The application of Piotr Wierzchoń’s theory of linguochronologization for removing blank spots in the descriptions of the Northern Borderlands lexis to date is discussed on the example of the currently unknown derivative wirowiec (‘helicopter’). The empirical basis of the said theory is a collection of texts gathered in Polish digital libraries. With the use of dLibra software one can search the extensive resources for the needed language units, view the context in which they were used and determine the dates of the individual usages.
The derivative wirowiec, which can be found in post-war Vilnian press and books published there until 1975, was verified on the basis of the texts collected until mid-2011. It was found that the noun wirowiec was not present in any of them after 1945, but it often appeared in texts from the 1930s. It was then that it was formed with native components as a recommended synonym of the borrowing autożyro. Therefore, the noun wirowiec is an ephemeral form. It became obsolete very soon and was replaced by helikopter and śmigłowiec. However, within the territories of the Northern-Eastern Borderlands, which were separated from the centre, wirowiec became obsolete at a much later period.
This paper presents lexical Russianisms used in the Polish language in the interwar period. Only a portion of the collected lexis is demonstrated here; namely, words and expressions beginning with letters A-K.
The analysis of the singular vocabulary was performed on the material from “Kurier Warszawski”, a popular daily published in the capital city of Poland in the years 1918-1939.
The aim of this paper is to investigate into the extent to which the Russian language influenced the lexis used in the Warsaw daily published in the interwar period, that is directly after regaining independence.
The excerpted lexical phenomena from the first half of 1918 are confronted with the resources of definitional dictionaries of Polish and Russian as well as translation and etymological dictionaries.
The author noted 34 borrowings from the Russian language. From among this lexis 15 units had been recorded in central Poland, as early as in the period of the Russian rule. 4 lexemes were in use in the interwar period in the North-Eastern Borderlands. Two borrowings from Russian (etap, gilza) were noted as late as at the close of the 20th century in the 20th c. in the Vilnian Polish language. 10 words are the so-called Sovietisms, that is lexical items naming the Russian reality of the postrevolutionary period.
The paper presents lexical Russianisms excerpted from the weekly “Chata Rodzinna” published in Kaunas in the interwar period (1922-1940).
Only a portion of Russian-origin words are demonstrated here; namely, the Russianisms which are unknown in the contemporary Northern Borderlands Polish language.
57 lexemes were used in the Kaunas weekly “Chata Rodzinna” (which account for 31% of all excerpted words of Russian origin). Despite the fact that these Russianisms were not permanently adopted in the lexical resources of the contemporary Polish language in the North-Eastern Borderlands, they were recorded at the earlier stages of this variant of Polish.
These old borrowings from the Russian language did not survive in the Borderlands probably because they concerned mainly reality-related lexis (political, administrative) linked with the period of the Russian rule.
The research on the specificity of the secondary use of proper names in the so-called non-onomastic function requires a range of analyses of various varieties of the Polish language, including the area of dialects and sociolects. The apellativisation process is as intensive in jargons and slangs as in general Polish. Apellativised proper names are a particularly useful material in linguoculturological research.
The factographic material collected in the paper demonstrated a significant nominative and expressive potential of proper names, which is realised in specific connotations transferred from their primary carriers (people and places). The number of the proprietary items applied secondarily proves also the high level of their transonimisation, the results of which are usually shortterm in jargons.
It was possible to obtain the aforementioned results owing to excerption of the lexical and phraseological material by the criterion of presence of proper names in any form (official, derivative, onomastic derivative). Next, the secondary meaning of a given item was compares with its primary proprietary sphere, which, as a consequence, enabled a description of the connotation of the proper name and preparation of a simplified ideographic classification.
