Studies in Polish Linguistics
Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL) focuses on linguistic theory as well as theory-informed descriptive work, especially empirically oriented studies of Polish and Slavic languages.
See issues
Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL) focuses on linguistic theory as well as theory-informed descriptive work, especially empirically oriented studies of Polish and Slavic languages.
See issues
Description
The journal offers articles devoted to a variety of topics such as phonology, morphology, morphonology, syntax, morphosyntax, semantics, pragmatics, information structure, linguistic stylistics, phraseology, discourse analysis, lexicology and lexicography, language contact, language typology, generative linguistics, cognitive linguistics, quantitative linguistics, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and translation studies.
ISSN: 1732-8160
eISSN: 2300-5920
MNiSW points: 70
UIC ID: 26621
DOI: 10.4467/23005920SPL
Editorial team
Affiliation
Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Publication date: 2024
This publication was supported by a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Excellence Initiative – Research University programme at the Jagiellonian University.
Marcin R. Dadan
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Volume 19 (2024), pp. 1-36
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.24.001.19742Morphosyntactic marking connected with the Middle contexts, broadly speaking expressing the involvement and affectedness of the subject (Cotticelli Kurras and Rizza 2013, Inglese 2020), tends to give rise to characteristic Voice syncretism, i.e., the appearance of different readings, e.g., inherently reflexive, anticausatives, antipassive, etc., which are argued to occur via allosemy at LF (Arad 2003, 2005; Marantz 2013a, 2013b; Wood 2015, 2016; Wood and Marantz 2017; Oikonomou and Alexiadou 2022).1 Looking at reflexiva tantum (RT), i.e., predicates with reflexive clitic się (SE) without any non-się marked counterparts, this paper claims that in a language like Polish, where the Middle readings are not expressed by non-active/mediopassive synthetic morphology, this class of contexts does not have to be related to one specification of the Voice, but since it depends on the reflexive SE-clitic, the syntax of the Middle encompasses all the contexts that license the insertion of this element. Only a subset of the syncretic readings in Polish arises as post-syntactic allosemy, and unergative and unaccusative SE-reflexives differ with regards to the base-generation of the nominative-marked subject. Importantly, agentive readings involve the agentive Voice with the NP argument merged in its specifier. Polish reflexiva tantum are discussed in cross-linguistic contexts of other non-alternating predicates, i.e., media tantum and deponents, and it is shown that they cover the same semantic spectrum, but differ in the syntax, especially in their active and agentive readings. It is shown that the idiosyncratic and omplex nature of reflexive tantum is reflected in its potential to create idiomatic extensions, which arise due to both overt syntax and post-spellout allosemy.
Jolanta Latkowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Volume 19 (2024), pp. 37-60
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.24.002.19743This study examines the temporal architecture of Polish film retellings within the research framework developed by Christiane von Stutterheim and colleagues, who identified grammaticalized progressive and imperfective aspects as powerful agents capable of influencing event construal, and through it, the organisation of discourse. Based on this finding, the study explores 30 offline film retellings to find out whether their narrative structure reflects the patterns attributed to the influence of a grammaticalised imperfective (IMPF). The results show that narrators consistently build the storyline using the present tense and the IMPF. In Polish, present tense verb forms encode the IMPF predominantly in the stem or in a grammaticalised secondary imperfective (SI) marker. As revealed by the study, the SI is used rather sparingly in the retellings. Another feature of note is a scarcity of connectives, found to coincide with the presence of grammaticalised imperfective markers in the languages examined under the framework. The study concludes that, due to low usage rates for the SI, there is not sufficient evidence to support the existence of a causal relationship between the grammaticalisation of the IMPF and narrative frames in Polish, and points to a formative role of discourse mode dynamics in shaping temporal progression.
Marcin R. Dadan
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Volume 19 (2024), pp. 1-36
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.24.001.19742Morphosyntactic marking connected with the Middle contexts, broadly speaking expressing the involvement and affectedness of the subject (Cotticelli Kurras and Rizza 2013, Inglese 2020), tends to give rise to characteristic Voice syncretism, i.e., the appearance of different readings, e.g., inherently reflexive, anticausatives, antipassive, etc., which are argued to occur via allosemy at LF (Arad 2003, 2005; Marantz 2013a, 2013b; Wood 2015, 2016; Wood and Marantz 2017; Oikonomou and Alexiadou 2022).1 Looking at reflexiva tantum (RT), i.e., predicates with reflexive clitic się (SE) without any non-się marked counterparts, this paper claims that in a language like Polish, where the Middle readings are not expressed by non-active/mediopassive synthetic morphology, this class of contexts does not have to be related to one specification of the Voice, but since it depends on the reflexive SE-clitic, the syntax of the Middle encompasses all the contexts that license the insertion of this element. Only a subset of the syncretic readings in Polish arises as post-syntactic allosemy, and unergative and unaccusative SE-reflexives differ with regards to the base-generation of the nominative-marked subject. Importantly, agentive readings involve the agentive Voice with the NP argument merged in its specifier. Polish reflexiva tantum are discussed in cross-linguistic contexts of other non-alternating predicates, i.e., media tantum and deponents, and it is shown that they cover the same semantic spectrum, but differ in the syntax, especially in their active and agentive readings. It is shown that the idiosyncratic and omplex nature of reflexive tantum is reflected in its potential to create idiomatic extensions, which arise due to both overt syntax and post-spellout allosemy.
Jolanta Latkowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 1, Volume 19 (2024), pp. 37-60
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.24.002.19743This study examines the temporal architecture of Polish film retellings within the research framework developed by Christiane von Stutterheim and colleagues, who identified grammaticalized progressive and imperfective aspects as powerful agents capable of influencing event construal, and through it, the organisation of discourse. Based on this finding, the study explores 30 offline film retellings to find out whether their narrative structure reflects the patterns attributed to the influence of a grammaticalised imperfective (IMPF). The results show that narrators consistently build the storyline using the present tense and the IMPF. In Polish, present tense verb forms encode the IMPF predominantly in the stem or in a grammaticalised secondary imperfective (SI) marker. As revealed by the study, the SI is used rather sparingly in the retellings. Another feature of note is a scarcity of connectives, found to coincide with the presence of grammaticalised imperfective markers in the languages examined under the framework. The study concludes that, due to low usage rates for the SI, there is not sufficient evidence to support the existence of a causal relationship between the grammaticalisation of the IMPF and narrative frames in Polish, and points to a formative role of discourse mode dynamics in shaping temporal progression.
Editor-in-Chief : Magdalena Szczyrbak
Deputy Editor-in-Chief:
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
This publication was supported by a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Excellence Initiative – Research University programme at the Jagiellonian University.
Eugeniusz Cyran
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 3, Early Access
Izabela Duraj-Nowosielska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 3, Early Access
Eugeniusz Cyran
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 3, Early Access
Izabela Duraj-Nowosielska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 3, Early Access
Editor-in-Chief : Magdalena Szczyrbak
Deputy Editor-in-Chief:
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
This publication was supported by a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Excellence Initiative – Research University programme at the Jagiellonian University.
Eugeniusz Cyran
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Early Access
Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Early Access
Eugeniusz Cyran
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Early Access
Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 19, Issue 2, Early Access
Publication date: 2023
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Magdalena Pastuch
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 4, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 145-167
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.007.18682The article demonstrates the importance of subjectification processes in shaping the metatextual layer of language. Using three lexical units (prawda ‘true, right’, pewnie ‘sure, certainly’ and szalenie ‘extremely, madly’) as examples, the author shows how the enrichment of their semantic structure with a subjective component led to the emergence of new propositional functions and ultimately to the establishment of a new meaning. The study is conducted diachronically, drawing on the oldest attestations of the lexemes in question. Based on a contextual analysis, the moment the meanings with a subjective component appeared is identified. The results unequivocally demonstrate that subjectification has its origin in the pragmatic domain, while its consequences are visible on the semantic level. The language material comes from both lexicographic sources and corpora. The analysis shows that subjectification is correlated with formal changes including loss of inflectional endings, loss of morphological properties, recategorization, and syntactic isolation. The paper provides evidence for the need for in-depth comparative diachronic research on subjectification.
Sebastian Wasak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 4, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 169-192
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.008.18683In Polish, passive potential adjectives are productively formed by means of attaching the suffix -alny to transitive verbs (Szymanek 2010). They have been shown to project the external argument of their verbs, as well as being able to co-occur with agentive przez-phrases and instrumental phrases (Bloch-Trojnar 2019). Hence, under a syntactic approach to word formation such as Distributed Morphology, they are derived via outer affixation, with their structure containing the vP and VoiceP heads. A small subset of Polish passive potential adjectives are derived with affixes other than -alny. These include czytelny ‘legible, readable, understandable’, strawny ‘digestible’ and zrozumiały ‘understandable, comprehensible’. In this paper, it is demonstrated that while these adjectives behave similarly to -alny adjectives in terms of licensing Voice-related modifiers, they are excluded from a wide range of verbal contexts available to regularly derived passive potential adjectives. As such, czytelny, strawny and zrozumiały offer evidence for the claim that the layer that introduces event implications is distinct from the verbal head that triggers spell-out. Specifically, adjectives such as czytelny, strawny and zrozumiały can be argued to contain the little v head, but not the cyclic vP projection, which is in line with the architecture of grammar as proposed by Embick (2010).
Magdalena Pastuch
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 4, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 145-167
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.007.18682The article demonstrates the importance of subjectification processes in shaping the metatextual layer of language. Using three lexical units (prawda ‘true, right’, pewnie ‘sure, certainly’ and szalenie ‘extremely, madly’) as examples, the author shows how the enrichment of their semantic structure with a subjective component led to the emergence of new propositional functions and ultimately to the establishment of a new meaning. The study is conducted diachronically, drawing on the oldest attestations of the lexemes in question. Based on a contextual analysis, the moment the meanings with a subjective component appeared is identified. The results unequivocally demonstrate that subjectification has its origin in the pragmatic domain, while its consequences are visible on the semantic level. The language material comes from both lexicographic sources and corpora. The analysis shows that subjectification is correlated with formal changes including loss of inflectional endings, loss of morphological properties, recategorization, and syntactic isolation. The paper provides evidence for the need for in-depth comparative diachronic research on subjectification.
