Kłopotliwe kwalifikatory chronologiczne w słownikach języka polskiego

Abstract

The subject of the article constitutes a survey of the techniques of labelling the lexical resources which are chronologically marked in early and contemporary general-purpose and phraseological dictionaries (dictionaries of collocations) of the Polish language. Despite a tradition which spans some centuries (starting from the 17th century), the system of the chronological labelling of language units is quite inconsistent. Lexica feature various types of indication of archaic/anachronic nature of words and lexical combinations, cf. inter alia non-literal status labels (*), literal status labels (which appear in an abbreviated form, e.g.: arch., daw., przestarz., histor., rec. or in a non-abbreviated form, e.g.: dawny, wychodzący z użycia), information about the antiquity of words contained in the definitions of headwords (e.g.: w dawnej Polsce [in early Poland], w starożytności [in antiquity]). The chronological marking of words is also indicated by other status labels, i.e. the frequency-related label (rzad.) and the style and usage labels (książk., podn.). The article demonstrates the fundamental problems associated with the evaluation of the extent of the currency of dictionary units.