Z historii wybranych hiponimów leksemu "złodziej"

Abstract

The article is devoted to an analysis of the hyponyms of the lexeme złodziej in the history of the Polish language. The research that was conducted is representative of the trend of diachronic linguistics and its aim will be to present the complete evolution of the vocabulary concentrated upon the field that is analysed. The material that is presented in the article was excerpted from dictionary sources. In the units that are analysed the main semantic elements which enabled us to divide the material that was collected into two groups were distinguished. The first group contains hyponyms of the lexeme złodziej which emphasise the feature of a thief. The second group contains lexemes which emphasise the manner in which the theft is committed. The main premise of the article is to present the semantic changes which occurred in the field of the hyponyms of the lexeme thief. Another crucial point of the article is associated with etymological investigations whose purpose is to present the origin of the units that are studied.