The aim of this paper is to conduct a diachronic analysis of the Polish word rżysko ‘stubble’, whose root retains the primary designation of rye, namely reż ‘rye, obs.’. Although this noun was ousted by żyto ‘rye’, a derivative of the verb żyć ‘to live’, its cognates are still used in many Slavic and Germanic languages, e.g. Russian rožь (рожь) ‘rye’, and English rye. The paper presents other cognates with a view to contrasting the English word rye with its obsolete Polish cognate reż and understanding the evolution of both words. For this purpose, the study seeks to identify the sound changes responsible for the discrepancy between the Polish-English cognates which developed from *rughi-. The derivative rżysko ‘stubble’ has been analysed in the context of other nomina loci as well as the semantic change which affected the word. It is suggested that the phenomenon exemplifi ed by rżysko can be referred to as a root archaism.

Weak verbs in Modern English are sometimes mistakenly identifi ed with regular verbs. Although most weak verbs are indeed regular, there remain some which belong to the irregular group, for example spend, put, make, burn. Apart from drawing a clearer distinction between strong and weak verbs in relation to the regular and irregular division, the aim of this paper is to explain where the irregularity of these irregular weak verbs comes from and to gather possible relicts still present in Modern English. The paper discusses 56 such irregular weak verbs without vowel alternations and 9 archaisms preserving traces of such infl ection. The 56 irregular weak verbs are divided into groups according to the patterns they display and they are additionally marked depend-ing on whether: (1) they have less common irregular preterite and past participle forms, which can be labelled as “literary”or“poetic,” (2) they are literary themselves, (3) they have irregular preterite and past participle forms chiefl y in North American English, (4) they have regular variants. The initial plan included all irregular verbs but the extent of the problem coupled with the editorial limitations as to the size of the paper led to the following decisions: first, to exclude the irregular strong verbs and save them for later analyses, and then, in the remaining irregular weak ones, to remove all those with vowel alternations (like keep, seek, lose, say) and to concentrate on the verbs without vowel alternations (investigated in the present paper). It is hoped that the aims of this paper as well as their realization can serve to make the content of the historical grammar course more meaningful to students by linking it to the problems present in Modern English and to the why-questions related to the subject of their studies.

The focus of the paper is the historical comparison of E fist and P pięść from the perspective of diachronic phonology. The paper specifically addresses the issue of the phonological development of this pair of cognates. The main aim is to explain the relatedness and differentiations of the modern reflexes of the original Proto-Indo-European roots and to account for their different phonological developments in both languages with a view to understanding the connection between the contemporary cognates. These aims are realised by means of searching for sound changes that explain the discrepancy in the phonological shapes of modern cognates and collecting other pairs of cognates that demonstrate the effect of theses sound changes. As the result of the historical and comparative analysis, it is argued that some of the Proto-Germanic reconstructions are more likely than others and in conclusion the most probable development of the two cognates is outlined in the chronological order. It is remarkable that the cognates of the compounds pięść / fist are to be found almost exclusively in Slavic and Germanic and the effect of their development resembles blending.