Abbreviation noun phrases at the intersection of abbreviation and syntactic motivations

The paper focuses on acronym-based noun phrases, i.e. noun phrases consisting of an abbreviation and a non-abbreviated lexeme. The author works with the theory of lexical motivation which presumes the existence of several types of motivation, including abbreviation and syntactic motivation. While abbreviations are formed by means of abbreviation motivation, syntactic constructions such as noun phrases are formed by means of syntactic motivation. Both types of motivation are dominant in the forming of abbreviation noun phrases. The author distinguishes and explains the differences between tautological (PIN number), semi-tautological (SIM card) and explicative noun phrases (GPRS platforms) as well as abbreviation multi-word units (USB port). The paper points out manifold functionality of each type of abbreviation noun phrase/multiword unit and presents abbreviations as productive means of forming new constructions and lexemes. Their versatile character makes abbreviations universal forms for coining new expressions of terminological character and thus contributing to multiple terminological databases of languages.

O pojęciach historia i społeczeństwo w polskim dyskursie parlamentarnym (na podstawie korpusu stenogramów parlamentarnych z lat 1918–2018)

The work conducted for over ten months at IPI PAN has resulted in the creation of a working (and still further developed) corpus of the 20th-century Polish parliamentarisms. The corpus was created using parliamentary transcripts from the years 1918–2018 and as for now it contains nearly 200 million segments. On this basis, a preliminary analytical work on the language of the Polish parliamentarism of the twentieth century is being conducted. One of the first issues is the preliminary lexicographical and lexicological analysis of the assembled corpus. In order to show the extent of the corpus and its chronological complexity, a lexical and semantic analysis will be subjected to, for example, such lexemes as historia (history) and społeczeństwo (society). The analysis of the usage of these items in the Polish parliamentary discourse has shown that they are high frequency words, and that their meanings are subject to “specific pressures of parliamentarism” and slightly differ (depending on a particular period in history) from the meanings traditionally assigned to them in Polish lexicography.

Jakie jest pochodzenie wyrazów kozytać ‘łaskotać, łechtać’, kozytki ‘łaskotki’?

The article discusses characteristic features of the words kozytać ‘to tickle’, and kozytki ‘tickling’, that have a limited, regional distribution in Slavic languages and are present in Belarusian, Russian and Polish. A thorough analysis of dialectal data was conducted in an attempt to identify the origin and geographical markedness of these items. It has been revealed that *kozitati was most frequently used in North Belarus and was most probably a historic Belarusian-Polish innovation.

Wyraz pluszczyć ‘zamykać, mrużyć oczy’ w języku polskim, ukraińskim i białoruskim

The article aims to determine the status and origin of the verb pluszczyć in three Slavic languages. The analysis of linguistic data has shown that, in terms of diachronic perspective, the unit under scrutiny is a semantic innovation that is common to Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish (the Mazovian dialect), but has a slightly different character in each of these languages. While in Belarusian pluszczyć belongs to the lexical inventory of literary language, in Ukrainian it appears rather occassionally, but in Polish it is a regionalism (Podlasie) that can be synchronically considered as a loanword adopted from Belarusian.

Obraz wilka w języku francuskim

The aim of this article is to analyze the linguistic picture of a wolf in the French language. The focal issues of the study are the following: dictionary definition of a wolf, its physical features, wolf’s relationship with other animals, wolf’s habits, as well as human features attributed to a wolf. The linguistic picture of a wolf was reconstructed using the cognitive method developed by Jerzy Bartmiński. The research hypothesis assumes that the linguistic picture of a wolf is negative as this animal is commonly thought of as dangerous and threatening. However, the study has shown that positive features of a wolf (independence, intelligence, solidarity between wolves) are also linguistically present. Moreover, the French proverb on crie toujours le loup plus grand qu’il n’est (literally: “people consider a wolf to be more dangerous than it really is”) expresses the lack of objectivity towards this animal.

Matka w poetyckim obrazie świata Wisławy Szymborskiej

The article focuses on the ways Wisława Szymborska potrays a mother in her poetic works. The main goal of the analysis is to establish and discuss characteristic features of mother figure and to define the linguistic and stylistic measures Szymborska employs to convey her artistic vision. Additionally, the connotations of mother exposed in Szymborska’s poetry are confronted with the traditional view of maternity to highlight the differences and similarities between a generally accepted stereotype and the artistic vision of the poet. The study shows that the portrayal of mother in Szymborska’s poetry is characterized by a diversity of representation and artistic vibrancy of language used by the artist, who is not confining herself only to dictionary definitions and stereotypes.

Pożyczka wschodniosłowiańska czy regionalizm północnopolski? O czasowniku szczupać ‘dotykać, macać’

The article attempts to determine how to classify the verb szczupać ‘to touch, to feel’ that is present in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages and also in the Polish-East Slavic borderland region. As has been revealed by the analysis of documents, linguistic data gathered from historical dictionaries and dictionaries of dialects along with literary sources, the verb in question is an East Slavic borrowing that has been adopted locally in a major part of Poland’s eastern borderland and reinforced by the existence of derivatives.