and proper name, I agree there probably is no particular word for what I am talking about.