„LingVaria” są półrocznikiem wydawanym od 2006 r. przez Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego i publikującym artykuły z zakresu językoznawstwa, głównie polonistycznego, ale też z zakresu językoznawstwa ogólnego i slawistycznego. Odbiorcami są językoznawcy, a także doktoranci i studenci o zainteresowaniach lingwistycznych. Założycielem i pierwszym redaktorem naczelnym LingVariów jest prof. dr hab. Mirosław Skarżyński. Wersją podstawową (referencyjną) czasopisma jest wersja elektroniczna.
The Language and Culture of Polish Highlanders The paper discusses the methodological and practical lexicographic solutions implemented in J. Kąś’s Ilustrowany leksykon gwary i kultury podhalańskiej (‘An illustrated lexicon of Podhalan dialect and culture’). In view of its theoretical and material values, this twelve-volume work occupies a significant place in Slavic dialectal lexicography. It is a so-called full dialectal dictionary, but at the same time an encyclopaedia of Podhalan folklore. Linguistic explanations entwine with description of the folk culture. The various ways in which ethnographic information is presented constitute an indisputable innovation, and it must be added that one of those ways are numerous photographs. A reliable, and also clearly designed dictionary has without doubt a great scientific and cultural significance. It can be used not only by dialectologists and ethnographers, but by anyone with interest in folk culture.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2019 Swietłana M. Tołstojewa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Obmowa, obmawianie, oczernianie w polskich gwarach
BACKBITE, BACKBITING, SLANDER IN POLISH DIALECTS The subject of the study includes the acts of backbite, backbiting and slander occurring in Polish dialects. On the basis of the material in the form of vocabulary and phrasematics, the following topics are discussed in detail: the act of backbite and the phenomenon of backbiting, approximating the scope of backbite (links to specific speech acts), the circumstances and places conducive to backbiting, the ones being backbitten, the ones backbiting; the speech activity of slander, defining the scope of this act (co-dependence with other speech acts); together backbiting and slander, bringing out the aspects of correlation between these acts (co-contextuality in relation to gossiping, spoiling opinions) and highlighting the issues of creating names associated with these speech acts. The consideration of verbal acts of backbite, backbiting and slander presents a peculiar segment in the circulation of messages perpetuated in the dialects. It also reveals the specific characteristics of the considered speech acts, as well as the co-dependence of backbiting and slander.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Włodzimierz Wysoczański https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Środki wartościująco-emotywne pod adresem współobywateli w dyskursie sceptyków wobec szczepień przeciw COVID-19
VALUE-EMOTIONAL MEASURES TOWARDS FELLOW CITIZENS IN THE DISCOURSE OF COVID-19 VACCINATION SCEPTICS The authors analyse comments by COVID-19 vaccination sceptics published on Facebook. The subject of the study is the means of valuing fellow citizens receiving successive doses of the vaccine. The theoretical and methodological background is provided by the assumptions of J. Puzynina’s axiolinguistics. The analysis made it possible to distinguish two groups of valuing measures (systemically and pragmatically), which stigmatise certain characteristics: stupidity and being susceptible to manipulation. These include value-laden lexis, as well as presuppositions, ironic uses, or provocations. The third group is made up of measures representing coronalexics, e. g. szczepany, zakeczupowani or covidioci. The means of valuing used by vaccination sceptics are part of the WE–THEY dichotomy, which, combined with axiologically motivated discrediting, testifies to the ideologisation of the analysed discourse.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Wioletta Wilczek, Bernadetta Ciesek-Ślizowska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Werbalne przejawy wzajemnego oddziaływania florystycznego i animalistycznego kodów konceptualnych w języku polskim
