Public Engagement
PI Diweg-Pukanec supported Prof. Kačala’s publication at the Ministry of Culture
On October 13, 2025, at the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic, Professor Martin Diweg-Pukanec, Principal Investigator of the project OXYMORAL, highlighted the scientific contribution and conceptual coherence of Prof. Ján Kačala’s monograph Skladba slovenského jazyka [Syntax of the Slovak Language]. PI of the project stated in the discussion that the monograph represents a synthesis of the author’s lifelong syntactic and sentence meaning research, which has significantly influenced the development of Slovak syntax.
Prof. Diweg-Pukanec also presented a concluding excerpt from a review by Prof. Ľubomír Kralčák, which was part of the publishing documentation for the monograph. The quoted conclusion of the review emphasized that the work Skladba slovenského jazyka represents a qualitative shift in the syntactic description of the Slovak language and, in terms of its theoretical and practical value, it is fully justified to include it among the codification publications of contemporary standard Slovak.
Prof. Diweg-Pukanec supported the proposal to include Prof. Kačala’s book among the codification publications and emphasized that the work can be seen as the result of the developmental continuity of Slovak linguistics, combining traditional codification approaches with modern interpretations of the language system, especially syntactic semantics. Immediately after the OXYMORAL PI’s fundamental contribution to the discussion, a vote was taken. Based on the results of the vote, Prof. Ján Kačala’s work Skladba slovenského jazyka (Matica slovenská, 2025) was recommended to the Minister of Culture for being listed among the current codification publications of the standard Slovak language.
PI Diweg-Pukanec in the film about the Pope
Professor Martin Diweg-Pukanec, Principal Investigator of the project OXYMORAL, acts as etymologist in Stanislav Piatrik and Maria Piatrikova’s film essay about Pope Francis‘ trip to Slovakia. The film also features František Mikloško (former dissident), Róbert Bezák (archbishop emeritus), Mária Tiňová (clinical psychologist), Richard Duda (chairman of the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities), Daniel Pastirčák (preacher of the Church of the Brethren), Anna Hogenová (philosopher and phenomenologist), Ivan Ružička (secretary of the Slovak Bishops‘ Conference), Monika Hudiová (Roma living in Luník IX), Peter Veselský and Marián Mataťa (Salesians in Luník IX), Jaroslav Václavík and Terézia Gondová (volunteers in the Bethlehem Centre), Pavol Demeš (analyst of foreign policy relations), President of the Slovak Republic Zuzana Čaputová and, of course, Pope Francis.
On December 12, 2024, at the premiere of the Slovak film Návšteva (The Visit), which was for invited guests, the PI of the project Oxymoral, Prof. Diweg-Pukanec, had the unique opportunity to promote the project Inverted Morality: Reversed Semantics in Old Church Slavic Moral Words as part of the explanation of his etymologies. This was further enhanced by the fact that the film names the challenges for an authentic and at the same time more harmonious coexistence of different cultures in one society. As Pope Francis has repeatedly expressed, the film points to the need to create a society where no one is to be left on the margins, and wants to contribute to a greater openness of all people.