Sebastian Wasak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 4, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 169-192
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.008.18683In Polish, passive potential adjectives are productively formed by means of attaching the suffix -alny to transitive verbs (Szymanek 2010). They have been shown to project the external argument of their verbs, as well as being able to co-occur with agentive przez-phrases and instrumental phrases (Bloch-Trojnar 2019). Hence, under a syntactic approach to word formation such as Distributed Morphology, they are derived via outer affixation, with their structure containing the vP and VoiceP heads. A small subset of Polish passive potential adjectives are derived with affixes other than -alny. These include czytelny ‘legible, readable, understandable’, strawny ‘digestible’ and zrozumiały ‘understandable, comprehensible’. In this paper, it is demonstrated that while these adjectives behave similarly to -alny adjectives in terms of licensing Voice-related modifiers, they are excluded from a wide range of verbal contexts available to regularly derived passive potential adjectives. As such, czytelny, strawny and zrozumiały offer evidence for the claim that the layer that introduces event implications is distinct from the verbal head that triggers spell-out. Specifically, adjectives such as czytelny, strawny and zrozumiały can be argued to contain the little v head, but not the cyclic vP projection, which is in line with the architecture of grammar as proposed by Embick (2010).
Publication date: 2023
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Željko Bošković
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 85-95
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.005.18680The paper presents a unified account of a number of superficially very different cases from Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, German, and Dutch where a phonologically weak element is stranded without a host. It proposes a new typology regarding when a phonologically weak element can be stranded where adjacency to a prosodic boundary is necessary for such stranding, with parametrization regarding the strength of the prosodic boundary: it can be an utterance boundary (║) or an intonational-phrase boundary (#), or either║or # (in the last case, both boundaries can license the stranding). Furthermore, the difference in the direction of adjacency to the prosodic boundary mirrors the difference in the adjacency to the host: if the relevant element is a prefix/proclitic, both the host and the prosodic boundary follow it, if it is an enclitic/suffix, they both precede it.
Bartosz Wiland
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 97-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.006.18681The paper investigates the morphosyntax of Polish synthetic comparative adjectives and adverbs. It is argued that we can predict the distribution of different classes of adjectival roots and suffixes if we adopt the idea that both types of morphemes lexicalize syntactic constituents, the central tenet of Nanosyntax. The paper makes a case for two central claims. One is that the syn-sem properties of adjectives can be described with a finegrained syntactic sequence proposed for Slovak in Vanden Wyngaerd et al. (2020). The other one is that the lexical properties of Polish gradable adverbs follow from the syntactic representation of the adverb as properly containing the syntactic representation of the adjective.
Željko Bošković
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 85-95
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.005.18680The paper presents a unified account of a number of superficially very different cases from Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, German, and Dutch where a phonologically weak element is stranded without a host. It proposes a new typology regarding when a phonologically weak element can be stranded where adjacency to a prosodic boundary is necessary for such stranding, with parametrization regarding the strength of the prosodic boundary: it can be an utterance boundary (║) or an intonational-phrase boundary (#), or either║or # (in the last case, both boundaries can license the stranding). Furthermore, the difference in the direction of adjacency to the prosodic boundary mirrors the difference in the adjacency to the host: if the relevant element is a prefix/proclitic, both the host and the prosodic boundary follow it, if it is an enclitic/suffix, they both precede it.
Bartosz Wiland
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 3, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 97-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.006.18681The paper investigates the morphosyntax of Polish synthetic comparative adjectives and adverbs. It is argued that we can predict the distribution of different classes of adjectival roots and suffixes if we adopt the idea that both types of morphemes lexicalize syntactic constituents, the central tenet of Nanosyntax. The paper makes a case for two central claims. One is that the syn-sem properties of adjectives can be described with a finegrained syntactic sequence proposed for Slovak in Vanden Wyngaerd et al. (2020). The other one is that the lexical properties of Polish gradable adverbs follow from the syntactic representation of the adverb as properly containing the syntactic representation of the adjective.
Publication date: 06.2023
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Krystyna Kleszczowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 2, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 55-67
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.003.18044Paulina Polak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 2, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 69-84
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.004.18045This paper focuses on the use of diminutives in Polish to express irony. The phenomenon is analyzed from the perspective of morphopragmatics (Dressler, Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Merlini Barbaresi 2015; Nagórko 2015) and reports on the results of a small-scale informant-based study, in which twelve respondents described their evaluation of the pragmatic meaning contributed by diminutives in three naturally-occurring spoken sentences. In most cases, there was a negative reaction to the diminutives as it was considered they represent an arrogant type of irony.
Krystyna Kleszczowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 2, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 55-67
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.003.18044Paulina Polak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 2, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 69-84
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.004.18045This paper focuses on the use of diminutives in Polish to express irony. The phenomenon is analyzed from the perspective of morphopragmatics (Dressler, Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Merlini Barbaresi 2015; Nagórko 2015) and reports on the results of a small-scale informant-based study, in which twelve respondents described their evaluation of the pragmatic meaning contributed by diminutives in three naturally-occurring spoken sentences. In most cases, there was a negative reaction to the diminutives as it was considered they represent an arrogant type of irony.
Publication date: 01.08.2023
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Agnieszka Cierpich-Kozieł, Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 1-23
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.001.17852In recent decades, Polish has experienced an unprecedented influx of English-sourced borrowings, both overt (loanwords) and covert (calques). This linguistic influence echoes the social, technological, environmental and ideological transformations, with these changes reflected in the Polish lexicon. The paper describes a lexicographic project aimed at updating the Słownik zapożyczeń angielskich w polszczyźnie (A Dictionary of Anglicisms in Polish) that was published in 2010. We discuss the theoretical assumptions, the content and the sources of the data for a new, corpus-based dictionary that is in the making, and illustrate the lexicographic solutions we adopted with regard to both well-established and the most recent direct and indirect Anglicisms. We also address the issue of the frequency and the usage of the latter in present-day Polish.
Magdalena Szczyrbak, Anna Tereszkiewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 25-54
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.002.17853This paper examines the ways in which New Zealand and Polish government officials communicated the easing of COVID restrictions to the general public. The study aimed to identify legitimising strategies used to justify the lifting of restrictions and related measures, and to establish how agency and responsibility were discursively constructed in the subgenre of political press conference in two different socio-political settings. Informed by the notions of legitimisation (Chilton 2004), speaker commitment and stance (Marín Arrese 2011, 2015, 2021), the research looked into the linguistic marking of effective stance (deonticity, assessments, attitudinals and directives) and epistemic stance (epistemic modality, truth-factual validity as well as experiential, cognitive and communicative stance), considering both the subjectivity/intersubjectivity dimension and the explicitness/implicitness of the speaker’s role. In addition, the study considered the key discursive strategies used to (de)construct agency in the discourses of NZ and Polish policymakers seen as proponents of divergent public health policies. As the findings indicate, the Polish officials conveyed chiefly experiential stance and projected less involvement, whereas the NZ Prime Minister favoured cognitive stance and deonticity as well as direct appeals to the audience. The analysis shows that the speaker’s (dis)identification with the respective policy finds reflection in the varying degrees of speaker commitment and the (de)construction of agency.
Agnieszka Cierpich-Kozieł, Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 1-23
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.001.17852In recent decades, Polish has experienced an unprecedented influx of English-sourced borrowings, both overt (loanwords) and covert (calques). This linguistic influence echoes the social, technological, environmental and ideological transformations, with these changes reflected in the Polish lexicon. The paper describes a lexicographic project aimed at updating the Słownik zapożyczeń angielskich w polszczyźnie (A Dictionary of Anglicisms in Polish) that was published in 2010. We discuss the theoretical assumptions, the content and the sources of the data for a new, corpus-based dictionary that is in the making, and illustrate the lexicographic solutions we adopted with regard to both well-established and the most recent direct and indirect Anglicisms. We also address the issue of the frequency and the usage of the latter in present-day Polish.
Magdalena Szczyrbak, Anna Tereszkiewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 18, Issue 1, Volume 18 (2023), pp. 25-54
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.23.002.17853This paper examines the ways in which New Zealand and Polish government officials communicated the easing of COVID restrictions to the general public. The study aimed to identify legitimising strategies used to justify the lifting of restrictions and related measures, and to establish how agency and responsibility were discursively constructed in the subgenre of political press conference in two different socio-political settings. Informed by the notions of legitimisation (Chilton 2004), speaker commitment and stance (Marín Arrese 2011, 2015, 2021), the research looked into the linguistic marking of effective stance (deonticity, assessments, attitudinals and directives) and epistemic stance (epistemic modality, truth-factual validity as well as experiential, cognitive and communicative stance), considering both the subjectivity/intersubjectivity dimension and the explicitness/implicitness of the speaker’s role. In addition, the study considered the key discursive strategies used to (de)construct agency in the discourses of NZ and Polish policymakers seen as proponents of divergent public health policies. As the findings indicate, the Polish officials conveyed chiefly experiential stance and projected less involvement, whereas the NZ Prime Minister favoured cognitive stance and deonticity as well as direct appeals to the audience. The analysis shows that the speaker’s (dis)identification with the respective policy finds reflection in the varying degrees of speaker commitment and the (de)construction of agency.
Publication date: 31.03.2023
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Ewelina Mokrosz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 4, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 145-176
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.007.17645In this paper we show that there are different topic dislocations in Polish, each representing a specific type of a discourse function. With a battery of diagnostic tests we analyse each dislocation and propose their classification. As it turns out, constructions implementing a contrastive topic exhibit features of both A and A’-movement, which turns out problematic for a uniform analysis. We demonstrate that the movement in them is non-quantificational. The movement targeting TopP consists of at least two steps. An object undergoes A-movement and lands in the specifier of an Aboutness Phrase. Then it moves to SpecTopP where it checks a discourse feature.
Sławomir Zdziebko
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 4, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 177-216
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.008.17646The paper proposes that the phonological make-up of segments is influenced by the activity of the constraint *Hydra, which penalizes the presence of more than one headed element per one phonological expression. *Hydra influences the shape of the inventories and the phonological behaviour of nasal vowels in languages such as French and Brazilian Portuguese. At the same time, the behaviour of nasal vowels in Yoruba shows that *Hydra a violable constraint. In Polish, the high ranking of *Hydra proves necessary to account for the absence of Surface Velar Palatalization before the front nasal vowel /ɛ/. It also allows us to formulate a unified account of the 1st Velar and Anterior Palatalization, which have very different structural descriptions but take place before the same set of derivational affixes.
Ewelina Mokrosz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 4, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 145-176
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.007.17645In this paper we show that there are different topic dislocations in Polish, each representing a specific type of a discourse function. With a battery of diagnostic tests we analyse each dislocation and propose their classification. As it turns out, constructions implementing a contrastive topic exhibit features of both A and A’-movement, which turns out problematic for a uniform analysis. We demonstrate that the movement in them is non-quantificational. The movement targeting TopP consists of at least two steps. An object undergoes A-movement and lands in the specifier of an Aboutness Phrase. Then it moves to SpecTopP where it checks a discourse feature.
