The present study – divided into two papers – provides an analysis of the semantics of the Vilamovicean verbal system within a cognitive and grammaticalization framework. On the one hand, the author offers a detailed description of the entire semantic potential of all the verbal constructions available in the language and, on the other, provides an explanation for the senses conveyed by each one of these forms – more specifically, it is demonstrated that the semantic sphere of every gram can be explained and, hence, unified by making use of typologically common evolutionary scenarios, viz. paths. Consequently, the author shows that the entire Vilamovicean verbal system can be modeled as a recursive process of grammaticalization “waves” whereby older and newer forms evolve along a set of identical paths. This paper constitutes the second part of the series. It provides an explanation of the semantic potentials offered by the Vilamovicean verbal formations and designs a cognitive-grammaticalization model of the entire verbal system of this language.

An overview of dictionaries of English as primary and secondary sources for the history of the English language, with notes on what can be learned from the study of early dictionaries, and on the development, present state, and possible future of scholarly historical lexicography in English.

The aim of the article is to present a usage-based theory of second language acquisition (SLA) which might serve as a framework for explaining the learning mechanisms that are operating when students are exposed to the meaningfully-motivated Cognitive Grammar-based teaching materials. Currently, two seemingly quite different stands of Cognitive Grammar (CG) applications are advocated: one focusing on the use of meaningfully-motivated linguistic explanations and the other on the usage-based nature of language. The article outlines a unified psycholinguistic theory, inspired by Brian MacWhinney’s Competition Model and developed by Nick C. Ellis, which is compatible with both the meaning-based and the usage-based conceptions of language assumed by CG, and which can provide a more fine-grained frame of reference for introducing Cognitive Grammar into the teaching practice. Finally, some suggestions are made concerning practical application of CG-inspired pedagogical rules that should enhance the effectiveness of meaningfully motivated grammatical instruction.

This paper aims to provide a survey of the early polyglot dictionaries which paired Polish with English, based on the premise that the polyglots can be considered as predecessors of bilingual dictionaries proper. Following this rationale, the authoress examines chronologically the first three of the multilingual endeavours: Ambrogio Calepino’s Dictionarium undecim linguarum … (1590), Hieronymus Megiser’s Thesaurus polyglottus: vel, dictionarium multilingue … (1603), and Georg Henisch’s Teütsche Sprach und Weissheit. Thesaurus linguae and sapientiae Germanicae … (1616). The focus is primarily on the linguistic material of the polyglots, but the assumed aims and readership are also tackled briefly. As bilingual wordbooks have traditionally catered to the needs of users of one or both of the respective languages, the polyglot dictionaries are additionally looked at from the perspective of Polish-English language contact in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

Intended as a study of stancetaking patterns in judicial opinions, this article aims at contributing to stance-related investigations of specialist discourse. For this purpose, it builds on the work of stance researchers and interactional linguists as well as attempts to apply their concepts in an examination of written data. In particular, the analysis is informed by Du Bois’s interactional concept of stance and the two related notions of epistemicity and evidentiality. It also follows Chilton’s discourse space theory in what is proposed as a stance analysis framework intended to aid researchers in categorising individual stance acts. The study draws on data from a theme-focused corpus of US Supreme Court opinions dealing with capital punishment.