Regional Features in the Phrasematics of Novellas Submitted to a Competition Organised by the Kaunas Daily “Dzień Polski” (1936)

Abstract

This article analyses 33 phrasemes used in the Northern Borderland variety of Polish, which were extracted from about 20 novellas submitted to the competition announced in 1936 by Dzień Polski [The Polish Day], a Polish daily issued in Kaunas. The study classifies the extracted multiword units into substrate-interference units (formed under the influence of the Belarusian-Lithuanian substrate and more recent interference from Russian and Lithuanian) and archaic-innovative units (outdated and modified without foreign influence). The descriptions of individual phrasemes follow a standardised pattern. Substrate-interference phrasemes account for 70% of the material (9 substrate phrasemes, e.g. wiatry w głowie or durzyć głowę, and 14 interference phrasemes, mainly of Russian origin, e.g. jak na zło or podać prośbę), and 30% are native units (8 obsolete, e.g. zakasać ręce or beczka łoju = góra sadła, 1 local innovation: wyrządzić scenę zazdrości, and 1 phraseme common to indigenous Polish dialects: mieć gdziesik). The phrasematics of the Kaunas novellas makes an addition to the still modest list of multiword units in the Northern Borderland variety of Polish.