Znaczenie geografii lingwistycznej dla badań diachronicznych
The significance of geolinguistics in diachronic studies

Summary/Abstract: The topic of the discussion is the usefulness of geolinguistics in historical-linguistic studies. The author points to the research potential of the method combining both synchronic and diachronic aspects. Geolinguistics, introduced into dialectology as a concept verifying ‘the wave theory’ by means of dialectal material, illustrating the mechanism of spreading linguistic changes, later became a technique, a way and finally a method of gathering, analyzing, studying, presenting and interpreting the material. Not only does geolinguistics allow to graphically present the distribution of linguistic phenomena in different areas, but also to take into account the chronology of the processes taking place, consider the processes of linguistic interference, integration and disintegration, point to a different state of a dialect and establish the relationship of the contemporary scope of the phenomenon, both geographical and historical. Geolinguistics enables to discover the directions and determine the time of linguistic expansions on the basis of geographical picture of the phenomena; associate linguistic facts with widely perceived cultural facts; indicate mutual determinants and isogloss arrangements of different linguistic features as well as identify the causes of the present state of being.

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