Language means of expression in historic narropal inscriptions – on the example of polish catholic podolskie nekropoly (selected problems)

Abstract

The subject of the analyzes presented in the article are historical Polish grave inscriptions from the area of Podolia, i.e. the former Eastern Borderlands. As a text of culture and a linguistic message, inscriptions have features related to the specificity of a specific community of users. I analyzed the previously unexamined tombstone inscriptions preserved in necropolises located in Ukraine (from the districts: Сhmelnytsky, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia), dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries. They are characteristic of the cultural and communication community, which in Podolia was distinguished by Polish origin and Catholicism. The inscriptions were collected through personal explor­tion. The analyzes focused on the expressive function of the inscription, which serves to express the emotions of the sender – founder. Exponents of emotions at the lexical level as well as graphic means subordinated to this function are described. Described, among others names from the semantic field of sadness, diminutives, metaphors euphemizing death, emotional epithets and apostrophes, as well as graphic means: exclamation marks, capital letters. The founder of the tombstone inscription presented the deceased posit­ively and created such an emotionally expressive, positive characterization by means of a repetitive set of lexical devices – both in historical examples of inscriptions from Poland and Ukraine (former Eastern Borderlands).