Sławomir Zdziebko
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 4, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 177-216
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.008.17646The paper proposes that the phonological make-up of segments is influenced by the activity of the constraint *Hydra, which penalizes the presence of more than one headed element per one phonological expression. *Hydra influences the shape of the inventories and the phonological behaviour of nasal vowels in languages such as French and Brazilian Portuguese. At the same time, the behaviour of nasal vowels in Yoruba shows that *Hydra a violable constraint. In Polish, the high ranking of *Hydra proves necessary to account for the absence of Surface Velar Palatalization before the front nasal vowel /ɛ/. It also allows us to formulate a unified account of the 1st Velar and Anterior Palatalization, which have very different structural descriptions but take place before the same set of derivational affixes.
Publication date: 2022
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
The publication of volumes 17 and 18 was financed by a grant from the Priority Research Area and a grant from the Faculty of Philology under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.
Magdalena Charzyńska-Wójcik, Jolanta Klimek-Grądzka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 93-114
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.005.16731The objective of this paper is to bring to light an important early 16th-century Polish rendition of the Psalter, Żołtarz Dawidów, translated by Walenty Wróbel and prepared for print by Andrzej Glaber. We argue that in spite of its unique position in the line of Psalter translations into Polish, the Żołtarz has not received a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment. While some detailed issues have been diligently addressed by individual scholars, research on the Żołtarz has generally been overshadowed by Brückner’s (1902) pioneering study, to the extent that one of its two surviving manuscript copies has not received official recognition in the scholarly literature. In particular, alongside the Kórnik manuscript (from 1528) described by Brückner, there exists another 16th-century exemplar (1536), which has been in the possession of the Jagiellonian Library since 1928. Its rediscovery by the authors of the present paper has two important consequences. First of all, the Jagiellonian Żołtarz should become an object of study in its own right. Secondly, its existence requires a re-assessment of the current state of knowledge on the Żołtarz in the light of the data it contains.
Magdalena Danielewiczowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 115-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.006.16732The article seeks to determine the status of adverbial superlative forms which do not ex- press the superlative and which thus fall outside the degree system in contemporary Pol- ish. Some of these expressions have become lexicalized and have entered two classes of units: particles (e.g., najpewniej ‘surely’, najwidoczniej ‘apparently’, najwyraźniej ‘clear- ly’) and adverbial meta-predicates (e.g., najspokojniej ‘calmly’, najzwyczajniej ‘simply’, najlepiej ‘the best’). Others have become elements of idiomatic expressions or performa- tives such as, e.g. najmocniej przepraszam ‘I sincerely apologize’, najserdeczniej witam ‘I cordially welcome (you)’, najuprzejmiej dziękuję ‘I kindly thank (you)’, najgoręcej namawiam ‘I highly recommend’. However, there are also superlative forms which act as the domain of several interesting operations, see, e.g., Bogusławski (1978, 1987, 2010a), the latter being of a grammatical, rather than lexical nature. One such operation re- sults in the creation of expressions such as jak najszybciej ‘in the quickest possible way’, jak najweselej ‘in the most enjoyable way’, jak najdłużej ‘in the longest possible way’, etc. Another important operation yields such constructions as najpóźniej w środę ‘on Wednesday at the latest’, najdalej 20 kilometrów od centrum ‘at most 20 km away from the centre’, najrzadziej raz do roku ‘at least once a year’, najgrubiej na pół centymetra ‘half a centimeter at the thickest’, etc. Contrary to the view held by Grochowski (2008), it is argued here that the superlatives which occur in these constructions should not be re- garded as independent lexical units. Nor should the metatextual comments such as naj krócej <mówiąc> ‘to put it briefly / briefly put [lit. <speaking> most briefly]’, najogólniej <rzecz biorąc> ‘most generally <speaking>’ be regarded as such, though for a different reason. In these comments, the superlatives – referring to the act of speaking – retain their standard meanings (cf. krótko / krócej <mówiąc> ‘<speaking> succinctly / more succinctly’, ogólnie / ogólniej <rzecz biorąc> ‘generally / more generally <speaking>’). A number of pragmatic effects associated with the use of superlative forms also deserve individual treatment; they include, for instance, metonymic shortcuts (najlepsi ‘the best’ [pl.], najbogatsi ‘the richest’ [pl.]) or conversational implicatures (wypadł nie najgorzej → wypadł całkiem dobrze ‘he did not do so badly / he did not do so bad’ → ‘he did pretty well’).
Magdalena Charzyńska-Wójcik, Jolanta Klimek-Grądzka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 93-114
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.005.16731The objective of this paper is to bring to light an important early 16th-century Polish rendition of the Psalter, Żołtarz Dawidów, translated by Walenty Wróbel and prepared for print by Andrzej Glaber. We argue that in spite of its unique position in the line of Psalter translations into Polish, the Żołtarz has not received a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment. While some detailed issues have been diligently addressed by individual scholars, research on the Żołtarz has generally been overshadowed by Brückner’s (1902) pioneering study, to the extent that one of its two surviving manuscript copies has not received official recognition in the scholarly literature. In particular, alongside the Kórnik manuscript (from 1528) described by Brückner, there exists another 16th-century exemplar (1536), which has been in the possession of the Jagiellonian Library since 1928. Its rediscovery by the authors of the present paper has two important consequences. First of all, the Jagiellonian Żołtarz should become an object of study in its own right. Secondly, its existence requires a re-assessment of the current state of knowledge on the Żołtarz in the light of the data it contains.
Magdalena Danielewiczowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 3, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 115-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.006.16732The article seeks to determine the status of adverbial superlative forms which do not ex- press the superlative and which thus fall outside the degree system in contemporary Pol- ish. Some of these expressions have become lexicalized and have entered two classes of units: particles (e.g., najpewniej ‘surely’, najwidoczniej ‘apparently’, najwyraźniej ‘clear- ly’) and adverbial meta-predicates (e.g., najspokojniej ‘calmly’, najzwyczajniej ‘simply’, najlepiej ‘the best’). Others have become elements of idiomatic expressions or performa- tives such as, e.g. najmocniej przepraszam ‘I sincerely apologize’, najserdeczniej witam ‘I cordially welcome (you)’, najuprzejmiej dziękuję ‘I kindly thank (you)’, najgoręcej namawiam ‘I highly recommend’. However, there are also superlative forms which act as the domain of several interesting operations, see, e.g., Bogusławski (1978, 1987, 2010a), the latter being of a grammatical, rather than lexical nature. One such operation re- sults in the creation of expressions such as jak najszybciej ‘in the quickest possible way’, jak najweselej ‘in the most enjoyable way’, jak najdłużej ‘in the longest possible way’, etc. Another important operation yields such constructions as najpóźniej w środę ‘on Wednesday at the latest’, najdalej 20 kilometrów od centrum ‘at most 20 km away from the centre’, najrzadziej raz do roku ‘at least once a year’, najgrubiej na pół centymetra ‘half a centimeter at the thickest’, etc. Contrary to the view held by Grochowski (2008), it is argued here that the superlatives which occur in these constructions should not be re- garded as independent lexical units. Nor should the metatextual comments such as naj krócej <mówiąc> ‘to put it briefly / briefly put [lit. <speaking> most briefly]’, najogólniej <rzecz biorąc> ‘most generally <speaking>’ be regarded as such, though for a different reason. In these comments, the superlatives – referring to the act of speaking – retain their standard meanings (cf. krótko / krócej <mówiąc> ‘<speaking> succinctly / more succinctly’, ogólnie / ogólniej <rzecz biorąc> ‘generally / more generally <speaking>’). A number of pragmatic effects associated with the use of superlative forms also deserve individual treatment; they include, for instance, metonymic shortcuts (najlepsi ‘the best’ [pl.], najbogatsi ‘the richest’ [pl.]) or conversational implicatures (wypadł nie najgorzej → wypadł całkiem dobrze ‘he did not do so badly / he did not do so bad’ → ‘he did pretty well’).
Publication date: 2022
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
Tom 17 (2022) czasopisma został sfinansowany ze środków Priorytetowego Obszaru Badawczego (Dofinansowanie czasopism w modelu otwartego dostępu OA (edycja 1)) oraz ze środków Wydziału Filologicznego w ramach Programu Strategicznego Inicjatywa Doskonałości w Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska, Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Justyna Wieczorek
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 2, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 55-73
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.003.16380This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data. In the second part, we show that polysemy is not a stable phenomenon and relations between senses may differ across language users. For instance, our fifty-fifty class or borderline cases may be represented differently by different language users depending on their perception of the world, world knowledge, associations. We point to some parameters of variation in the class of polysemy by metonymy and polysemy by metaphor which may affect their sense remoteness and consequently also the way they are represented in the mental lexicon.
Jadwiga Waniakowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 2, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 75-92
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.004.16381The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the tasks and perspectives within contemporary etymological research in Poland. The article begins with a brief outline of the first Slavic etymological dictionaries. Next, contemporary etymological dictionaries in Poland and the contemporary methodology of etymological research are briefly discussed. Then the author refers to the digital breakthrough in etymological research and describes the present-day model of linguistic education in Poland. A sharp decline in the number of specialists in etymology is argued to be a result of the withdrawal of historical-linguistic and historical-comparative subjects in university curricula and the author suggests various ways of encouraging students to study etymology. The article finishes with a discussion of the challenges facing etymologists, including research into the roots of ancient, dialectal, colloquial, and sociolectal vocabulary, as well as the origins of the vocabulary of endangered languages, followed by suggestions for how these can be overcome in the future.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska, Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Justyna Wieczorek
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 2, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 55-73
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.003.16380This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data. In the second part, we show that polysemy is not a stable phenomenon and relations between senses may differ across language users. For instance, our fifty-fifty class or borderline cases may be represented differently by different language users depending on their perception of the world, world knowledge, associations. We point to some parameters of variation in the class of polysemy by metonymy and polysemy by metaphor which may affect their sense remoteness and consequently also the way they are represented in the mental lexicon.