VERBAL MANIFESTATIONS OF THE INTERACTION OF FLORISTIC AND ANIMALISTIC CONCEPTUAL CODES IN POLISH LANGUAGE The study of the linguistic and conceptual picture of the world in general and conceptual codes in particular is an important task of cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics. In this study the author investigates the issues of interaction between floristic and animalistic conceptual codes at the verbal level. The interaction takes place in two directions: when the floristic code assimilates elements of the animalistic one and when the animalistic code adopts elements of the floristic one. This interaction often occurs with the participation of other conceptual codes. The analysis of flower names revealed the relations of simple, complex, and mixed motivation with semantic-lexical components of other conceptual codes. Among the examined floronominations there are those that have a simple motivation with the components of animalistic conceptual code, a complex one (animalistic and colouristic, animalistic and locative, animalistic and floristic, animalistic and related to utilitarian culture) and a mixed one (animalistic and axiological, animalistic and colouristic, related to utilitarian culture, axiological). Among the common zoonyms, those with complex motivation (floristic and locative) and mixed motivation (floristic and colouristic, floristic and meteorological) were noted, while among the proper names of animals, those with simple and mixed motivation (floristic and anthropological, floristic and colouristic) were found. This study showed possible cases of mutual influence of plant and animal conceptual codes based on the example of Polish-wide, dialectal, scientific lexical units, proper and common names, which represent different ways of conceptualizing the world. The study of the interaction between conceptual codes is important for the development of theories of ethnolinguistics, semiotics and cognitive linguistics.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Lidiia Nepop-Aidachych https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Koncept polskość w dyskursie dyplomatycznym
THE CONCEPT OF POLISHNESS IN DIPLOMATIC DISCOURSE The paper focuses on the concept of polishness in diplomatic discourse. The work presents the dictionary meanings of the lexeme Polishness, and characterizes diplomatic discourse. The basic criteria for distinguishing this type of discourse are the topic (the situation and activities of the Polish diaspora, diplomatic activities for its members) and the sender (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic missions abroad). In diplomatic discourse, the Polishness of places and people is the object of interest and concern, and requires institutional support. State representatives express their gratitude for the promotion of Polishness. National and religious holidays are a time to celebrate Polishness and show happiness with one’s origins. From the state’s point of view, Polishness is something to be proud of.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Ewa Białek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
O warzywnych określeniach ludzi głupich i zachowujących się niekulturalnie. Przyczynek do językowo-kulturowego obrazu warzyw w polszczyźnie
VEGETABLE EXPRESSIONS DENOTING FOOLISH AND MISBEHAVING PEOPLE AS A CONTRIBUTION TO THE LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL IMAGE OF VEGETABLES IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE The subject of the article is the names of vegetables which secondarily become insults, that is, they are referred to people who are negatively evaluated due to stupidity and improper behaviour. It is interesting to point out why, among plants, it is vegetables that are used most often in this function. In the first part of the article the author collects and briefly describes the most important elements of the linguistic and cultural image of vegetables in the Polish language for this topic, and in the second part the author characterises the vegetable forms used in the contemporary insulting description of a person: kapuściana głowa [cabbage head], głąb [cabbage heart], burak [beetroot], cebulak [onion-man], kartofel [potato]. The author presents the length of their functioning in Polish and their popularity reflected in the number of derivatives. Also, the author attempts to indicate why they are the ones associated with stupidity and lack of culture, and to what extent it is due to the linguistic and cultural image of vegetables or to other current socio-cultural transformations.
