W Ukrainie czy na Ukrainie?

O połączeniach przyimków z toponimami w języku polskim z perspektywy historycznej i kognitywnej

Abstract

W UKRAINIE (IN UKRAINE) OR NA UKRAINIE (ON UKRAINE)? ON PREPOSITIONS AND TOPONYMS IN POLISH FROM A HISTORICAL AND COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE

The author of this paper discusses the usage of the preposition na (‘on’) with some country names, such as Ukraina (Ukraine), Litwa (Lithuania) and Węgry (Hungary) in Polish. The above examples are exceptions to the general rule according to which names of countries take the preposition w (‘in’) and do (‘to’) to describe, respectively, static and dynamic relations. Na, in turn, regularly occurs with names of Polish provinces. Historically, the pair w/do was used with both categories of place-names, while na was a linguistic innovation in that context. Statistical analysis of historical texts shows that its spread was gradual. Individual toponyms adopted the preposition na in different periods, reflecting the loss of their autonomy. However, following the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, na started to be used with most Polish provinces and several foreign ones (which are currently independent states). Thus, the linguistic change was caused by a change in the perception of the terms in question, the latter being a shift from political to ethnographic terms. The mechanism itself can be best accounted for with the use of the term zooming, or change of the vantage point, which, in this case, was zoomed in.