Terminological lexis in ‘Vilnius Dictionary’ and handwritten lecture notes on agronomy from the mid-19th century

Abstract

The plot of the article is conditioned by one of the basic issues in the field of philosophy of history, namely the question: to what extent a given dictionary, meeting the scientific requirements of the time of its origin, documents the complete state of lexis of a certain period. The detailed purpose of the article is to show similarities and differences between the ways in which notions and terms are registered and denoted in the lectures delivered in the Agronomic Institute of Marymont in the period of 1848-1850 and in Vilnius Dictionary, written only a bit later. Textual analysis has shown that this most thorough dictionary of its time could not, for number of reasons, document the actual state of terminological lexis. That observation has led to conclusion that the opinions on the state of terminological lexis which were expressed only on the basis of dictionaries had been formed much more carefully than it can be sometimes observed. These opinions are revised when the examples of language usage (specific texts) are taken into consideration.