Wyraz "gildia" w dawnej i współczesnej polszczyźnie
The word "gildia" in old and contemporary Polish

Summary/Abstract: The paper is dedicated to a close analysis of the semantic development of the lexeme "gildia". The author considered etymological data, lexicographic information (from historical and contemporary general dictionaries), as well as textual data (from the corpus and the Internet). From the etymological perspective, the lexeme "gildia" is derived from the same source as "giełda", but the words were dissimilated and functioned as separate units. Lexicographic data indicate that the word "giełda" is used in general Polish in a few meanings, while the word "gildia" – as ‘merchants’ association’ and ‘merchants’ class’ and is contemporarily regarded as a historicism, however, it is still present in new contexts. It is used as a component of proper names from the field of social chrematonymy (in names of associations) and marketing chrematonymy (in names of companies). Moreover, the lexeme "gildia" acquires a new additional meaning in specialist vocabulary of computer players. The development of the word discussed is an example of broader trends which are visible in the lexis of contemporary Polish.

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