Academic Style or Discourse? A Historical Perspective

The work concerns the usefulness of terms “style” and “discourse” in research of academic Polish evolution. One notices the significant advantages of complementary interpretation of research on the academic Polish evolution. The analysis of style level ensures description of basic and essential – both: stable and changeable – language features, systemic, but stylistically worked. On the other hand the reference to discourse level enables to describe and interpret the phenomena of academic communication in broader aspects, taking into consideration the socio-cultural contexts, which determine the forming of academic Polish in prototype shape, but also its contemporary dissolving in postmodern communication reality. Furthermore, the discourse context opens the research for extralinguistic conditions, previously neglected in analysis of language dynamics.

Key words: academic style, academic discourse, text, history of Polish, stylistics

Status and Prestige of the Polish Enlightenment Language
in the Light of Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski’s Comments

The aim of the study is to reconstruct the views on the status and prestige of the Polish language in the end of the 18th century in the light of the book by Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski Myśli o pismach polskich. The work is cognitively attractive, as it gives a testimony to the status and prestige of the Polish language in the breakthrough period for the Polish state, i.e. just after the Third Partition, and even before the intensification of the tendencies to deprive Poles their national identity. In his book Myśli o pismach polskich, the author expresses an unshakable view of the high status of Polish and the shattered prestige. Institutions such as stable state power, capital, intellectual elites, scientific and critical publishing houses, periodicals, schools, theaters, the family can be distinguished among the factors shaping both spheres.

Key words: status of language, prestige of language, the Enlightenment, Polish under the partitions, Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski

Some Issues in the Language Research on Polish Translations of The Story of Alexander the Great

The author presents the research on lexis and style of Polish translations of The Story of Alexander the Great – a manuscript translation by Leonard of Bończa (1510) and an anonymous print publication of 1550 as a comparative source; both sources constitute a series of translations. The manuscript provides an interesting lexical material (especially various synonymic equivalents placed in the glosses), which can broaden our knowledge on the affluence of lexical resource of Old Polish language. The study of translational practice of a medieval author opens up new perspectives of research, because of varied use of Latin in Polish language. The 16th century print publication sheds some light on the stylistic and linguistic characteristics of the manuscript, indicating constant and variable elements of the language.

Key words: The Story of Alexander the Great, history of Polish language, lexis, synonym, Latin

Semantic Structure of Verb Borrowings from German Going Out of Use During the New Polish Period

The paper presents the semantic structure of verb borrowing from German going out of use during the New Polish period. Lexical material included 86 semantic units extracted from Słownik języka polskiego (dictionary of Polish language) edited by Witold Doroszewski described as: archaic, obsolete, going out of use. The semantic structure shows that significant part of vocabulary was collected in 2 fields: ‹‹Work life›› and ‹‹Social behavior in the community›› occurring to extralinguistic circumstances like changes of work organization and realities of social life.

Key words: thematic structure, semantic fields, German borrowings, vocabulary going out of use, verbs

Types of Sentence in Both the Polish and Korean Languages Concerning Basic Verbs of Motion – Based upon Survey Results

This article refers to comparative studies. It highlights the problems associated with using basic verbs of motion in describing a real situation. This includes iść and chodzić in Polish and 가다 [gada] in Korean. The most common types of sentence used (S[trajectory]V and S[purpose]V) have been identified based upon surveys carried out amongst Polish and Korean language students from various universities in June/July 2015. The conclusions indicate that a more systematic approach can be made for the Polish and Korean verbs of motion and this results in an improved methodology for teaching both languages. Attention is also drawn to the temporal deixis (adverbs) in sentences with the Polish verbs iść/chodzić, as well as to the lack of perlative and locative relations in describing trajectory in sentences with the Korean verb 가다 [gada]. Moreover, the most common lexemes used by Polish and Korean respondents are pointed out which show several differences between the two languages.

Key words: basic verbs of motion, comparative analysis, Polish language, Korean language, language teaching

Italian V+N Compounds and Their Translation into Polish

The focus of the article is on the structural and semantic analysis of Italian V+N compounds and on their translation into Polish. These structures indicate the agents, objects, containers, notions and phenomena. In Polish, they resemble the Italian formations in terms of structure and derivation or they show regularity in translation accoring to Polish derivational norms. The Polish equivalents manifest themselves as regular deverbal or denominal derivatives with a suffix or as periphrastic expressions. In the case of some new compounds of that type, created on the basis of linguistic competence and existing models, it is not always easy to find an equivalent, despite functional rules of word formation.
Semantic restrictions and cultural differences are often the reason for their untranslatability.