określenia osób głupich i negatywnie ocenianych
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Barbara Batko-Tokarz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Grzeczność językowa w listach Katarzyny Smreczyńskiej do syna Władysława Orkana
LINGUISTIC POLITENESS IN THE LETTERS OF KATARZYNA SMRECZYŃSKA TO HER SON WŁADYSŁAW ORKAN The article discusses the formulas of linguistic politeness in Katarzyna Smreczyńska’s letters to her son, Władysław Orkan. The text is based on the results of research on Polish linguistic etiquette and old epistolography. The analysis covered performative speech acts typical of the issue. The use of polite formulas served to emphasise the personal bond between the dialogue participants. It was responsible for maintaining contact in an indirect communication situation, which proves the power of the phatic function in letters. The text attempts to answer the question of how the letter writers influenced communication etiquette. Katarzyna Smreczyńska’s addition of random writers influenced the pace of exchange of correspondence and required acts of politeness (for example, justifying her tardiness). The participation of intermediaries writing down the text made it possible to initiate etiquette acts that went beyond the conventional composition of a letter.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Krzysztof Waśkowski https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Wykładniki stylu popularnonaukowego w Zielniku Szymona Syreńskiego
INDICATORS OF THE POPULAR SCIENCE STYLE IN THE HERBARIUM OF SZYMON SYRENSKI. OUTLINE OF THE ISSUE The article is an outline of the problems related to the early popular science style. The purpose of the study is to analyze selected exponents of this style in the 17th-century Herbarium of Szymon Syrenski. This herbarium has already been studied in terms of belonging to the early scientific discourse. In order to conclude that the studied text exhibits characteristics of the popular scientific style, the author of the article pays attention to what roles the author and readers take in the communication process and what the relationship between them is. Then two features of popular scientific style – concreteness and imagery – were discussed, which, according to researchers of modern texts representing this style, are its basic determinants. The analysis proved that the herbarium exhibits features of popular scientific style despite the fact that, at the time of the work’s creation, the scientific style and its varieties had only just crystallized.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Simone Pasternak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Factors affecting the Translation of Toponyms
In the paper the author assumes – agreeing with Albert P. Vermes – that the translation of proper names and especially toponyms is not ‘a simple automatic process of transference’ (Vermes 2003: 89) and analyzes factors which can influence their translation. The toponyms are not only a means of language to identify a geographical feature on a map, but they are signs of very complicated cultural realities, traces of history, media of national and cultural identity and items of controversy. The factors which must be taken into consideration by the translator include, inter alia, the ontological status of a toponym, its origin, its recognizability, the function of the text, the political context and many others. These factors are discussed in detail in the article and illustrated with examples drawn primarily from Polish and German literary texts and their translations. The material is supplemented with examples from other types of texts, including English texts and translations.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Joanna Kubaszczyk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
O (meta)retorycznej świadomości w przestrzeni medialnej
(META)RHETORICAL AWARENESS IN MEDIA SPACE Even a cursory analysis of press articles or media statements oscillating around social and political topics brings up a number of examples of invoking the art of rhetoric: “this is the rhetoric of a civil war”; “this is reaching for an ad personam argumentum”; “RPP can change its rhetoric” or “What about this rhetoric?”. Garavelli (2023) notes that the concept of rhetoric functions in two different contexts: as a practice and technique of communication and as a discipline, i. e. a complex of doctrines: the science of discourse. The statements of journalists and politicians indicate that they are familiar with the ars bene dicendi and they refer to concepts related to it many times, both directly and indirectly. My goal is to show how this meta-awareness is fulfilled at the levels of lógos, éthos and páthos described by Aristotle: in the type of discourse and argumentation, the exposure of the speaker’s character and the knowledge of the characteristics of the audience.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Jakub Pstrąg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Phonotactics of Polish toponyms – consonant sequences
