Przemiany form dopełniacza liczby mnogiej rzeczowników męskich miękkotematowych w ciągu XX wieku (wstępne badania korpusowe)
Changes in the genitive plural forms of soft-stem masculine nouns in the 20th century

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the problem of inflectional instability in the genitive plural forms of soft-stem masculine nouns, manifested in the rivalry between two endings: -ów and -i/-y and relevant to the 20th century. In order to describe the phenomenon empirically, 20 lexemes representing this type of variability were selected. The material for the considerations is constituted by thousands of inflected word forms recorded in printed sources and retrieved thanks to the innovative FBL Risercz programme. Careful analysis allowed the authors to conclude that changes in the genitive of selected nouns depended on their morphological structure and origin, and that the studied phenomenon is part of a broader process of replacing the former ending -ów by the innovation -i/-y, occurring since the 18th century. Comparing the results of research with the recommendations of the most important prescriptive dictionaries of the 20th century made it possible to conclude that these publications are largely conservative and even inhibit the natural development of language.

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