Key words: compounds, derivation, deverbal derivative, collocation, translation

The Linguistic Marriage of Tradition with Modernity. Professor Antonina Grybosiowa (1932–2016)

The text commemorates Professor Antonina Grybosiowa. It provides a succinct coverage of the salient facts from the scholar’s biography and underscores the idiosyncrasy of her scholarly persona, namely, being able to combine reverence for tradition, for the history of language, with a penchant for innovative ideas in the field of linguistics, like at its time: sociolinguistics, or later, cultural linguistics. The said marriage compels the linguistic research conducted by Antonina Grybosiowa to focus on describing the evolution of language and cultural awareness of Poles.

Key words: Antonina Grybosiowa, history of the Polish language, sociolinguistics, pragmalinguistics

Digital Tools in the Polish Language Academic Didactics – Applications, Possibilities, Prospects

The aim of the article is to present the selected digital tools for language analysis which may be applied in the academic didactics during course classes in linguistics. In the first part of the article advanced corpus search engines were discussed, for instance, National Corpus of Polish (NKJP), National Photo-corpus of the Polish Language (NFJP), as well as ChronoPress – Press Texts Portal, Spokes – corpora of conversational speech, and corpus search engine Monco PL. The second part is dedicated to the tools and applications for the individual creation of browsable language resources (Korpusomat, Virtual Laboratory of Transcription), as well as for the complex analysis of the relationships between language units (plWordnet) and the measurement of the degree of the text comprehension (Jasnopis).

Key words: digital humanities, digital linguistics, digital tools, academic didactics

Mixed-Gender Groups and the Problem of Genesis of the Masculine Personal Gender

The author discusses the topic of genesis of the masculine personal gender, which has been touched upon numerous times in Polish linguistic literature, but the concepts presented have not always been sufficiently cogent. She suggests that we take a closer look at the ways the problem of gender agreement in multiple-gender groups is solved. The historical material allows us to point to the following methods:
1. in strings a verb in the singular was employed, with only the first element of the group being obliged to reach gender concord (for example, aże ciało w nim puchnęło i ręce, i około serca. ŻywAm 65),
2. in attributive elements, the attribute related to all elements, including the ones not specified on the surface (for instance, kolżdy brat i siostra mają się modlić za duszę jego. Reg XIX 14),
3. nominal or pronominal generalisation, accompanied by enumeration (e.g. A to jest podobieństwo utrapienia: uciski, nędze, śmierć i potym zmartwychwstanie i żywot wieczny. GrzegŚm 37),
4. a verb was elided (when an existential predicate was involved) (as, for example, in Wskazał jemu płomień, gdzie światłość i ciemność, smętek i płacz, i ciężkie wzdychanie. XV ex. Zab. 356),
5. employing a prepositional phrase + the instrumental case – then the predicate was in the singular (Jako się Stachna i s mężem zaprzała swego pana. Roty 120).
Additionally, the research confirmed that in the oldest language relics, if the subject was “multigendered,” the masculine gender was highlighted, something that had a strong systemic motivation. The aforementioned thesis can be confirmed at levels others than the inflectional one, for instance in word formation (cf. e.g. morphological means of moulding female names on the basis of male ones by employing derivative formants like -ka, -ica, -ina and others). It is significant, however, that derivatives stemming from masculine names embraced semantically both the male sex and the female sex (e.g. mistrzowski < mistrz, proroczy < prorok). This testifies to the fact that it was possible for the
masculine form to refer to the female designation. The difference of sexes was also pertinent to the animal world; here also a masculine element constituted the centre of a derivational nest, although in these cases it was not always of importance. Oftentimes in such situations lexemic resources were employed (e.g. pies / suka).
It is interesting that up to the point when the masculine personal gender developed for masculine animal nouns, there were appearing both types of forms (e.g. ptaszki // ptaszkowie, węże // wężowie). The author, then, questions the thesis of the accusative origin of nominative endings in the plural by proposing that we consider the influence of mixed-gender groups on the development of the masculine personal gender. The analysis of endings for various genders clearly shows that the feminine gender is most expansive.

Key words: historical inflection, masculine personal gender, mixed-gender groups