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Bogdan Walczak : Cyprian Kamil Norwid on the Polish Language
In his works, Cyprian Kamil Norwid expressed his views on the Polish¬ language. He found the basis of national existence in the national language. He treated the Polish language as a depository of the national and cultural heritage. His thoughts and opinions were recorded in numerous well-known quotations.
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Stanisław Dubisz : People and politics in the lexis of Old Polish period and in the contemporary times of the Polish-language
The subject of the article is a description of Old Polish lexis defining political and social realities and its relation to contemporary lexis. The material basis comprises the thematic field lexis <people and a state institution> according to An Old-Polish glossary... edited by W. Decyk-Zięba and S. Dubisz, whereas comparative bases comprise the adequate lexical fields described by A. Markowski and a list of concepts from Dictionary of political and social terms of countries from Middle and Eastern Europe studied by S. Dubisz, J. Porayski-Pomsta and E. Sękowska. The quantitative and qualititative comparisons of the lexical material allow to distinguish the direction of expansion of the Polish language political record during its evolution (Old Polish period – the contemporary times of the Polish-language).
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Mirosław Dawlewicz : Evidence of internalization of social and political lexis in the Polish press in Lithuania
Linquistic consequences of various socio-political and economic changes in the country are mostly revealed in press, radio and television. The aim of the article is to present and analyze internationalisms which have been observed recently in the Polish press in Lithuania. In the lexical material presented, layers of socio-political lexis of international scope in the form of lexical and morphemic internationalisms can be noticed. While analyzing the identified thematic groups, it appeared that the predominant lexical class are terms connected with EU, politics as well as NATO and military. Apparent advantage of internationalisms of this kind refers to integration and recent Lithuania’s accession to EU and NATO. The process of internationalization of the analyzed lexis is connected with the rise of new kinds of word formation and constituents in the Polish language. As a result, hybrid constructions emerged, i.e. constructions in which foreign international elements of word formation such as: agro-, bio-, cyber-, euro-, e-, tele-, etc are found. Lexems presented in this article are good examples of international words, being at the same time evidence of unified tendencies within European lexical division.
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Jolanta Chojak : Remarks to the lexicographic picture of szczerość (honesty)
The author conducts the analysis of lexicographic studies which refer to the adjective szczery (honest) and suggests a description including information which is mostly ignored by lexicographers (or presented unsystematically), inter alia attributive / predicative usage of the adjective, possibility of negation, possibility of applaying non-contrastive sentence stress, derivational characteristics, attitude towards gradation. Including elements mentioned above, it is apparent that the adjective szczery (honest) functions on two different levels of a utterance. It is not only used when speaking „about the world”, objective speaking, but it also describes the level of speaking about speaking itself, where the speaker comments on the spot their own speaking activities.
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Zofia Zaron : Different nature of a companion. Searching through dictionaires
The article is an attempt to reconstruct, on the basis of language dictionaires, the history of a word towarzysz (companion), starting from the 15th-century notions in Old Polish Dictionary up to The Universal Polish Dictionary. Originally, this word meant ‛kompan (comrade), druh (companion), przyjaciel (friend)’, ‛a person that stays with someone in one place or situation’. Particular expansion of towarzysz (companion), as we can judge after registers of new connections in dictionaries, occurs in 19th century. The extralinguistic reality of 20th century (the spread of socialist idea in Europe, The October Revolution, the origin of PRL-Polish People’s Republic) resulted in semantic modifications – towarzysz (companion) started to fulfil a titular-addressee function in party circles. The remaining part of the society used this word rather quotably with different marking. The following political changes (regain of freedom, accession to EU) could not restore to towarzysz (companion) its former status.
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Magdalena Majdak : On inspiration
The subject of the article is a lexicographic picture of natchnienie (inspiration). The inspection of definitions and their analysis is based on the materials in universal, historical and etymological dictionaires as well as in dictionaries of foreign words.
