Prepositions na ≈ ‘on’, w ≈ ‘in’, and do ≈ ‘to’ in front of names of states, lands and regions: Historical usage and variation in contemporary norms

Abstract

The article presents historical changes of prepositions preceding names of states, countries, and regions in Polish. The main focus of contemporary discussion is the choice of prepositions with names of Poland’s eastern neighbours. According to dictionaries and gram‑ mars, the names Ukraina, Białoruś, and Litwa require the preposition na instead of the locative w and the adlative do, which are typical for the vast majority of land names, except for islands and peninsulas. Examination of historical corpora since the 17th century shows that the preposition na proliferated in reference to regions which belonged to the same country. Despite this tendency, before the 19th century, the preposition most frequently used with the names Litwa and Ukraina were the locative w and the adlative do. This traditional use in the past, typical colocations of na with regions rather than independent states, an animated discussion in the media, and the fluctuation of norms attested to in dictionaries from the last century – all these factors weigh in favour of admitting both prepositional patterns – na and w/do – with the names of Poland’s eastern neighbours.