Nazwy spadków

Abstract

The names of inheritances constituted in the old and middle Polish period a semantic group of a distinct morphological structure. They were derivatives from noun basis names of relationships, being the names of the inheritors - created by means of the formant -izna // -owizna, with the meanig "inheritance after...". The following words belonged here: babizna "what grandmother has bequeathed", bratowizna "what brother has bequeathed", dziadowizna "what grandfather has bequeathed", macierzyzna "what mother has bequeathed", ojczyzna "what father has bequeathed", stryjowizna "what father’s brother has bequeathed", wujowizna "what mother’s brother has bequeathed". The following words went out of use: first stryjowizna and wujowizna and consequently bratowizna, babizna (17th cent.) and macierzyzna (18th cent.). Somewhat longer functioned dziadowizna and ojczyzna (19th cent.) replaced in this meaning by ojcowizna // ojczyzna today "patria". KGKW confirmed this. Some of these names exist to this day in dialects. In standard language they became replaced by names of a generał meaning in conection with prepositional phrase, for example: (s)puścizna, dziedzictwo, sukcesja, spadek + po matce, po ojcu, po bracie ("inheritance after the mother, after the father, after the brother" etc.).