Comparative analysis of synonyms and variants in Polish and Czech

Aim of the research

The task consists in a detailed comparative analysis of 100 lexical chains – usually pairs, but sometimes triples, quadruples, etc. – 50 of them Polish and 50 Czech. The elements of each chain are close synonyms, one of foreign, the other of native origin, or variants differing in the degree of assimilation. The aim of the research is to identify as many differences as possible between the elements compared, i.e. to define the dimensions along which a loanword may differ from its native equivalent, or a weakly assimilated variant of a loanword may differ from a better assimilated one. Attention will be paid not only to formal differences, but above all to functional ones, in accordance with the hypothesis that the form of a word is not arbitrary and a difference in form implies a difference in meaning. Within the project a broad notion of meaning has been adopted, including not only the designative component, but also emotive, associative, collocational, stylistic, structural, etymological and other features. Because the analysis is performed independently on two cognate languages, the results can be compared and the danger of positing overgeneralizations based on one language decreases.