Continuity and change: the process of forming Polish grammatical terminology by Onufry Kopczyński
Continuity and change: the process of forming Polish grammatical terminology by Onufry Kopczyński

Author(s): Monika Kresa
Contributor(s): Helena Marzec-Gołąb (Translator)
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Onufry Kopczynski; grammars; grammatical terminology; 18th century; Polish language
Summary/Abstract: The types, ways of creating and functions of grammatical terms invented by Onufry Kopczyński were described in essence by Teresa Skubalanka in a 1957 text. At the time, it attempted to show the terminological innovation of the 18th-century Piarist against earlier grammatical works. The possibilities created by the 'Dictionary of Historical Grammatical Terms', allow us to verify its findings, and show Onufry Kopczyński’s terminological proposal as a kind of process, involving a conscious choice between the lexis established in the grammatical discourse and its neologisms. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the change Kopczynski made, despite its seemingly revolutionary linguistic nature, was the result of an evolutionary clash between the “old” and the “new.” Nor did it grow in a terminological vacuum: it was created in a spirit of respect for the past, the language and its users.

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