Słownictwo mentalne w historii polszczyzny : studium słowotwórczo-leksykalne

Abstract

In the recent years, it has been possible to notice an increasing interest among the linguists in the mental vocabulary. First synchronic studies of the mental lexis analysed the semantics as well as syntactic collocations of mental verbs in the contemporary Polish language. The epistemic angle in diachronic studies was much less popular among scholars. Up until this day, there have been relatively few studies published concerning particular lexemes connected with thinking, and even fewer regarding the historical and linguistic aspect. Apart from the abovementioned publications, the mental vocabulary has not been thus far the subject of a comprehensive diachronic study, which results in the fact that it is one of the least well-known areas of historical lexis. The monograph Mental Vocabulary in the History of the Polish Language. A Study of the Lexical and Word-Formative Aspects aims to rectify that situation. The diachronic study conducted in this publication allows for a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the changes in the mental vocabulary. This fresh, evolutionary take on the subject has made it possible to find the places of changes and semantic divisions in sets of words based on a shared pre-Slavonic root. In addition to that, thanks to referring to the pre-Slavonic etymon, the analysis could include words characterised by metaphorical or lexicalised meanings. The conducted research allows to determine the tendencies in the development of language, such as the disappearance of many names for performers of mental actions (e.g. obmyśliciel, zmyślacz, znaniec), to re-discover currently forgotten formatives (e.g. the suffix -ć, as in the word powieś-ć), as well as to describe active word-formative models (e.g. -znawstwo).