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Józef Porayski-Pomsta : Some of the problems in the contemporary research on the vocabulary used by children
In the article Some of the problems in the contemporary research on the vocabulary used by children the author reflects on selected aspects of the contemporary research on the lexis used by children. In connection with legalization of psycholinguistic methodology, especially cognition in the research on the vocabulary used by children, the question arises as to what is the subject of the research: lexical-semantic system (lexis) or only a stock of words in dictionaries, treated as a certain set of words which appear in speech trials of a child, intelectual glossary, understood as an Internal language module (I-language), i.e. as a system more notional than lingual or as a subsystem of a language (langue) or – as it is expressed by N. Chomsky – of an External Language (E-language). The author does not conclude any of the questions raised in the article, but points out that they require a conclusion by everyone who undertakes this kind of research.
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Urszula Sokólska : A few remarks on the technical lexis in scientific and economic texts on company organization
The article is an attempt to discuss one of the most important feature of the technical lexis in economic texts. The attention was drewn to types of definitions and specific character of the economic lexis where the significant role is played by definite formative structures, numerous borrowings, multiword terminological accumulations containing the elements of scientific qualification of economic and political sphere as well as neologisms gaining new, specialised meaning thanks to specifying contexts. The author also mentioned standardized metaphors which, contrary to common feelings and opinions, form a significant element of scientific language of different spheres, not only the economic language.
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Wanda Decyk-Zięba : The vocabulary describing the look of people in the 18th-century geographical dictionaires
The vocabulary describing the look of people and their clothes was excerpted from two 18th – century geographical dictionaires: by Karpiński (Vilnius 1766) and by Siarczyński (Warsaw 1782–1783). The material is arranged thematically. The first group consists of terms which concern the look of people (piękny – beautiful, szpetny – ugly), the colour of skin (biała – white, czarna – black, czerwona – red) and parts of a human body (nos płaski – flat nose, ciężka noga – heavy leg, oczy na wierzchu i czarne – eyes atop and black). The second group is formed with the names of clothes and adornments (czapka – a cap, suknia – a dress, podwiązki – garters, zausznice – earrings). The third group includes the words which define attributes of look recognized as beautiful by different nations (długie uszy – long ears, czarne zęby – black teeth). In the dictionaires these nations were thoroughly described: from Europe – the Saami, from Asia – the Chinese, from Africa – the Hottentots, from America – the Iroquois and the Sasquehanoxes.
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Bogusław Nowowiejski : The unknown words in the Warsaw dialect from the middle of 19th century
The first, more extensive facts about the Warsaw dialect come from the end of 19th century. The synthesis is defined in Dictionairy of the Warsaw dialect by Bronisław Wieczorkiewicz.
From the author’s analysis of the contents of The Precise German-Polish Dictionary by Krzysztof C. Mrongowiusz (the 1853-1854 edition) appears the incompetence of this so extremely important work in the field of polish city lexicography. As it appears, Mrongowiusz, under the label Warsch. hides almost 500 native and foreign words, expressions and forms characteristic for the spoken language of Warsaw which are not included in Wieczorkiewicz’s study. The conclusion encourages to further research on the forgotten city dialect words and regionalisms, not only of Warsaw origin, in such interesting sources as historical translation dictionaries.
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Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska : Macedonian šetanje – on the differences in meaning of the words conditioned by gender
The article presents the analysis of a macedonian word šeta (to walk, to visit), which has different meanings depending on gender and maritial status of a person it refers to. If a young man šeta, it means that he appears in different places to parade himself, e.g. to show a new dress or a cell phone and to present oneself as a potential candidate for husband. If a married man šeta, it means that he spends time in cafes and meets other people. The word can be negatively marked and understood as włóczyć się (to gad about), because a man’s duty is to provide for family and not squander money. If a woman šeta, especially a maiden, the word acquires sexual innuendo and connotes spending time with men. In reference to a married woman, there appear also meanings connected with thrift, laziness and gossip.
