Dawne określenie ‘cieśniny’ *ǫz(ь)my ‐ene w toponimii środkowej i północnej Polski

The paper reconstructs a Proto‐Slavic derivative *ǫz(ь)my ‐ene (m.) related to the word family of the adjective *ǫzъkъ ‘narrow’ drawing on the North Slavic lexical and mainly toponymic evidence. Originally an abstract meaning ‘something narrow’ should be assumed, then secondarily but still early concretized into a hydrographic one ‘lake strait’. The author focuses on his in‐depth formal analyses of nine related toponyms (chiefly hydronyms) attested since the 1st half of the 14th century in Central and above all Northern Poland (the contempora- ry Konin, Chojnice, Kościerzyna, Bytów, and Kartuzy districts). It is argued that *ǫz(ь)my first developed regularly into *wąźmiēń (probably with a shortened reflex of the back nasal vowel), and in Kashubian dialects as early as before the 2nd half of the 17th century it was locally contaminated with a co‐radical derivative in ‐in‐ (wązina?), yielding a secondary variant *wązmin. Further, in some areas the word acquired the reflex of the long back nasal vowel under the influence of the co‐radical adjective. No reliable lexical attestations of *wązmiēń are known, it can be reconstructed only based on related geographical names. As some of the Kashubian toponymic reflexes are attested only with their denasalized first syllable (Wozmin, Wozmień), their original etymological connections have not always been easy to spot

Adjective · Character (mathematics) · Etymology · Nasal vowel · Slavic languages · Syllable · Toponymy · Vowel · Historical and Cultural Studies of Poland · Linguistic and Cultural Studies · Linguistics and language evolution