Abstract:
This paper deals with some pragmatic aspects of so called mental lexicon and the word’s usage in social context. It is focused mostly on the semantic changes as a diachronic process, and not on scientific etymologies. It is well known that folk etymology is based on conceptual and sound analogies; however, the question how an individual creative process (often unconscious) spreads to a larger social context, remains open: it is a challenge for socio- and lexico-pragmatic research. The article presents only selected examples for illustration of lexical competence and language-in-use. Hypotheses expressed here are far from empirical proofs at this stage. A definition of a new term is introduced – folk disambiguation as a reciprocal phenomenon versus folk etymology.