Jadwiga Waniakowa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 2, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 75-92
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.004.16381The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the tasks and perspectives within contemporary etymological research in Poland. The article begins with a brief outline of the first Slavic etymological dictionaries. Next, contemporary etymological dictionaries in Poland and the contemporary methodology of etymological research are briefly discussed. Then the author refers to the digital breakthrough in etymological research and describes the present-day model of linguistic education in Poland. A sharp decline in the number of specialists in etymology is argued to be a result of the withdrawal of historical-linguistic and historical-comparative subjects in university curricula and the author suggests various ways of encouraging students to study etymology. The article finishes with a discussion of the challenges facing etymologists, including research into the roots of ancient, dialectal, colloquial, and sociolectal vocabulary, as well as the origins of the vocabulary of endangered languages, followed by suggestions for how these can be overcome in the future.
Publication date: 2022
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Tom 17 (2022) czasopisma został sfinansowany ze środków Priorytetowego Obszaru Badawczego (Dofinansowanie czasopism w modelu otwartego dostępu OA (edycja 1)) oraz ze środków Wydziału Filologicznego w ramach Programu Strategicznego Inicjatywa Doskonałości w Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim.
Mojmír Dočekal, Hana Strachoňová
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 1-29
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.001.15758This article describes a distributivity pattern in Czech Sign Language. The pattern is signed via a reduplication at the R-loci and resembles the distributivity behavior of the binominal each that is known in spoken languages. Nevertheless, there are important differences between the sign language reduplication and the spoken language distributivity that is seen in the binominal each; the most significant concerns the range of readings available for the sign language reduplication. We describe the data we gathered, and then formalize them in the Plural Compositional Discourse Representation Theory. The formal framework allows us to analyze the data and explain certain questions which arise from them.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska, Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Justyna Wieczorek
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 31-53
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.002.15759This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data.1 In the first part, we equip readers with background knowledge on different psycholinguistic views on polysemy and we introduce the basic spectrum of sense remoteness proposed in earlier literature. We also present the methodology of our research and we report the results of our quantitative study based on a large sample of sense pairs randomly extracted from plWordNet This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data.1 In the first part, we equip readers with background knowledge on different psycholinguistic views on polysemy and we introduce the basic spectrum of sense remoteness proposed in earlier literature. We also present the methodology of our research and we report the results of our quantitative study based on a large sample of sense pairs randomly extracted from plWordNet (Słowosieć) thanks to the resources received from the CLARIN-PL Language Technology Center (the Polish section of the European research infrastructure CLARIN ERIC). We show that the most widely represented polysemy types are nested polysemy, polysemy by metaphor and polysemy by metonymy. The second part proposes an extended spectrum of sense remoteness and presents insights on different types of polysemy included in this spectrum with a special attention paid to nested polysemy.
Mojmír Dočekal, Hana Strachoňová
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 1-29
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.001.15758This article describes a distributivity pattern in Czech Sign Language. The pattern is signed via a reduplication at the R-loci and resembles the distributivity behavior of the binominal each that is known in spoken languages. Nevertheless, there are important differences between the sign language reduplication and the spoken language distributivity that is seen in the binominal each; the most significant concerns the range of readings available for the sign language reduplication. We describe the data we gathered, and then formalize them in the Plural Compositional Discourse Representation Theory. The formal framework allows us to analyze the data and explain certain questions which arise from them.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska, Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Justyna Wieczorek
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Volume 17 (2022), pp. 31-53
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.22.002.15759This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data.1 In the first part, we equip readers with background knowledge on different psycholinguistic views on polysemy and we introduce the basic spectrum of sense remoteness proposed in earlier literature. We also present the methodology of our research and we report the results of our quantitative study based on a large sample of sense pairs randomly extracted from plWordNet This two-part paper bridges insights from psycholinguistics and from theoretical and computational lexicography to develop a fine-grained classification of polysemy organized along a wider spectrum of sense remoteness of ambiguous words in Polish based on the investigation of a large collection of linguistic data.1 In the first part, we equip readers with background knowledge on different psycholinguistic views on polysemy and we introduce the basic spectrum of sense remoteness proposed in earlier literature. We also present the methodology of our research and we report the results of our quantitative study based on a large sample of sense pairs randomly extracted from plWordNet (Słowosieć) thanks to the resources received from the CLARIN-PL Language Technology Center (the Polish section of the European research infrastructure CLARIN ERIC). We show that the most widely represented polysemy types are nested polysemy, polysemy by metaphor and polysemy by metonymy. The second part proposes an extended spectrum of sense remoteness and presents insights on different types of polysemy included in this spectrum with a special attention paid to nested polysemy.
Publication date: 11.2021
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
The publication of this volume was financed by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Faculty of Philology.
Mateusz Urban
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 4, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 187-205
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.009.14677The current study is exploratory in character and aims to investigate the extent to which dialectal features are present in a stylised version of a regional variety of Polish. The focus is on three traditional features of Podhale Goralian that make it markedly different from Standard Polish: the treatment of Middle Polish raised vowels ė ȧ ȯ, prenasal raising and the Podhale archaism. The material analysed comprises a selection of recordings of Józef Tischner’s Historii filozofii po góralsku [A Goral History of Philosophy] performed by himself. The recordings were subjected to acoustic analysis to obtain values of the first two formants of the relevant vowels. An analysis was then conducted with the help of vowel plots created on the basis of the measurements. The conclusions indicate that the traditional features of Podhale Goralian are not always consistently realized in the recordings, which in the majority of cases may be attributed to the influence of Standard Polish.
Bartosz Wiland
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 4, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 207-227
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.010.14678The traditional description of Polish abstract nouns such as lekkość‘ lightness’or jasność ‘brightness’ holds that they are formed with an adjectival root and the nominalizing suffix -ość. The paper considers an alternative analysis where -o-ść is a complex marker and such nominals go through an adverbial stage in their formation, rendering them [[[ A ] Adv ] N ] structures, a possibility suggested by the fact that the -o itself is an adverbial marker.
Mateusz Urban
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 4, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 187-205
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.009.14677The current study is exploratory in character and aims to investigate the extent to which dialectal features are present in a stylised version of a regional variety of Polish. The focus is on three traditional features of Podhale Goralian that make it markedly different from Standard Polish: the treatment of Middle Polish raised vowels ė ȧ ȯ, prenasal raising and the Podhale archaism. The material analysed comprises a selection of recordings of Józef Tischner’s Historii filozofii po góralsku [A Goral History of Philosophy] performed by himself. The recordings were subjected to acoustic analysis to obtain values of the first two formants of the relevant vowels. An analysis was then conducted with the help of vowel plots created on the basis of the measurements. The conclusions indicate that the traditional features of Podhale Goralian are not always consistently realized in the recordings, which in the majority of cases may be attributed to the influence of Standard Polish.
Bartosz Wiland
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 4, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 207-227
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.010.14678The traditional description of Polish abstract nouns such as lekkość‘ lightness’or jasność ‘brightness’ holds that they are formed with an adjectival root and the nominalizing suffix -ość. The paper considers an alternative analysis where -o-ść is a complex marker and such nominals go through an adverbial stage in their formation, rendering them [[[ A ] Adv ] N ] structures, a possibility suggested by the fact that the -o itself is an adverbial marker.
Publication date: 09.2021
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Rafał L. Górski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 145-162
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.007.14261The paper discusses the benefits and shortcomings of modelling a language change with logistic regression, an approach often called the Piotrowski-Altmann law. It is shown with an example of an isolated change, which occurred in Middle Polish, namely barzo > bardzo. The study is based on a historical corpus of Polish consisting of several hundreds of texts with over 12 million running words. Logistic regression based on the entire dataset shows relatively high goodness of fit, still there are some data points, especially close to the end of the process, which are quite far removed from the idealised trajectory. In the article, the author seeks to answer the question: to what extent the quality of the corpus affects the model. An experiment was conducted: a number of texts were randomly removed in order to create a smaller corpus, containing 90%, 75% and 50% of the texts of the entire set. Since such procedure is repeated 200 times, it is possible to compare the distribution of the scores indicating the goodness of fit of the model. It turns out that the smaller the corpus, the more diverse the goodness of fit, and in some rare cases it is even better than its counterpart for a larger corpus. Still the larger the corpus, the scores indicating goodness of fit tend to be higher.
Maria Jodłowiec
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 163-185
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.008.14262The main goal of this paper is to argue that the way explicitly communicated content is approached in leading pragmatic theories is flawed, since it is posited that explicature generation involves pragmatic enrichment of the decoded logical form of the utterance to full propositionality. This kind of enhancement postulated to underlie explicature generation appears to be theoretically inadequate and not to correspond to the psychological reality of utterance interpretation. Drawing on earlier critique of extant pragmatic positions on explicatures, mainly by Borg (2016) and Jary (2016), I add further arguments against modelling explicitly communicated import in the way leading verbal communication frameworks do. It is emphasized that the cognitively plausible theory of communicated meaning is compromised at the cost of theory-internal concerns.
Rafał L. Górski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 145-162
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.007.14261The paper discusses the benefits and shortcomings of modelling a language change with logistic regression, an approach often called the Piotrowski-Altmann law. It is shown with an example of an isolated change, which occurred in Middle Polish, namely barzo > bardzo. The study is based on a historical corpus of Polish consisting of several hundreds of texts with over 12 million running words. Logistic regression based on the entire dataset shows relatively high goodness of fit, still there are some data points, especially close to the end of the process, which are quite far removed from the idealised trajectory. In the article, the author seeks to answer the question: to what extent the quality of the corpus affects the model. An experiment was conducted: a number of texts were randomly removed in order to create a smaller corpus, containing 90%, 75% and 50% of the texts of the entire set. Since such procedure is repeated 200 times, it is possible to compare the distribution of the scores indicating the goodness of fit of the model. It turns out that the smaller the corpus, the more diverse the goodness of fit, and in some rare cases it is even better than its counterpart for a larger corpus. Still the larger the corpus, the scores indicating goodness of fit tend to be higher.
Maria Jodłowiec
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 163-185
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.008.14262The main goal of this paper is to argue that the way explicitly communicated content is approached in leading pragmatic theories is flawed, since it is posited that explicature generation involves pragmatic enrichment of the decoded logical form of the utterance to full propositionality. This kind of enhancement postulated to underlie explicature generation appears to be theoretically inadequate and not to correspond to the psychological reality of utterance interpretation. Drawing on earlier critique of extant pragmatic positions on explicatures, mainly by Borg (2016) and Jary (2016), I add further arguments against modelling explicitly communicated import in the way leading verbal communication frameworks do. It is emphasized that the cognitively plausible theory of communicated meaning is compromised at the cost of theory-internal concerns.
