18th CENTURY ONE-WORD ECCLESTIASTICAL TERMS IN THE DIACHRONIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In this paper we deal with a great number of familiar, but also outdated Croatian ecclesiastical terms that were used throughout the history. The terms were excerpted from a representative corpus of catechisms in the Croatian language printed in the 18th century.
The chosen corpus of catechisms comprises printed texts by respectable and influential Croatian authors, written in the period from the beginning until the end of the 18th century, which were widely read on the territory of Croatia. The authors were born in different parts of Croatia – in Slavonia, Zagorje and Dalmatia – but they used and consciously chose a similar literary-linguistic stylization. The catechisms were written during the period when Croatian counties were ruled by different political and administrative authorities. In this paper the catechisms are seen as textbook literature for Catholic catechism where the literary style is dominated by the scientific style. In order to demonstrate the usage norm in catechisms from the 18th century we follow the development of the excerpted ecclesiastical terms from the diachronic perspective. The accompanying table displays their usage from the diachronic perspective.
Certain variations among the examples provided in the text were also noted. The comparative analysis of the terms and of the meanings of the historical and contemporary terms enables us to identify the particularities in the semantic relations of ecclesiastical terms. The semantic structure of ecclesiastical terms indicates that their use in the 18th century was functional, but also that certain differences existed. Ecclesiastical terms are divided into five groups on the basis of the characteristic properties of form and meaning: terms the meanings of which have not changed over time, terms the meanings of which are different from their original meanings, terms the meanings of which have been broadened or narrowed, terms that are no longer terms, and terms that have become historicisms.