Rzeczownik barwa i jego synonimy w dziejach języka polskiego

On the basis of fi ve synonymous nouns of different roots that generally name phenomena like barwa, farba, krasa, kolor, maść (colour, dye), historic modifi cations of shift in meanings in these words were traced. The analysis touched upon simple, underivatized forms, in which semantic changes were made under the infl uence of non-linguistic reality. These changes happened at different times and with different intensity. Therefore, illustrated there mechanisms of functioning and semantic changes of nouns barwa, farba, kolor, maść, krasa give testimony of complexity of processes that had place in non-linguistic reality. They can also serve as an example of the infl uence that social, cultural and scientifi c transformations had on the development of lexical and semantic stock of written Polish over the ages.