Publication date: 06.2021
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Sylwester Jaworski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 79-97
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.004.13958This paper reports the results of an acoustic study concerned with deletion of intervocalic [w] in contemporary Polish. The data for analysis were obtained by asking twenty monolingual native speakers of Polish, ten males and ten females, to tell the story of a film or a book whose protagonist was female. The results revealed that approximately 25% of the sound combinations in question were reduced phonetically to a vowel geminate. In cases of deletion, the formant trajectories of the examined sound sequences either did not show any signs of the glide or the expected drop in formant frequencies throughout the glide section is so slight that it is rather unlikely to produce an auditory impression of a [w] sound. Importantly, in the analysed recordings, w-dropping affects only the glide elements found in various verb forms, while intervocalic [w] appears to be resistant to deletion in the few cases where the glide constitutes an element of the stem, e.g. in the nouns skała ‘rock’and szkoła ‘school’.
Katarzyna Pawłowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 99-119
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.005.13959The paper aims at demonstrating the creative perlocutionary potential of interdiscursive production and interpretation of conceptual metaphor used in socio-political persuasion, simultaneously interpreted as mental phenomenon and discursive practice that is historically entrenched and highly ideological.
The Critical Metaphor Analysis model is used to investigate the interdiscursive application of two PLAGUE metaphors (COMMUNISM IS A PLAGUE and LGBT IS A PLAGUE) as an example of deliberate transcending of genre boundaries in the increasingly intertextual and interdiscursive world of both socio-political and religious discourses. The empirical part provides a qualitative study of the historical background, structure and persuasive effects of the rainbow plague metaphor (Pol. tęczowa zaraza), publicly used by the Archbishop of Cracow, Marek Jędraszewski, in reference to the LGBT community in Poland, conducted in relation to the original text on which it draws, namely the more historically entrenched red plague (Pol. czerwona zaraza) metaphor made popular by the Polish poet Józef Szczepański in his poem composed during the Warsaw Uprising 1944.
Marta Ruda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 121-144
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.006.13960Pronominal clitics in South Slavic languages have been shown to manifest the strict/sloppy reading ambiguity effect. In this paper I examine Polish object pronouns from this perspective, observing that even though they are not clitics, they can still be compatible with the sloppy interpretation if the right type of context is provided. The data speak against an ellipsis-based approach, aligning with the view that the sloppy reading is not a viable test for ellipsis. I thus pursue an alternative analysis on which the strict and sloppy readings are associated with a structural difference in the composition of the pronoun (PersP vs. NumP respectively), offering along the way additional evidence pointing to the importance of pragmatic distinctions in investigations of the interpretive properties of different types of nominal elements. From a more general point of view, the discussion suggests that the empirical picture related to the sloppy interpretation is highly complex, making an investigation of a broader spectrum of languages and contexts indispensable for disentangling all the relevant factors and developing an optimal theoretical approach.
Sylwester Jaworski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 79-97
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.004.13958This paper reports the results of an acoustic study concerned with deletion of intervocalic [w] in contemporary Polish. The data for analysis were obtained by asking twenty monolingual native speakers of Polish, ten males and ten females, to tell the story of a film or a book whose protagonist was female. The results revealed that approximately 25% of the sound combinations in question were reduced phonetically to a vowel geminate. In cases of deletion, the formant trajectories of the examined sound sequences either did not show any signs of the glide or the expected drop in formant frequencies throughout the glide section is so slight that it is rather unlikely to produce an auditory impression of a [w] sound. Importantly, in the analysed recordings, w-dropping affects only the glide elements found in various verb forms, while intervocalic [w] appears to be resistant to deletion in the few cases where the glide constitutes an element of the stem, e.g. in the nouns skała ‘rock’and szkoła ‘school’.
Katarzyna Pawłowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 99-119
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.005.13959The paper aims at demonstrating the creative perlocutionary potential of interdiscursive production and interpretation of conceptual metaphor used in socio-political persuasion, simultaneously interpreted as mental phenomenon and discursive practice that is historically entrenched and highly ideological.
The Critical Metaphor Analysis model is used to investigate the interdiscursive application of two PLAGUE metaphors (COMMUNISM IS A PLAGUE and LGBT IS A PLAGUE) as an example of deliberate transcending of genre boundaries in the increasingly intertextual and interdiscursive world of both socio-political and religious discourses. The empirical part provides a qualitative study of the historical background, structure and persuasive effects of the rainbow plague metaphor (Pol. tęczowa zaraza), publicly used by the Archbishop of Cracow, Marek Jędraszewski, in reference to the LGBT community in Poland, conducted in relation to the original text on which it draws, namely the more historically entrenched red plague (Pol. czerwona zaraza) metaphor made popular by the Polish poet Józef Szczepański in his poem composed during the Warsaw Uprising 1944.
Marta Ruda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 121-144
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.006.13960Pronominal clitics in South Slavic languages have been shown to manifest the strict/sloppy reading ambiguity effect. In this paper I examine Polish object pronouns from this perspective, observing that even though they are not clitics, they can still be compatible with the sloppy interpretation if the right type of context is provided. The data speak against an ellipsis-based approach, aligning with the view that the sloppy reading is not a viable test for ellipsis. I thus pursue an alternative analysis on which the strict and sloppy readings are associated with a structural difference in the composition of the pronoun (PersP vs. NumP respectively), offering along the way additional evidence pointing to the importance of pragmatic distinctions in investigations of the interpretive properties of different types of nominal elements. From a more general point of view, the discussion suggests that the empirical picture related to the sloppy interpretation is highly complex, making an investigation of a broader spectrum of languages and contexts indispensable for disentangling all the relevant factors and developing an optimal theoretical approach.
Publication date: 03.2021
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Jasmin Hodžić
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 1-21
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.001.13955Contemporary Bosnian normative accentuation shares common features with Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian and Serbo-Croatian standard, and therefore in order to determine precisely which elements of the orthoepic norm are Bosnian, it should be considered above all in its own context. However, due to discrepancies, instabilities, and root variation, the task of establishing the principles of an efficient orthoepic norm remains a difficult one, unless such a solution were to tolerate a wide variety of accentual variants. This paper studies accentual doublets of verbs in the Bosnian standard. To this end, it is particularly important to assume a contrastive-comparative perspective, by evaluating varying usage in the standard languages with a Neo-Štokavian base.
Marta Ruda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 23-40
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.002.13956In this short contribution I suggest that Polish personal pronouns have two available representations: first and second person pronouns are PersPs, whereas third person pronouns are either PersPs or NumPs. This structural difference is responsible for the availability of not only definite, but also indefinite (including unspecific) readings of personal pronouns in Polish, regardless of their morphological complexity (i.e., both full and reduced forms can have different types of interpretations). This follows on the assumption that NumPs can be interpreted as property anaphora.
Ewa Willim
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 41-71
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.003.13957Polish perfective psych verbs are generally analyzed as inceptive predicates denoting the beginning of an emotional state holding of an experiencer. However, a perfective psych verb can also denote an event of gradual scalar change. In this paper, I argue that on the inceptive reading a perfective psych predicate denotes a transition from a state in which
p does not hold to a state in which p holds of an experiencer. In events of gradual change, there is an increase in the degree on the scale of intensity of a given psych state or on the (abstract) extent scale contributed by a verb’s argument. As the internal temporal structure of the events denoted by perfective psych predicates can depend on elements of syntactic context outside the verb, the domain of aspectual composition in Polish is not the verb, pace Rothstein (2020), but VoiceP/vP.
Jasmin Hodžić
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 1-21
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.001.13955Contemporary Bosnian normative accentuation shares common features with Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian and Serbo-Croatian standard, and therefore in order to determine precisely which elements of the orthoepic norm are Bosnian, it should be considered above all in its own context. However, due to discrepancies, instabilities, and root variation, the task of establishing the principles of an efficient orthoepic norm remains a difficult one, unless such a solution were to tolerate a wide variety of accentual variants. This paper studies accentual doublets of verbs in the Bosnian standard. To this end, it is particularly important to assume a contrastive-comparative perspective, by evaluating varying usage in the standard languages with a Neo-Štokavian base.
Marta Ruda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 23-40
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.002.13956In this short contribution I suggest that Polish personal pronouns have two available representations: first and second person pronouns are PersPs, whereas third person pronouns are either PersPs or NumPs. This structural difference is responsible for the availability of not only definite, but also indefinite (including unspecific) readings of personal pronouns in Polish, regardless of their morphological complexity (i.e., both full and reduced forms can have different types of interpretations). This follows on the assumption that NumPs can be interpreted as property anaphora.
Ewa Willim
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 16, Issue 1, Volume 16 (2021), pp. 41-71
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.21.003.13957Polish perfective psych verbs are generally analyzed as inceptive predicates denoting the beginning of an emotional state holding of an experiencer. However, a perfective psych verb can also denote an event of gradual scalar change. In this paper, I argue that on the inceptive reading a perfective psych predicate denotes a transition from a state in which
p does not hold to a state in which p holds of an experiencer. In events of gradual change, there is an increase in the degree on the scale of intensity of a given psych state or on the (abstract) extent scale contributed by a verb’s argument. As the internal temporal structure of the events denoted by perfective psych predicates can depend on elements of syntactic context outside the verb, the domain of aspectual composition in Polish is not the verb, pace Rothstein (2020), but VoiceP/vP.
Publication date: 2020
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
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Anna Malicka-Kleparska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 177-197
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.008.13161In this text we consider properties of stative passive participles corresponding to roz- Object Experiencer verbs in Polish. They are viewed in the light of the distinction between Davidsonian states (Davidson 1967) and Kimian states (Kim 1976). Polish statives with roz- passive participles seem to show features of both Kimian and Davidsonian states. We will consider the results of various tests proposed in the literature to discover the properties of the relevant Polish structures and offer an explanation for the areas in which roz- structures diverge from the characteristics of Kimian states.
Matic Pavlič
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 199-220
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.009.13162The basic sign order in Slovenian Sign Language (SZJ) is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This is shown by analysing non-topicalised or focalised transitive and ditransitive sentences that were elicited from first language SZJ informants using Picture Description Task. The data further reveal that the visual-gestural modality, through which SZJ is transmitted, plays a role in linearization since visually influenced classifier predicates trigger the non-basic SOV sign order in this language.
