Onimic categories in the medieval polish language in Janko of Czarnkow Chronicle

Sylwia Iglewska

Uniwersytet Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy

Abstract

Janko of Czarnków Chronicle has been subject to the onomastic analysis. In consequence, 324 naming formations have been excerpted. The first onimic category distinguished in Chronicle are monomial formations. In the oldest source materials we may observe that apart from a single proper noun, there appear different kinds of notions allowing more precise characteristic. Z. Kowalik-Kaleta named them individual terms. There was a tendency to group them directly after a single proper noun. This is how definite descriptions originated. Elaborated definite descriptions were avoided and abbreviated forms were preferable. Locative prepositional phrases originated from locative descriptions. Patronymic descriptions transformed into synthetic forms with nominal suffixes: -ic, -icz, -owic, -owicz, -ek, -ka, -ko, -ik, -yk, -czyk, -ec, -ak, -czak, -ę, -ęta. Analytical locative prepositional phrases transformed into synthetic adjectival forms into -ski, -sky. Moreover, in Janko of Czarnków Chronicle we may distinguish such onimic categories as anthroponomical appelativa and proto names of foreign origin. On the basis of the analyzed linguistic material it should be concluded that medieval Polish language used different onimic categories.

Keywords:

onomastics, anthroponymy, monomial formations, definite descriptions, analytical formations, synthetic formations, anthroponomical appelativa, proto names of foreign origin