MYŚLĄ RZECZY ROZBIERANIE
Division of Things in Mind

Summary/Abstract: "Myślą rzeczy rozbieranie" (mental analysis of things) - this is how Jan Mączyński defined the meaning of the word speculation in the 16th century Latin-Polish dictionary. In the 19th century, the Latin noun is introduced into Polish. At the same time, the word spekulacja acquires a new economic meaning, taken from western languages. At the beginning, it has a very general character; speculation is simply a profitable economic (as well as manufacturing) enterprise. In time, the meaning is reduced to financial operations. In the communist times, in the times of economic shortage, the meaning of the word becomes negative; speculation is illegal purchasing of huge quantities of goods, to sell them with high profit. After the year 1989, despite the transformation of the economic situation, some elements of negative evaluation are prevailing in the semantic structure of the word, which can be understood as a kind of "semantic gravity" in the processes of linguistic changes.

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