This paper deals with consonant groups occurring at both edges of words in Polish toponyms. Consonant sequences are normal and typical of very few languages of the world. Therefore, their position in a word may matter. Interestingly, Polish clusters are legendary as regards the number of consonants which can stand together in a number of words and which occur at the edges of words. Analyses of these consonant sequences are countless. However, few of them take into account place names in a comprehensive manner. In this analysis, I consider these consonant combinations, both initial and final, in great detail, with a view to considering one basic aim: are Polish toponyms in accordance with Polish phonotactics? This study is far from being statistic. It simply shows the status quo presented in an official document.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Krzysztof Jaskuła https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Teoria działań komunikacyjnych o podstawach metapragmatycznych
THEORY OF COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES BASED ON METAPRAGMATICS: A PERCEPTUAL MODEL The article presents a theory of communication activities based on metapragmatic research aimed at discovering what can be learned about language and communication from the statements of language users themselves, that is by using the reflective function of natural language (Caffi 1994; Lucy 1993; Kádár, Haugh 2013; Culpeper, Haugh 2014; Haugh 2018; Verschueren 2021). The presented theory was formulated as a result of analytical work on the Polish-language Corpus of Narration about Communication (KNOK). This corpus was created as a result of an experimental study in which participants told interviewers film scenes depicting communication activities in various modalities (Heliasz-Nowosielska 2021, 2023). The main novelty of the theory, which is a response to the shortcomings of the existing approaches, is the claim that the model of communication activities is perceptual by nature, and the implementation of activities and their possible qualifications depend on the preferences of the users reporting them, and therefore may be divergent and discussed by the people reporting the activities themselves. Therefore, the identification and description of communication activities is only possible by discovering various dependencies between the communication activities carried out and the statements and profiles of various language users who reported these activities. However, it is not the case, as is assumed in most theories, that a researcher, guided by his or her expert knowledge, can describe the rules for implementing specific activities or indicate their unequivocal exponents or markers.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Celina Heliasz-Nowosielska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A UNIT OR TEXTUAL PROPERTY? ON CERTAIN COMBINATIONS WITH THE ADJECTIVE INNY [OTHER] The focus is on occurrences with the adjective inny [other] in contexts such as Umrę na zawał albo jakiś inny udar [I will die of a heart attack or some other stroke], Niech gola strzeli jakiś Klose albo inny Podolski [Let some Klose score a goal, or another Podolski]. These can be reduced to the schema X albo inny Y [X or other/another Y]. The first part of the article deals with the general characteristics of such occurrences: internal syntax, the possibility of filling in the X, Y slots, developing the whole with additional expressions. The second part considers the linguistic interpretation of the phenomenon. The fact that the understanding of the described occurrences is based on the regular meaning of constituents and complements, as well as the wide possibilities of filling open slots (including proper names) would argue for a textual interpretation of the phenomenon. An argument in favour of such an interpretation is also provided by the translation of the whole into other languages, suggesting that we are dealing with a more general pragmatic mechanism in language that may contribute to the effect of surprise or joke, rather than with a unit of language (in the sense specified by A. Bogusławski).
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Iwona https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Pochodzenie i przeobrażenia formalno-semantyczne zwrotu być, znaleźć się w kropce w polszczyźnie
THE ORIGIN, FORMAL AND SEMANTIC TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE PHRASE BYĆ, ZNALEŹĆ SIĘ W KROPCE IN THE POLISH LANGUAGE The contemporary phrase być, znaleźć się w kropce, which appeared in the Polish language in the 19th century, functioned initially in the form znaleźć się w punkcie, or humorously w kropce in the meaning of ‘behaving properly, as it is expected’. In the bibliography of the subject one can find different hypotheses on its origin and reasons of semantic modification (K. Nitsch, W. Doroszewski, W. Pisarek). The language materials gathered to aid the research allowed to formulate new hypotheses on the subject. According to that data, it seems probable that the phrase znaleźć się w punkcie, w kropce is motivated by a free word combination in which the verb znaleźć się meant ‘to act, to behave appropriately, properly, suitably’; in metaphorical temporal sense the prepositional phrase w punkcie, or humorously w kropce meant ‘just in time, accordingly’.
