Miły Sowietniku, szary Kocie, zielona Żabko, kochana Betsy…, czyli jak Henryk Sienkiewicz zwracał się w listach do Jadwigi Janczewskiej

Abstract

The paper discusses forms used by Henryk Sienkiewicz to address his sister-in-law, Jadwiga Janczewska, in his letters from 1879–1916. A special bond between the writer and the addressee (family-based, friendly, full of warmth and manly adoration), as well as the literary talent and linguistic creativity were reflected in the abundance and diversity of addressative expressions used by Henryk Sienkiewicz (about 200 lexical units). The basic group consists of unofficial (diminutive, hypocoristic and augmentative) forms of the addressee’s name, such as Dzinka, Dzinia, Dzidek, Dziduś, Dzid. The second, more numerous, group comprises affectonyms, that is intimate names, which generally are motivated by addressee’s physical or mental features, e.g. Żaba, Mgła, Kot, stworzenie, dziecko, figurka, hadziuś. The writer used some affectonyms in multiple phonetic and morphological variants, e.g. Żaba, Żabka, Żabeczka, Żabeusz, Ziaba.