From the history of social communication. Signalling functions of a bell, a trumpet, and a drum in light of the lexis of the Old Polish language

Abstract

This ar ticle is dedicated to sound signalling in the history as one of the ways of non-verbal communication of a community. Due to the extensiveness of the subject matter, the author significantly narrowed down the analysis. She based her description on word formation issues rather than phraseological units, metaphorisations. She endeavoured to demonstrate that the point of view is also important in descriptions of phenomena bordering on language and culture. Her interests include word-formation nests of three instrument names: a bell, a trumpet, and a drum. The analysis concentrated on three fundamental functions of the enumerated instruments, functions displayed by word-formation devices: announcing, publicising information; summoning, gathering, calling people; excluding from the community. The material was collected from old and historical dictionaries, their corpora and fi les. Keywords: word-formation – social communication – sound signalling – history of language – historical lexis.