Ewa Willim
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 221-247
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.010.13163Polish perfective psych verbs are generally analyzed as inceptive predicates focusing the beginning of an emotional state holding of an experiencer. However, a perfective psych verb can also denote an event of gradual scalar change. In this paper, I argue that on the inceptive reading a perfective psych predicate denotes a transition from a state in which p does not hold to a state in which p holds of an experiencer. In events of gradual change, there is an increase in the degree on the scale of intensity of a given psych state or on the (abstract) extent scale contributed by a verb’s argument. As the internal temporal structure of the events denoted by perfective psych predicates can depend on elements of syntactic context outside the verb, the domain of aspectual composition in Polish is not the verb, pace Rothstein (2020), but VoiceP/vP.
Anna Malicka-Kleparska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 177-197
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.008.13161In this text we consider properties of stative passive participles corresponding to roz- Object Experiencer verbs in Polish. They are viewed in the light of the distinction between Davidsonian states (Davidson 1967) and Kimian states (Kim 1976). Polish statives with roz- passive participles seem to show features of both Kimian and Davidsonian states. We will consider the results of various tests proposed in the literature to discover the properties of the relevant Polish structures and offer an explanation for the areas in which roz- structures diverge from the characteristics of Kimian states.
Matic Pavlič
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 199-220
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.009.13162The basic sign order in Slovenian Sign Language (SZJ) is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This is shown by analysing non-topicalised or focalised transitive and ditransitive sentences that were elicited from first language SZJ informants using Picture Description Task. The data further reveal that the visual-gestural modality, through which SZJ is transmitted, plays a role in linearization since visually influenced classifier predicates trigger the non-basic SOV sign order in this language.
Ewa Willim
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 4, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 221-247
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.010.13163Polish perfective psych verbs are generally analyzed as inceptive predicates focusing the beginning of an emotional state holding of an experiencer. However, a perfective psych verb can also denote an event of gradual scalar change. In this paper, I argue that on the inceptive reading a perfective psych predicate denotes a transition from a state in which p does not hold to a state in which p holds of an experiencer. In events of gradual change, there is an increase in the degree on the scale of intensity of a given psych state or on the (abstract) extent scale contributed by a verb’s argument. As the internal temporal structure of the events denoted by perfective psych predicates can depend on elements of syntactic context outside the verb, the domain of aspectual composition in Polish is not the verb, pace Rothstein (2020), but VoiceP/vP.
Publication date: 2020
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 103-127
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.005.12977This study aims to account for the microvariation in aspect choices in factual imperfective contexts in Polish. To this goal an online questionnaire was conducted in which the participants from western and eastern Poland were asked to fill in the missing verbs in presuppositional and existential factual contexts involving an Elaboration coherence relation. The study shows that perfective aspect is preferred in presuppositional factual contexts and imperfective is preferred in existential factual contexts in both regions. Additionally, imperfective is generally more often used in factual contexts in eastern Poland than in western Poland. The study accounts for the observed preferences by resorting to the interaction between the Elaboration relation and (in)definiteness of the temporal variable (introduced at the level of AspP) with respect to the temporal trace of a complex event decomposed in the first phase syntax.
Adam Przepiórkowski, Agnieszka Patejuk
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 129-150
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.006.12978The aim of this paper is to compare two Polish predicative constructions with infinitival subjects, namely those with predicative adverbs and those with predicative adjectives. The latter construction, of the form “predicative adjective + copula + infinitival subject”, has hardly been noticed in Polish literature on predication, copulas, or infinitival subjects. On the basis of corpus data, mainly from the National Corpus of Polish, we demonstrate that this construction is much rarer than the analogous construction with predicative adverbs. We also show that roughly the same predicates may be expressed as either adverbs or as adjectives when the subject is an infinitival phrase – any observed differences are not systematic but rather stem from lexical gaps and differences in the meanings of particular adverbs and adjectives. In particular, certain modal predicates may only be expressed as adjectives because the corresponding adverbs do not express the same non-epistemic modal meanings. Finally, we provide new corpus evidence for an earlier claim that predicative adjectives are much rarer than adverbs when the subject is infinitival because they require this subject to undergo covert nominalisation; as adverbs combine with infinitival subjects directly, they are usually preferred.
Ewelina Wojtkowiak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 151-175
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.007.12979This paper presents an acoustic study devised to investigate the effects of three presumably distinct prosodic position on the phonetic realisation of Polish front vowels in #CV (that is, following a prosodic boundary and a consonantal onset) and #VC sequences (that is, immediately following a prosodic boundary). The results of the experiment suggest that Polish does not seem to distinguish between utterance-initial and phrase-initial positions, with some contrasts present between these two positions and phrase-medial tokens with respect to F1. No effects of position have been found for F2 or vowel duration. There are also no clear differences on the acoustic realisation of vowels depending on whether or not they are adjacent to the prosodic boundary. These results raise questions about the nature of prosodic structure in Polish as compared to other languages which show more robust effects.
Dorota Klimek-Jankowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 103-127
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.005.12977This study aims to account for the microvariation in aspect choices in factual imperfective contexts in Polish. To this goal an online questionnaire was conducted in which the participants from western and eastern Poland were asked to fill in the missing verbs in presuppositional and existential factual contexts involving an Elaboration coherence relation. The study shows that perfective aspect is preferred in presuppositional factual contexts and imperfective is preferred in existential factual contexts in both regions. Additionally, imperfective is generally more often used in factual contexts in eastern Poland than in western Poland. The study accounts for the observed preferences by resorting to the interaction between the Elaboration relation and (in)definiteness of the temporal variable (introduced at the level of AspP) with respect to the temporal trace of a complex event decomposed in the first phase syntax.
Adam Przepiórkowski, Agnieszka Patejuk
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 129-150
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.006.12978The aim of this paper is to compare two Polish predicative constructions with infinitival subjects, namely those with predicative adverbs and those with predicative adjectives. The latter construction, of the form “predicative adjective + copula + infinitival subject”, has hardly been noticed in Polish literature on predication, copulas, or infinitival subjects. On the basis of corpus data, mainly from the National Corpus of Polish, we demonstrate that this construction is much rarer than the analogous construction with predicative adverbs. We also show that roughly the same predicates may be expressed as either adverbs or as adjectives when the subject is an infinitival phrase – any observed differences are not systematic but rather stem from lexical gaps and differences in the meanings of particular adverbs and adjectives. In particular, certain modal predicates may only be expressed as adjectives because the corresponding adverbs do not express the same non-epistemic modal meanings. Finally, we provide new corpus evidence for an earlier claim that predicative adjectives are much rarer than adverbs when the subject is infinitival because they require this subject to undergo covert nominalisation; as adverbs combine with infinitival subjects directly, they are usually preferred.
Ewelina Wojtkowiak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 151-175
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.007.12979This paper presents an acoustic study devised to investigate the effects of three presumably distinct prosodic position on the phonetic realisation of Polish front vowels in #CV (that is, following a prosodic boundary and a consonantal onset) and #VC sequences (that is, immediately following a prosodic boundary). The results of the experiment suggest that Polish does not seem to distinguish between utterance-initial and phrase-initial positions, with some contrasts present between these two positions and phrase-medial tokens with respect to F1. No effects of position have been found for F2 or vowel duration. There are also no clear differences on the acoustic realisation of vowels depending on whether or not they are adjacent to the prosodic boundary. These results raise questions about the nature of prosodic structure in Polish as compared to other languages which show more robust effects.
Publication date: 30.06.2020
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 2, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 59-83
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.003.12883While the attachment of diminutive morphology to concrete nouns, gradable adjectives and adverbs, as well as interjections has already received a well-merited share of attention in Polish, diminutivization of vague quantifiers remains empirically understudied. The present paper takes a first step towards filling in this gap by reporting on a corpus-based investigation of the numeralized partitive garść ‘handful’ and its diminutive variant Garstka ‘handful.dim’. The results of a collocational analysis of both forms corroborate the hypothesis that diminutivization further enhances scalar implications inherent in the base ‘small size’ item, as reflected in the diminutive form’s significantly higher frequency of quantifier attestations. Apart from exhibiting a substantially greater proportion of quantifier uses, the latter element displays an overwhelming predilection for animate N2-collocates, which suggests that diminutivization may not only intensify a paucal quantifier’s expressivity but also lead to conspicuous changes in its distributional profile.
Irena Sawicka, Tatiana Zinowjewa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 2, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 85-102
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.004.12884The article reports the commencement of the process of change of the syllable pattern in Polish, consisting in the syllabification of liquid sonorants in some contexts in less sonorous segmental environment (in final clusters with an obstruent in the first position). A short pilot study was conducted, in which the pronunciation of the word wiatr ‘wind’ was analysed.
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 2, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 59-83
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.003.12883While the attachment of diminutive morphology to concrete nouns, gradable adjectives and adverbs, as well as interjections has already received a well-merited share of attention in Polish, diminutivization of vague quantifiers remains empirically understudied. The present paper takes a first step towards filling in this gap by reporting on a corpus-based investigation of the numeralized partitive garść ‘handful’ and its diminutive variant Garstka ‘handful.dim’. The results of a collocational analysis of both forms corroborate the hypothesis that diminutivization further enhances scalar implications inherent in the base ‘small size’ item, as reflected in the diminutive form’s significantly higher frequency of quantifier attestations. Apart from exhibiting a substantially greater proportion of quantifier uses, the latter element displays an overwhelming predilection for animate N2-collocates, which suggests that diminutivization may not only intensify a paucal quantifier’s expressivity but also lead to conspicuous changes in its distributional profile.
Irena Sawicka, Tatiana Zinowjewa
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 2, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 85-102
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.004.12884The article reports the commencement of the process of change of the syllable pattern in Polish, consisting in the syllabification of liquid sonorants in some contexts in less sonorous segmental environment (in final clusters with an obstruent in the first position). A short pilot study was conducted, in which the pronunciation of the word wiatr ‘wind’ was analysed.
Publication date: 03.2020
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Joanna Błaszczak, Juliane Domke
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 1, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 7-36
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.001.11958In this part of the paper we report the results of an ERP study on the processing of two types of compound future in Polish, with infinitival and participial complements. In the study we monitored the EEG correlates of two types of temporal mismatches. Tense mismatches between the future auxiliary and the past tense modifier wczoraj (‘yesterday’) relative to the jutro (‘tomorrow’) baseline resulted in a biphasic (LAN + P600) signature. Aspect mismatches between the future auxiliary and the perfective aspect of the lexical complement (relative to the imperfective baseline) triggered a widely distributed positivity with a posterior maximum (P600). In addition, we wanted to assess whether matching tense specifi cations in different words of a sentence can cause grammatical illusions. To this aim, we tested whether the presence of the adverb wczoraj (‘yesterday’) (specified for [past]) could give rise to an illusion of grammaticality for perfectives as l-participles (allegedly [past] marked), but not as infinitives (not having any [past] specification). Neither behavioral nor electrophysiological results of the present study provided support for this hypothesis. Rather, the findings seem to suggest that TENSE might not belong to the features that are relevant for grammatical illusions, unlike NEGATION, COMPARATIVE, CASE, NUMBER, GENDER, which have been shown to be suspectible to grammatical illusions. We conclude with a discussion of possible underlying reasons for this negative result.
