Hispanic place names of Uruguay in the context of linguopragmatics

Uruguay or the Eastern Republic of Uruguay (Spanish –República Oriental) is a state in South America, the toponymic corpus of which is based mainly on the official Spanish language. Different historical periods are marked with a struggle for the country's territory between Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil and Great Britain, which led to the presence of not only Spanish but also Portuguese and English toponymic units in the nomenclature.The presentation contributes to the identification and linguistic analysis of Hispanic toponymic units of Uruguay and presents the first attempt to classify them. Due to historical factors and geographical location, the Uruguayan toponymic corpus over the centuries have been formed of the European (mainly Hispanic) and autochthonous (mostly Guarani) layers. The author groups geographical names of Spanish origin, giving multiple examples, explaining their etymology and identifying metonymic chains. Along with the description of Hispanic commemorative toponyms, religious allusions, zoo-and phytotoponyms, emotionally colored toponyms and geographical names containing numerals, the author assigns a separate place to folk etymology, shift and repeated names.Hispanic place names, forming the basis of the Uruguayan toponymicon, reflect the history, culture and identity of the Uruguayan people, the natural features of the region and the connection with Spain as a linguistic starting point.The research was supported by Russian Science Foundation (project No. 24-18-00702, Linguistic parameters of national identity: Latin American text. RUDN University).