The Development of Slovene Ontological Terminology through the End of the 19th Century

Abstract

The paper analyzes the development of Slovene ontological terminology from the earliest period to the end of the nineteenth century. The analysis is focused on the core ontological terms: podstat "substance", bitje "being in the nominal sense", bistvo "essence", bitnost "entity", bit "being in the verbal sense". The analysis shows that the period of the Counter-Reformation was a particularly creative phase of this development, while the basic ontological terms stan, bitje) were conceived in the Protestant period. Essential contributions to this genesis are also the dictionaries by Valentin Vodnik and Matej Cigale.