Studia Językoznawcze

This article presents linguistic exponents of colors that Jan Lechoń used in poems of poetry volumes: Karmazynowy poemat (The Crimson Poem) and Srebrne i czarne (The Silver and The Black). The poet has used two types of colors exponents: lexical (adjectives, such as czarny = black, nouns, such as fi olet = violet, verbs, such as pobieleć = to whiten, adverb srebrzyście – silvery) and non-lexical (comparative expression jak mlekiem oblany = as bathed in milk and syntactic structure ogień żarzy = fi re glows). The lexical exponents of colors co-creation of various syntactic relationships in which their meaning is revealed. Most linguistic exponents of colors serve as descriptive in the analyzed poems, for example: białe chmurki = white clouds, żółty blask = yellow glow. Sometimes the exponents describe imaginary phenomenons, see mgła wspomnień błękitna = the blue haze of memories. Some exponents of colors are symbolic, cf. śpiewają bielą, amarantem = (they) sing white, amaranth (white and amaranth is the Polish national symbols). The metonymic meanings are also interesting, as in the phrase upił się miodnym złotem = (he) got drunk honey gold.