The paper deals with processing the entries describing colours in the Academic Dictionary of Contemporary Czech (ASSČ), the priority being the explanation of basic meanings of primary colours and lexicalised colour shades. The definitions ought to include all semantic features, be clear and should reflect the present world and the experience of the user. Special attention is given to the explanations of adverbs and compound adjectives. The paper also follows the decision-making process leading to the list of entries within a given category, based on the frequency of the lemma in the SYN corpus, and discusses the problem of appropriate exemplification.
There are more than 2000 settlements in Poland with names containing a colour adjective. Etymologists sometimes point to the colour of the soil or another physical attribute but more often than not those names are left entirely unexplained. The goal of the present paper is to tentatively probe Polish oikonymy for traces of an ancient system of colour symbolism, perhaps one similar to the Chinese-Turkic system which may be responsible for the Slavic names of White Russia, and Black and Red Ruthenia.
CS
V Polsku se nachází více než 2 000 sídel, jejichž jméno obsahuje barevné adjektivum. Etymologové někdy odkazují ke zbarvení půdy nebo jiné fyzické vlastnosti, avšak velmi často tato pojmenování zůstávají nevysvětlena. Cílem tohoto příspěvku je provést předběžnou sondu, zda lze v polské oikonymii nalézt stopy po starém systému barevné symboliky, snad podobnému čínsko-turkickému systému, který by mohl stát za slovanskými jmény Bílá, Černá a Červená Rus.
The text deals with the signs in the Czech Sign Language for the basic colours — white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown and grey in the diachronic point of view. On the basis of historical written description of these signs from 1834–1907 the motivation of the signs is being analysed (the signs were derived from the typical object of the particular colour) as well as the slow lexicalization and form (especially the components of the signs — the place of articulation, handshape and movement). At the same time, the historical signs are compared to the current signs and the text provides analysis of the trends in changes of phonological/morphological structures of the signs (place of articulation changes — moving down from the center to the periphery of the face, shortening of the movement, changing the shape of the hand etc.). In addition the text examines the possible relationship of these signs with the signs for colours in the Austrian, German and French Sign Language (the languages that had been used in deaf education at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries according to preserved records). Concerning the historical signs their motivation and form were compared, along with the detail look at the contemporary signs. This is the first look at the Czech Sign Language from the etymological point of view at all.
The article is devoted to the analysis of zoonyms motivated by the white colour of the animals. The material resources are cow names in dialects of Ukrainian and Polish languages. Based on the analysis, the author shows the common and the differences in the native speakers of two related languages perception of white colour shades.
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