Bożena Cetnarowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 1, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 37-58
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.002.11959This paper examines expressive sentences in Polish, such as Idiota, nie kierowca! (lit. idiot, not driver) ‘an idiot of a driver’ and Potwór, nie matka! (lit. monster, not mother) ‘a monster of a mother’. Variants of the “X, not Y” construction, its optional and obligatory elements are identifi ed. Differences are emphasised between the emphatic “X, not Y construction” and non-emphatic negative copular clauses. Moreover, relatedness is discussed between expressive NN juxtapositions, such as kierowca idiota (lit. driver idiot) ‘an idiot of a driver’ or matka potwór (lit. mother monster) ‘a monster of a mother’, and the “X, not Y” construction. Semantic-structural types of expressive NN juxtapositions are considered, following the cross-linguistic classification of multiword units proposed by Scalise and Bisetto (2009). The reversibility of NN juxtapositions is taken into account as well. The question is addressed which types of juxtapositions allow their constituents to appear in the “X, not Y” construction.
Joanna Błaszczak, Juliane Domke
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 1, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 7-36
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.001.11958In this part of the paper we report the results of an ERP study on the processing of two types of compound future in Polish, with infinitival and participial complements. In the study we monitored the EEG correlates of two types of temporal mismatches. Tense mismatches between the future auxiliary and the past tense modifier wczoraj (‘yesterday’) relative to the jutro (‘tomorrow’) baseline resulted in a biphasic (LAN + P600) signature. Aspect mismatches between the future auxiliary and the perfective aspect of the lexical complement (relative to the imperfective baseline) triggered a widely distributed positivity with a posterior maximum (P600). In addition, we wanted to assess whether matching tense specifi cations in different words of a sentence can cause grammatical illusions. To this aim, we tested whether the presence of the adverb wczoraj (‘yesterday’) (specified for [past]) could give rise to an illusion of grammaticality for perfectives as l-participles (allegedly [past] marked), but not as infinitives (not having any [past] specification). Neither behavioral nor electrophysiological results of the present study provided support for this hypothesis. Rather, the findings seem to suggest that TENSE might not belong to the features that are relevant for grammatical illusions, unlike NEGATION, COMPARATIVE, CASE, NUMBER, GENDER, which have been shown to be suspectible to grammatical illusions. We conclude with a discussion of possible underlying reasons for this negative result.
Bożena Cetnarowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 15, Issue 1, Volume 15 (2020), pp. 37-58
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.20.002.11959This paper examines expressive sentences in Polish, such as Idiota, nie kierowca! (lit. idiot, not driver) ‘an idiot of a driver’ and Potwór, nie matka! (lit. monster, not mother) ‘a monster of a mother’. Variants of the “X, not Y” construction, its optional and obligatory elements are identifi ed. Differences are emphasised between the emphatic “X, not Y construction” and non-emphatic negative copular clauses. Moreover, relatedness is discussed between expressive NN juxtapositions, such as kierowca idiota (lit. driver idiot) ‘an idiot of a driver’ or matka potwór (lit. mother monster) ‘a monster of a mother’, and the “X, not Y” construction. Semantic-structural types of expressive NN juxtapositions are considered, following the cross-linguistic classification of multiword units proposed by Scalise and Bisetto (2009). The reversibility of NN juxtapositions is taken into account as well. The question is addressed which types of juxtapositions allow their constituents to appear in the “X, not Y” construction.
Publication date: 2019
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Edited by : Ewa Willim, Mateusz Urban
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Gurmeet Kaur, Louise Raynaud
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 11-33
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.004.10984This paper introduces two instances of person effects with 3rd person items – the reflexive clitic se in French and the non-honorific clitic pronoun suu in Punjabi. Examining the properties of these items, we argue against the phi-feature based accounts of person licensing. Instead, we re-conceptualize it as a syntactico-semantic phenomenon, which requires a pronominal to be contextually-anchored via a feature labeled [F]. More globally, this paper attempts to work out the special status of person and articulate why person requires special licensing in grammar.
M. Rita Manzini
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 35-51
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.005.10985The core proposal of this contribution is that in [P DP] or [K DP] structures, where K, P are oblique prepositions or cases, either P/K or DP can label the resulting constituent. If PP/KP is the resulting label, the constituent does not provide a goal for Agree. If DP is the resulting label, the constituent behaves like any other DP, providing a goal for Agree. This is what we call the agreement parameter for structural obliques. Inherent obliques, i.e. those selected by a predicate, obligatorily project as PP/KP. In section 1 we use this hypothesis to explain variation in the agreement pattern of pseudopartitives, in section 2 we institue a parallelism with Differential Object Marking (DOM). In section 3, we illustrate a consequence of the same labelling algorithm independent of agreement, arguing that so-called Romance partitive articles include the partitive preposition di ‘of ’, but at the same time project as DPs.
Franc Lanko Marušič, Petra Mišmaš, Rok Žaucer
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 53-75
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.006.10986With the multiplication of various functional projections, syntactic structures became very complex entities. Approaches like Cartography (e.g. Cinque and Rizzi 2008) went one step further than most other approaches, proposing that each sentence comprises of a number of universal, strictly ordered functional projections. In the noun phrase, the strictly ordered functional projections are said to be responsible not only for the relative order of numerals, demonstratives and nouns (cf. Cinque 2005), but also for the universal order of various types of adjectives (cf. Hetzron 1978; Sproat and Shih 1991; Cinque 1994; Scott 2002, etc.). Cinque and Rizzi (2008) discuss possible origins of the many hierarchies of functional projections and suggest that they might derive from general cognition. If cognition and its restrictions are behind the hierarchy of functional projections, then the order of projections hosting adjectives should be reflected in various non-linguistic cognitive processes. We designed several experiments to test this hypothesis. Our experiments did not confirm our hypothesis; but as we have also identified problems in the design of our experiments, our results do not warrant a clear rejection of the hypothesis either.
Bożena Rozwadowska, Anna Bondaruk
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 77-97
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.007.10987The paper examines Object Experiencer (henceforth, OE)/Subject Experiencer (henceforth, SE) verb alternations in Polish in order to check whether Polish exhibits the causative/ anticausative alternation in the psych domain (psych causative alternation of Alexiadou and Iordăchioaia 2014, henceforth A&I 2014). The focus is on two types of SE reflexive alternants of OE verbs, i.e., (i) SE forms with an obligatory instrumental case-marked DP derived from stative OE roots, and (ii) SE forms with an optional instrumental DP derived from eventive OE roots. It is argued that in both cases the reflexive SE alternants of either stative or eventive OE verbs have an obligatory or optional instrumental DP which acts as a complement and represents a Target/Subject Matter (henceforth, T/SM, cf. Pesetsky 1995), not a Cause. Therefore, the reflexive OE/SE verb alternation cannot be of the causative/anticausative type. Monovalent reflexive SE verbs, lacking an instrumental DP altogether, are unergative (Reinhart 2001), not unaccusative (contra A&I 2014). The overall conclusion reached in the paper is that the psych causative alternation is absent in Polish.
Sławomir Zdziebko
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 99-123
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.008.10988Polish adnominal participles accept a wide range of event modifiers except when they are additionally modified by focus or phase particles corresponding to still. The paper argues that the semantic contribution of still is incompatible with the change-of-state component of the meaning of participles. While still presupposes that the property denoted by the participle holds over the initial proper subinterval during which the focalized state holds, the measure-of-change function found in resultative participles entails that the relevant subinterval corresponds to the change of state over which the relevant property does not hold yet. The participles modifiable by still are argued to lack the change-of-state component.
Tobias Scheer
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 127-151
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.009.10989The paper argues that sonority on the one hand and other segmental properties such as place of articulation (labiality etc.) and laryngeal properties (voicing etc.) on the other hand are different in kind and must therefore not be represented alike: implementations on a par e.g. as features ([±voc], [±son], [±lab], [±voice] etc.) are misled. Arguments come from a number of broad, cross-linguistically stable facts concerning visibility of items below and above the skeleton in phonological and morphological processing: sonority, but no other segmental property, is taken into account when syllable structure is built (upward visibility); processes located above the skeleton (infixation, phonologically conditioned allomorphy, stress, tone, positional strength) do make reference to sonority, but never to labiality, voicing etc. (downward visibility). Approaches are discussed where sonority is encoded as structure, rather than as primes (features or Elements). In some cases not only sonority but also other segmental properties are structuralized, a solution that does not do justice to the insight that sonority and melody are different in kind. Also, the approaches that structuralize sonority are not concerned with the question how the representations they entertain come into being: representations are not contained in the phonetic signal that is the input to the linguistic system, nor do they fall from heaven – they are built by some computation. It is therefore concluded that what really segregates sonority and melody is their belonging to two distinct computational systems (modules in the Fodorian sense) which operate over distinct vocabularies and produce distinct structure: sonority primes are used to build syllable structure, while other computations take other types of primes as an input. The computation carrying out a palatalization for example works with melodic primes. The segment, then, is a lexical recording that has different compartments containing domain-specific primes [
Barbara Vogt
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 153-169
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.010.10990This contribution deals with secondary stress in Modern Standard German (MSG) and its relevance in affixation using the verbal prefix ver-. While the pattern ver+stressed syllable or ver+schwa is allowed, ver+unstressed syllable is avoided in contemporary German (see also Kaltenbacher 1999). Diachronical data reveals that in earlier stages this prosodic restriction was not as strong as in MSG. The consistency with which verbs with the pattern ver+unstressed syllable are discarded in MSG (confirmed by look-ups in corpora and dictionaries) is a strong argument for the hypothesis that the relinquishment is due to a form of blocking related to the stress properties of the direct base: The affix ver- needs a direct base with some initial prominence, that is with primary or secondary stress. The only (apparent) exception to this stress condition is a base containing a schwa syllable which seems to be “invisible” for the stress-seeking prefix. Verbal derivation with the prefix ver-demonstrates that the stress properties of the base have to be taken into account also with regard to secondary stress. The data provided in this paper can count as further evidence for the existence and relevance of secondary stress in Modern Standard German and its interaction with morphology
Mojmír Dočekal, Iveta Šafratová
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 171-187
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.011.10991In this study, we report an experiment focusing on pragmatic factors (unlikelihood presupposition) in licensing of Czech superstrong negative polarity items.