pochodzenie i motywacja związku frazeologicznego
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Jolanta Ignatowicz-Skowrońska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Eksplikacja znaku percepcyjnego zapachu w świadomości użytkowników języka polskiego oraz w definicjach słownikowych (na materiale eksperymentu psycholingwistycznego)
EXPLICATION OF THE PERCEPTUAL SIGN ”SMELL” IN THE MINDS OF POLISH LANGUAGE USERS AND IN DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS (BASED ON THE MATERIAL OF A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC EXPERIMENT) The problem of explicating perceptual features in vocabulary definitions is still underdeveloped in linguistics. Each interpretation of a meaning in a dictionary is one of the possible variants of its description. The aim of my research is to identify and characterise the correlation between the content of the definitions of words with the perceptual feature “smell” and the content of the corresponding concepts in the minds of Polish language users. The following methods were used in the study: analysis of dictionary definitions, conceptual analysis, psycholinguistic experiment. Using the questions from the experiment, I was able to identify 12 terms that respondents mention most often (over 100 times) and associate with smell, and also to refer to dictionary definitions to see if there is a perceptual sign in the structure of the definitions. A perceptual sign (perceptual feature) in linguistics refers to a meaningful unit whose meaning is derived from perception, i.e. perception by the senses. It is a sign that can be perceived through the senses, such as sight, hearing or touch, and which has a certain meaning for the perceiver. The perceptual sign of smell in Polish dictionaries is represented by the lexemes such as aromatic, fragrant, pleasant, pungent, unpleasant smell. Vocabulary definitions mostly fail to capture the perception of smell: the realities that respondents most often mentioned do not include the perception of smell, but are presented descriptively.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Alina Yodlovska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
O różnicy między wielordzennymi złożeniami dwuczłonowymi i wieloczłonowymi
ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO-MEMBER AND MULTI-MEMBER COMPOUNDS The aim of this article is to present terminological opposition two-member compound – multi-member compound. In its first part, the author defines the term two-member compound and describes examples of this category. In the second one he explains the term multi-member compound and discusses its examples, arguing why they cannot be interpreted as two-member compounds. Finally, the author claims that there is no simple way to distinguish between two-member and multi-member compounds.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Mateusz Rybarski https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
FROM POLISH ETYMOLOGY: BAKA, BAKI In Polish, the word baka, baki pl. was never used in the meaning of ‘eye, eyes’. The phraseological expression świecić bakę (baki) komuś (‘to try to gain someone’s favour with flattery’), common in Polish dialects (mainly in Lesser Poland) and occurring in several formal variants, was characterised by its original meaning: ‘to shine a torch on someone’, and the word baka (from the Middle Low German bake) meant ‘torch, sail’. It is therefore a misunderstanding to connect the Polish świecić bakę (baki) komuś with the Ukrainian word báka, báky and the Belarussian word báka, báki ‘eye, eyes’, which have a completely different origin, namely they are treated as a back derivative of the Ukrainian verb báčyty, Belorussian báčyc’, Polish baczyć from the Proto Slavic *bačiti, northern dialectal ‘to pay attention to something, to notice, to watch, to look, to see’. As for phraseological expression, such as the Ukrainian zabyváty báky, Belarussian zabivác’ báki, Russian báki zabiváť, it is difficult to decide unequivocally whether we are dealing here with the same meaning ‘eye, eyes’, or with the meaning ‘false information, gossip, nonsense, lies, jokes, uncreated things’, and the meaning of the whole phrase ‘to feed someone nonsense, lies, to tell untrue things, to lie, to cheat’. In this meaning, the noun baki could be a derivative of the verb bakať, which comes from the Proto-Slavic *bakati ‘to shout, to call out, to scold, to babble, to chatter’.
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Adam Fałowski https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Prawa autorskie (c) 2025 Maciej Rak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Profesor Władysław T. Miodunka (1945–2024)
Prawa autorskie (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Frazeologizm – nieoczywista jednostka języka
THE NON-OBVIOUS NATURE OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS The need to identify and study phraseological units was only recognised relatively recently. They are characterised by an asymmetry between the expression aspect and the content aspect: being combinations of words in the formal sense, phraseological units are semantic wholes. In effect, there is a complex network of interdependencies between the grammatical, semantic, and functional properties of their elements, as well as of the entire units, which renders them theoretically interesting and distinct from lexemes. They are important in communication but can be difficult to speakers: in order to use them well, one has to know their internal syntactic arrangement, the degree of their discontinuity in utterances, their variability, contextual adaptability and influence on context, as well as their functions in actual use.
INCONGRUITY AND ITS RESOLUTION – ON HUMOROUS (PUNCH)LINES FROM A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE The aim of the article is to discuss linguistic research on the types of incongruities and ways of resolving them in humorous texts. The author of the article tries to answer the following questions: – Is incongruity necessary to achieve a humorous effect? – Is incongruity a sufficient condition for humour? – Do humorous incongruities exist? – Is incongruity in humorous texts resolvable and to what extent? – What mechanisms underlie the resolution of humorous incongruities? For this purpose, the author refers to, among others, the assumptions of IDM, SSTH, GTVH and FR. Then, she verifies the theoretical assumptions using examples of sixteenth-century Polish jokes (based on Łukasz Górnicki’s Dworzanin polski). Most of the cited assumptions are confirmed; others (such as the possibility of distinguishing one general mechanism for resolving incongruities) are rejected.
