There are several obscure Old Czech words beginning with ri-/ři-/ry- and ending with –čník, and it is not easy to identify both their original form and their meaning. Three of them are analysed in this paper: the noun written in the 13th century as ricznik can be understood as řiečník – ‘supervisor of river wood-shipping’; the noun ryčník used in the knightly tale Duke Ernest should be removed from dictionaries and understood as ručník – ‘player of the string instrument hold in the hand’ (cf. Old German hande seitenspil and Old Czech ručnicě ‘nablum, cithara etc.’), a word which appears also in the Klaret’s dictionary (so far interpreted as a ‘towel’ there). The word ručník is polysemic, it means – beside other things – also a carriage drawn by people, not by animals (it is a translation of the Latin biblical raeda).
The article characterizes the Czech humanistic organological terms included in dictionaries edited by the publisher, writer, and translator Daniel Adam of Veleslavín (and in one case in the dictionary by Petr Lodereker). The author concentrates on the names of musical instruments and musicians. The names are analysed in comparison with the names mentioned in the inventory of musical instruments in the possession of the Lords of Rožmberk. A number of designations, mainly the dictionary ones, are known from previous periods: some of them belong to the general Czech or Slavonic lexicon, but most of them are of international (Greek-Latin, German, Italian) origin. As far as the semantic aspect is concerned, the dictionaries do not generally reflect the actual situation in the period music, but rather reproduce the lexicographical tradition, that often has Mediaeval roots. The Rožmberk inventory, in contrast, provides an accurate image of the period music and also presents the upcoming designations of the newly introduced instruments.
The pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning can have a specific function in some lexical units; e.g. the excessive use of both demonstrative verbs and diminutives is a characteristic feature of the Czech (or Moravian) folk song. The function of the pragmatic part of their lexical meaning is - in comparison with other texts - modified: these linguistic components function primarily as a signal of the genre itself.
The oldest Czech words from the 13th century include among others a lgal term potejdych (derived from the Middle German bandteiding ,judicial proceeding’); it leaves totally later. It is used as an equivalent of the Middle Latin iudicium maius. We define it as a iudicial power for judging of the crimes heard at the appointed day.
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