Park – a Lexeme and a Concept

Abstract

The lexeme park should be characterized as an international word. While examining its form and semantics, it is necessary to make references to other languages, primarily to Indo-European ones. A Latin source is pointed out by Jaqueline Picoche – the word parc is derived from Lat. parrĭcus, registered in the 8th century, which was a derivative of the pre-Latin *parra ‘pole, rod’. In this case it is worth asking the following question: what is the source of the root of the word park in the Indo-European Latin language? The form of the word makes us suspect that it is a borrowing from a Semitic language, most likely Arabic. In the Arabic language قرف FRQ carries the meaning ‘to separate, to set apart’, and further nominal formations which are derived from it include farq – ‘separation, division’ and firq ‘part, division; group, herd, set’. The development of the present meaning of the word park represents a broader array of issues associated with the semantic shift. The observation of the lexical material, not only of Polish material, demonstrates the following direction: ‘enclosure → ‘an enclosed (closed) area’ → ‘an area which is not necessarily enclosed’. Such a regularity is observed also in the Old French jardin, in the English garden, in the Slavic words gród (Ch. hrad, Russ. город, OCS гродъ etc.); ogród (ob-gród), kraj (‘end, limit’ → ‘an area within some boundaries’). Today the meaning park ‘garden’, which is a link in the semantic chain, occupies the first place; other meanings are secondary, and the original ‘enclosure’ has become obsolete.