Mikro- i makrostruktura słownika neologizmów Obserwatorium Językowego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
MICRO- AND MACRO-STRUCTURE OF THE DICTIONARY OF NEOLOGISMS OF THE LANGUAGE OBSERVATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW The author of the article discusses the principles of acquiring and compiling entries for the crowdsourcing dictionary of neologisms created at the Warsaw University. The dictionary is also briefly shown against the background of other dictionaries of neologisms and other community dictionaries. The sociolinguistic background of the emergence and functioning of new lexical units is also outlined, and the vagueness of the term ‘neologism’ is signalled.
Wybrane problemy opisu neologizmów środowiskowych w słowniku Obserwatorium Językowego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
SELECTED PROBLEMS OF DESCRIBING SOCIOLECTAL NEOLOGISMS IN THE DICTIONARY CREATED BY THE LANGUAGE OBSERVATORY AT THE WARSAW UNIVERSITY The article is devoted to some questions connected with lexicographic description of new sociolectal words. The selection of effective methods for this description is discussed by Obserwatorium Językowe UW (Language Observatory at the Warsaw University; Polish abbreviation: OJ UW), creating a dictionary of Polish neologisms (obserwatoriumjezykowe.uw.edu.pl). The author of the article presents the solutions developed by the OJ UW and considers such aspects as various possibilities of interpreting sociolectisms or the problem of relative neologisms. The focus is not only on the vocabulary of traditionally understood sociolects, but also on the lexis used within communities of interest.
Idee i wartości w dyskursie wspomnieniowym powstańców warszawskich (na materiale wywiadów z Archiwum Historii Mówionej Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego)
IDEAS AND VALUES IN THE MEMOIR DISCOURSE OF THE WARSAW INSURGENTS (BASED ON INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE IN THE ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVE OF THE WARSAW UPRISING MUSEUM) The objective of the article is to present selected lexical ways of expressing ideas and values in the memoir discourse of the Warsaw Uprising participants (more precisely: in answers to the question concerning the sense of the uprising outbreak) and, on the basis thereof, to further define the axiological system of memory in the community of our interest, which consists of: dominant, declared and desired ideas/values; anti-values; basis of valuation. The source material comprises approximately 3.400 interviews developed as part of the project entitled the Oral History Archive of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, preserved in the form of transcripts and constituting the text base of the searchable corpus. The analyses are methodologically and theoretically based on the assumptions of linguistics of memory, corpus linguistics and axiolinguistics.
Zanikanie odmiany liczebników głównych jako przykład zmian we fleksji nominalnej współczesnej polszczyzny
DISAPPEARANCE OF PRINCIPAL NUMERALS AS AN EXAMPLE OF LINGUISTIC CHANGES IN THE NOMINAL INFLECTION IN CONTEMPORARY POLISH Based on the example of principal numerals, the author of the article discusses the changes that have been taking place in Polish nominal inflection at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. As a result of the simplification of numerals, by taking over the functions of collective and ordinal numerals by principal numerals, both in official and colloquial Polish, the phenomenon of a significant increase in the occurrence of principal numerals is noticed. At the same time, the increasing tendency to move away from inflection means that, in multiword principal numerals, none of the parts is inflected. This trend is also extending to single-word numerals. As a result, the simplification of the system of grammatical cases of principal numerals is heading towards their being indeclinable, or, more precisely, towards the introduction of the nominative form in place of objective case forms.
