This paper presents manifestations of dialect users’ language awareness in the area of vocabulary. Rural inhabitants can point to old and new words referring to a given designatum. They realise that lexis changes, that some words go out of use and are replaced by others. The process of lexemes passing from active to passive vocabulary is demonstrated by semantic fields: a human being, body parts, illnesses, clothes, weaver’s craft, household appliances, dishes, buildings and their parts, animals, plants, agriculture, units of measure, human gatherings. Examples of old and new anthroponyms and toponyms are also provided. The dialectal material has been drawn from two dictionaries: Słownik gwar polskich (Dictionary of Polish Dialects) and Słownik gwar Ostródzkiego, Warmii i Mazur (Dictionary of the Dialects of the Ostróda, Warmia and Masuria Regions) and their indexes.
The object of the discussion is a dialectological and ethnolinguistic analysis of the folk culinary nomenclature collected in 54 villages of the Lublin region in the period 2016–2018 from people from two generational groups: aged 66–90 and 16–30. The inclusion of the indicated age parameters permitted the presentation of intrasystem vertical stratification of vocabulary and diagnosis of the generational variance of the present state of familiarity with names related to cuisine. The analysis covered 130 names of traditional dishes made of flour, water, milk, potatoes, groats and vegetables. It also quoted villagers’ utterances, including with interpretations and categorisations.
Utterances about cuisine are verbal texts built according to a culturally established pattern, they are characterised by a documentation and practical value, they bond the whole non-material cultural heritage together and are its clearest exponent that is fully accepted by all generations.
The object of the discussion is adjectives characterised by the prefix ob-, which were recorded in the historical Polish language from the 15th to the 19th century and in Polish dialects, e.g. obluźny, obstary, obstarni, obdłużny, obrzedni, obcienkawy. These are adjectival derivatives the meanings
of which are usually an incomplete or weak characteristic found in the stem. Based on an analysis of historical and dialectal data derived from published sources (dictionaries, monographs) and unpublished ones (the index of Słownik gwar polskich (Dictionary of Polish Dialects)), the predominance of the prefix-suffix derivation (formants: ob-/-ny, -ni, -szy, -awy) over prefix derivation was ascertained. Attention was also drawn also to the tautological function of the prefix ob-, e.g. in obsuchy ‘suchy’ (‘dry’). The repartition of the adjectives formed with the prefix in Poland clearly shows the withdrawal process of older formations the occurrence of which was restricted mainly to southern parts of the Polish language area. The inclusion of other Slavic backgrounds allows the discernment of peripherisms, situated in the margin of the Slavic language area, in the examples of formations with the prefix ob- that have been preserved in Poland.
The aim of this paper is to analyse selected dialectal numerical lexemes functioning in the language of the inhabitants of the Polish part of Spisz, with a particular focus on generational differences. The author takes up, among others, the issue of frequency of use of numerals as well as the manner of their inflection and pronunciation. The material base is Korpus Spiski (The Spisz Corpus), whose potential for use in linguistic research is presented in this sketch. The conducted analysis enabled the conclusion that in a dialect, like in the contemporary Polish language, numerical quantification is based on cardinal numbers and on context-related collective numbers, which display vanishing tendencies. Usually, the forms of dialectal numbers differ from general Polish ones only in terms of systemic features. Variant phonetic and morphological archaisms as well as quantitative nouns occur chiefly in the language used by the older generation.
The object of the discussion in this paper is manifestations of language awareness of Polish rural inhabitants contained in Wybór polskich tekstów gwarowych (A selection of Polish dialectal texts) by K. Nitsch.
They concern various layers of language: territorial variation (language in the geographical perspective), chronological variation (temporary qualification of dialectal lexemes), and realised phonetic features (a type of selective language awareness).
Linguistic comments of rural informers are a testimony of their reflective attitude towards the language they use (a metalinguistic function).
