Quantifying expressions and negation in the Biblical Hebrew

The article discusses Biblical Hebrew realizations of classical quantifiers, general and existential ones, both in assertive sentences and in combination with negation. Particular attention is paid to various quantifying expressions concerning the man and time, whose interpretation depends on a given field of interpretation. The problem of formula emphasizing and category illogicality of the expression ‘everything apart from’ has been highlighted and the major differences between the realizations of quantifier formulas in classical Hebrew and contemporary Polish have been outlined.

Key words: general quantifier, existential quantifier, negation with a quantifier, field of interpretation, emphasis, idiomaticity of the ethnic language

The Christian life as a family life in John Henry Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons

The present paper aims at analyzing the conceptualization of christian life through the conceptual metaphor christian life is family life in John Henry Newman’s Parochial and Plain Sermons. After the presentation of the theory of conceptual metaphor in the light of cognitive semantics, the members of the metaphorical family of the Christian life are introduced. Next, the article analyzes the metaphorical way of a Christian’s growing up, whose goal is a spiritual marriage with Christ.

Key words: conceptualization, family, Christian life, John Henry Newman, sermons

The Communicative Role of the Sender in On Way to Heaven by rev. Ludwik Skowronek

On Way to Heaven by rev. Ludwik Skowronek is the indication of the author’s concern to preserve the traditional model of a family. Consequently so, Christian families are aimed to be the main recipients of the text. The Skowronek’s text edited as a prayer book in Silesia in early decades of the 20th century is devoted to the subject of a family within the church community. The thorough analysis of the text allows the reader to see the coexistence of the evident persuasion with different ways of soothing the direct didactic. By predetermining the shape of the sender-receiver relation, the impressive function of language reveals asymmetrical character of the roles which the participants of the speech act can take.

Key words: persuasion, On Way to Heaven, sender-receiver relation, religious language, Silesia, rev. Skowronek

The ancient names of the astrology and the astrologers

The article is trying to analyse in a semantic way the former names of astrology and the star gazers. The material gathered from all available wells of information; lexicographical sources containing the texts from the fourteen century to the eighteen one. It is manifested in a way that the astrological vocabulary of the old Polish differed from the contemporary lexicology. The changes which occurred on this level of language had an additional „character of quantity” – from the ample collection of 18 units were left barely 2 lexems – astrologia and astrolog. Beside the point there was another character – “the quality character” (the semantic one). At the beginning “the investigated terrain” was affiliated with the category of ASTRONOMY. That is why a lot of names of astrology and the “star watchers” swerved back and forth for long at the stitch of two lexical fields similar semantically. Overall changes which took place in the investigated word-group are reflections of moving trends in societal and cultural spheres of the years gone by.

Key words: the changes in meanings, the history of Polish language, nomination, semantics

The multifunctionality of the pronoun as a source of functional expressions

The subject matter of the article is a description of one of the sources of functional expressions – the multifunctionality of the pronoun with reference to the nominal pronoun kto and the adjective pronoun który. The pronoun seems to be the most diversified part of speech because it fails to follow a single exemplary criterion in defining its type category. Also, having a complex internal structure its multifunctionality is demonstrated on various text organization levels. The starting point of the description is the analysis of the contrast between interrogative and relative functions of these pronouns. Considering the multiplicity of the text roles both pronouns kto and który are presented as functional homonyms. The various pronoun roles identified on the text organization level validate thestatement that the multifunctionality of the pronoun is a source of functional expressions.

Key words: pronoun, function, homonym, functional expression

Bo – bowiem – albowiem. Between a conjunction and a particle

The article presents three etymologically related units: bo, bowiem i albowiem. Basing on analysis of the contexts of their use (requirement of a weaker / stronger pause, ability to cooperate with anelliptic sentence, possibility of changing position within a sentence), with particular regard to binding between a rheme of the sentence with which these units coocurate and a preceeding rheme, the possibility of including bowiem and albowiem into the classes of particles and conjunctions is discussed.

Key words: particle, conjunction, connector

About proposals for the classifications of the units of human speech – polemically

The article is a reconnaissance. First, the author discusses with the authors of the classification of language and speech. Second, the author formulates own proposals in question of quality and quantity of units of human speech. The author distinguishes between units who perform functions: representative (propositional) and communication (text) and analyzes it based on different linguistic programs.

Key words: speech unit, metalinguistics, sentence, text

Activism and power: new directions in research for a general theory of public relations

The article presents one of the newest proposal in research for a general theory of public relations. The most popular general theories of public relations, i.e. the excellence theory, the contingency theory, the relationship management theory are corpocentric. They assumes, that organizations “invented” public relations. One of the newest approach based on the stakeholder theory shows that the discipline derives from the group standing vis-a-vis organization, mainly activists. Moreover, it particularly emphasizes the role of ethics and power within the process of creating and maintaining of relationships.

Key words: public relations, activism, power, ethics

Role of the Bible in the development of languages and linguistics. An outline of the issue

The paper describes a very significant role of Bible translation in the development of the Slavic national languages. The author focuses on the Polish language which in its literary form was shaped in the Middle Ages but its full functional efficiency was reached in the 16th century. Among the medieval relics, the translation of psalms and other Bible passages played a great cultural role. However, the complete Polish translations of the Holy Bible appeared in the 16th century (Biblia Budnego, Leopolity, Wujka). Those renditions enriched the Polish language with a number of new words. Moreover, they provoked a scientific reflection on the Slavic languages. As a result, the author proposes a thesis asserting that the act of Bible philological translations contributed to further linguistic research.

Key words: history of language, Bible, development of language, linguistics

The pragmatics of casual dialogue

In this paper, the author presents the relationships of dialogue and then characterizes dialogue as a text. In dialogue’s characteristics, it is necessary to distinguish its units and both obligatory and optional elements. The author notes that a lively and spontaneous dialogue is dependent on various extralinguistic factors as well as accident.

Key words: casual dialogue, coherence, completeness, extralinguistic factors