Język polski w krajobrazie językowym Ostrawy
THE POLISH LANGUAGE IN THE LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE OF OSTRAVA The purpose of this text is to present several aspects of language landscape research using the example of public places in Ostrava – the third largest city in the Czech Republic with historical and still (to some extent) close ties with Poland. The Polish language in Ostrava’s linguistic landscape was analysed from a synchronic perspective using the author’s own field research, conducted in 2023–2024. The subject of the research were inscriptions (but also various types of voice messages and audio announcements of an informative or persuasive nature) in Polish found in public spaces in Ostrava and recorded by the author of this text in the form of photographs and recordings. In order to collect material for description and analysis, all signs in Polish on the outside of buildings, exceptionally also in their interiors (e. g. in the foyer, lobby) were photographed, virtually all over Ostrava. Linguistic signs appearing in Ostrava’s urban space were analysed in accordance with the methodology adopted in linguistic landscape studies, and were divided into monolingual, polyphonic and mixed ones, as well as into signs of public or private character.
Problem utożsamiania liczby porządkowej z rangą w polskich słownikach frekwencyjnych
THE PROBLEM OF IDENTIFYING AN ORDINAL NUMBER WITH A RANKING POLISH FREQUENCY DICTIONARIES The frequency dictionaries listed in the title contain three ranking lists based on the F index (absolute frequency), U index (relative frequency) and D index (measure of uniformity and distribution in styles). There are serious objections to the method used, according to which, when the F, U or D index values are equal, the entry rank (i.e. the number in the list) is decided by the alphabetical order. In case of words with high frequencies, each word is usually assigned a separate rank, because they differ in frequency. With increasingly lower frequencies, the same frequency is shared by a few, a dozen, a few hundred or even thousands of words (for example frequency 2 or 1). Words with the same frequency should have the same rank. In Polish frequency dictionaries, however, their rank differs depending on the alphabetical order. Hence, the ordinal number of a word is made equal to its rank. I believe that such method falls short of scholarly standards, because words with the same frequency differ considerably in rank. For example, in the Polish frequency dictionary (Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej, Kraków 1990), words with frequency 4 are assigned ranks from 8739 (abstrahować) to 10355 (żywot) – a difference of 1616 places on the ranking list. For words with frequency 3, 2 and 1, the differences in the ranking list would be much greater. The ordinal number of words is not equated with their rank in, among others, frequency dictionaries of Slovak and Croatian as well as the Bulgarian dictionary of colloquial speech. Nevertheless, many frequency dictionaries of various languages do equate the number and the rank. Therefore, a discussion involving linguists interested in statistical linguistics is necessary.
utożsamianie liczb porządkowych z rangą wyrazów
Dystrybucja wykładnika stopnia wyższego -sz-/-ejsz-
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE MARKER OF DEGREE -SZ-/-EJSZ- Polish comparative of adjectives is marked by suffix -sz-, which has a variant -ejsz-. The distribution of the two variants is a matter of debate. Whereas there is no doubt that only -sz- can occur after stems ending with a single consonant, consonant clusters generally require the extended form. Still, there is a number of clusters which can be followed by the shorter form, which is often (at least implicitly) considered basic. There were numerous attempts to precisely define the contexts governing the distribution of the two variants, often connecting it to the sonority scale. We suggest that it is rather the distribution of the shorter form, which is more restricted, namely it may follow only a cluster of two consonants ending with a stop, or a single consonant. At the same time, any cluster can be followed by the longer form. Therefore, in the reminder of the article we examine the frequency of the longer forms following the clusters ending with a stop or affricate, which prove to be attested for a number of adjectives, however they are very rare. The article is based on large bodies of data, namely a morphological dictionary with over 1000 morphologically gradable adjectives (Polimorf) and three corpora.
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.
Kłopoty z kategoryzacją polskich pluraliów tantum
PROBLEMS WITH CATEGORISING POLISH PLURALIA TANTUM The author of the article discusses problems with the status of the nouns, in contemporary Polish, traditionally classified as pluralia tantum. These problems are mainly related to the Aristotelian model of categorization the essence of which is marking categorial boundaries. Linguistic facts reveal the inadequacy of this approach. An alternative approach is the prototype-based model of categorization, which can accommodate not only those nouns that lack the singular form but also nouns that are similar to them in some respects. This broad understanding of the pluralia tantum category allows one to show the peculiarities of its elements, their unequal status within the category, and the relationship of similarity between them.