Remarks on the Formation of Adjectives Derived from Place Names in the Polish Language

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the formation of adjectives from the names of Polish towns. The object of interest is mainly peripheral phenomena, such as the scope of the use of the suffix -ski as a basic formant (Kraków — krakowski), secondary suffixes (-owski, -ański, -eński, -iński/-yński: Kutno — kutnowski, Pajęczno — pajęczański, Gniezno — gnieźnieński, Chełmno — chełmiński, Opoczno — opoczyński, and rarely: Iłża — iłżecki, Jaworzno – jaworznicki), as well as numerous adaptation phenomena of a morphological base in the process of derivation (consonant and vowel alterations, disintegration and stem simplification), and hence the functioning of doublets, or even triplets in adjective formation. The basis of analysis was the material included in “Słownik nazw miejscowości i mieszkańców z odmianą i poradami językowymi” by Marek Łaziński (2007), compared with the data from “Słownik nazw własnych” by Jan Grzenia (1998, 2002), “Słownik nazw osobowych i miejscowych” by Daniela Podlawska and Magdalena Świątek-Brzezińska (2008), “Słownik etymologiczny miast i gmin PRL ” by Stanisław Rospond (1984) and “Wielki słownik poprawnej polszczyzny PWN” by Andrzej Markowski (2004). Due to nonsubstantive limitations, there are only infrequent references to the data included in “Nazwy miejscowe Polski. Historia. Pochodzenie. Zmiany” (1999–2016). Despite straightforward rules concerning the formation of adjectives from place names, ensuring the distinction of this category, quite broad peripheries can be observed, where the shape of the derivative is determined by a range of nonlinguistic factors, such as: geographical conditions (and thus potential dialect influence), chronological factors, the frequency of names, and even arbitrary decisions of linguists.