Olga Pekelis
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 189-205
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.012.10992The paper presents an analysis of three pronouns used to refer to a right-peripheral complement clause in Russian. It is demonstrated that two of them exhibit properties associated with expletives, which is unexpected at first sight, Russian being a (partial) null subject language. However, these pronouns are shown to have a discourse-related function rather than a syntactic one. The third pronoun under discussion, though used in the same grammatical context, turns out to be referential. The paper offers an account for this fact and proposes that the parameters that have proved to be relevant for differentiating expletives and non-expletives in Russian should be regarded as general criteria for expletiveness.
Anna Szeteli, Mónika Dóla, Gábor Alberti
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 207-225
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.013.10993The Hungarian inferential-evidential expression szerint ‘according to somebody/something’ is highly multifaceted. It can be furnished with person and number suffixes. It can occur in all major sentence types but with different person features and/or collocations. It can be associated with a quotative meaning and can express some kind of judgment in declarative sentences and questions, too. Imperative sentences can serve as a source of its further uses: it can be interpreted both as advice and as an expression of the speaker’s firm stance typically based on moral concerns. We intend to account for this extremely complex distribution with respect to person, attitude, sentence type and collocation in a highly systematic and explanatorily adequate manner in the “cognitively viable” representationalist dynamic discourse- and mind-representation theory ReALIS. We attempt to carry out this task in a way that sheds new light on how such expressions make language a basic means of achieving epistemic control and intersubjective alignment.
Gurmeet Kaur, Louise Raynaud
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 11-33
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.004.10984This paper introduces two instances of person effects with 3rd person items – the reflexive clitic se in French and the non-honorific clitic pronoun suu in Punjabi. Examining the properties of these items, we argue against the phi-feature based accounts of person licensing. Instead, we re-conceptualize it as a syntactico-semantic phenomenon, which requires a pronominal to be contextually-anchored via a feature labeled [F]. More globally, this paper attempts to work out the special status of person and articulate why person requires special licensing in grammar.
M. Rita Manzini
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 35-51
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.005.10985The core proposal of this contribution is that in [P DP] or [K DP] structures, where K, P are oblique prepositions or cases, either P/K or DP can label the resulting constituent. If PP/KP is the resulting label, the constituent does not provide a goal for Agree. If DP is the resulting label, the constituent behaves like any other DP, providing a goal for Agree. This is what we call the agreement parameter for structural obliques. Inherent obliques, i.e. those selected by a predicate, obligatorily project as PP/KP. In section 1 we use this hypothesis to explain variation in the agreement pattern of pseudopartitives, in section 2 we institue a parallelism with Differential Object Marking (DOM). In section 3, we illustrate a consequence of the same labelling algorithm independent of agreement, arguing that so-called Romance partitive articles include the partitive preposition di ‘of ’, but at the same time project as DPs.
Franc Lanko Marušič, Petra Mišmaš, Rok Žaucer
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 53-75
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.006.10986With the multiplication of various functional projections, syntactic structures became very complex entities. Approaches like Cartography (e.g. Cinque and Rizzi 2008) went one step further than most other approaches, proposing that each sentence comprises of a number of universal, strictly ordered functional projections. In the noun phrase, the strictly ordered functional projections are said to be responsible not only for the relative order of numerals, demonstratives and nouns (cf. Cinque 2005), but also for the universal order of various types of adjectives (cf. Hetzron 1978; Sproat and Shih 1991; Cinque 1994; Scott 2002, etc.). Cinque and Rizzi (2008) discuss possible origins of the many hierarchies of functional projections and suggest that they might derive from general cognition. If cognition and its restrictions are behind the hierarchy of functional projections, then the order of projections hosting adjectives should be reflected in various non-linguistic cognitive processes. We designed several experiments to test this hypothesis. Our experiments did not confirm our hypothesis; but as we have also identified problems in the design of our experiments, our results do not warrant a clear rejection of the hypothesis either.
Bożena Rozwadowska, Anna Bondaruk
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 77-97
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.007.10987The paper examines Object Experiencer (henceforth, OE)/Subject Experiencer (henceforth, SE) verb alternations in Polish in order to check whether Polish exhibits the causative/ anticausative alternation in the psych domain (psych causative alternation of Alexiadou and Iordăchioaia 2014, henceforth A&I 2014). The focus is on two types of SE reflexive alternants of OE verbs, i.e., (i) SE forms with an obligatory instrumental case-marked DP derived from stative OE roots, and (ii) SE forms with an optional instrumental DP derived from eventive OE roots. It is argued that in both cases the reflexive SE alternants of either stative or eventive OE verbs have an obligatory or optional instrumental DP which acts as a complement and represents a Target/Subject Matter (henceforth, T/SM, cf. Pesetsky 1995), not a Cause. Therefore, the reflexive OE/SE verb alternation cannot be of the causative/anticausative type. Monovalent reflexive SE verbs, lacking an instrumental DP altogether, are unergative (Reinhart 2001), not unaccusative (contra A&I 2014). The overall conclusion reached in the paper is that the psych causative alternation is absent in Polish.
Sławomir Zdziebko
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 99-123
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.008.10988Polish adnominal participles accept a wide range of event modifiers except when they are additionally modified by focus or phase particles corresponding to still. The paper argues that the semantic contribution of still is incompatible with the change-of-state component of the meaning of participles. While still presupposes that the property denoted by the participle holds over the initial proper subinterval during which the focalized state holds, the measure-of-change function found in resultative participles entails that the relevant subinterval corresponds to the change of state over which the relevant property does not hold yet. The participles modifiable by still are argued to lack the change-of-state component.
Tobias Scheer
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 127-151
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.009.10989The paper argues that sonority on the one hand and other segmental properties such as place of articulation (labiality etc.) and laryngeal properties (voicing etc.) on the other hand are different in kind and must therefore not be represented alike: implementations on a par e.g. as features ([±voc], [±son], [±lab], [±voice] etc.) are misled. Arguments come from a number of broad, cross-linguistically stable facts concerning visibility of items below and above the skeleton in phonological and morphological processing: sonority, but no other segmental property, is taken into account when syllable structure is built (upward visibility); processes located above the skeleton (infixation, phonologically conditioned allomorphy, stress, tone, positional strength) do make reference to sonority, but never to labiality, voicing etc. (downward visibility). Approaches are discussed where sonority is encoded as structure, rather than as primes (features or Elements). In some cases not only sonority but also other segmental properties are structuralized, a solution that does not do justice to the insight that sonority and melody are different in kind. Also, the approaches that structuralize sonority are not concerned with the question how the representations they entertain come into being: representations are not contained in the phonetic signal that is the input to the linguistic system, nor do they fall from heaven – they are built by some computation. It is therefore concluded that what really segregates sonority and melody is their belonging to two distinct computational systems (modules in the Fodorian sense) which operate over distinct vocabularies and produce distinct structure: sonority primes are used to build syllable structure, while other computations take other types of primes as an input. The computation carrying out a palatalization for example works with melodic primes. The segment, then, is a lexical recording that has different compartments containing domain-specific primes [
Barbara Vogt
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 153-169
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.010.10990This contribution deals with secondary stress in Modern Standard German (MSG) and its relevance in affixation using the verbal prefix ver-. While the pattern ver+stressed syllable or ver+schwa is allowed, ver+unstressed syllable is avoided in contemporary German (see also Kaltenbacher 1999). Diachronical data reveals that in earlier stages this prosodic restriction was not as strong as in MSG. The consistency with which verbs with the pattern ver+unstressed syllable are discarded in MSG (confirmed by look-ups in corpora and dictionaries) is a strong argument for the hypothesis that the relinquishment is due to a form of blocking related to the stress properties of the direct base: The affix ver- needs a direct base with some initial prominence, that is with primary or secondary stress. The only (apparent) exception to this stress condition is a base containing a schwa syllable which seems to be “invisible” for the stress-seeking prefix. Verbal derivation with the prefix ver-demonstrates that the stress properties of the base have to be taken into account also with regard to secondary stress. The data provided in this paper can count as further evidence for the existence and relevance of secondary stress in Modern Standard German and its interaction with morphology
Mojmír Dočekal, Iveta Šafratová
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 171-187
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.011.10991In this study, we report an experiment focusing on pragmatic factors (unlikelihood presupposition) in licensing of Czech superstrong negative polarity items.
Olga Pekelis
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 189-205
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.012.10992The paper presents an analysis of three pronouns used to refer to a right-peripheral complement clause in Russian. It is demonstrated that two of them exhibit properties associated with expletives, which is unexpected at first sight, Russian being a (partial) null subject language. However, these pronouns are shown to have a discourse-related function rather than a syntactic one. The third pronoun under discussion, though used in the same grammatical context, turns out to be referential. The paper offers an account for this fact and proposes that the parameters that have proved to be relevant for differentiating expletives and non-expletives in Russian should be regarded as general criteria for expletiveness.
Anna Szeteli, Mónika Dóla, Gábor Alberti
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Special Volume 1 (2019), Special Volume, pp. 207-225
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.013.10993The Hungarian inferential-evidential expression szerint ‘according to somebody/something’ is highly multifaceted. It can be furnished with person and number suffixes. It can occur in all major sentence types but with different person features and/or collocations. It can be associated with a quotative meaning and can express some kind of judgment in declarative sentences and questions, too. Imperative sentences can serve as a source of its further uses: it can be interpreted both as advice and as an expression of the speaker’s firm stance typically based on moral concerns. We intend to account for this extremely complex distribution with respect to person, attitude, sentence type and collocation in a highly systematic and explanatorily adequate manner in the “cognitively viable” representationalist dynamic discourse- and mind-representation theory ReALIS. We attempt to carry out this task in a way that sheds new light on how such expressions make language a basic means of achieving epistemic control and intersubjective alignment.
Publication date: 12.2019
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Joanna Błaszczak, Juliane Domke
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 149-170
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.018.11336This two-part paper is concerned with the processing of two types of compound future in Polish, with infinitival and participial complements. In the first part we present a design and predictions of an ERP study whose goal was to monitor the EEG correlates of two types of temporal mismatches: i) tense mismatches between the future auxiliary and the past tense modifier wczoraj (‘yesterday’) relative to the jutro (‘tomorrow’) baseline and ii) aspect mismatches between the future auxiliary and the perfective aspect of the lexical complement relative to the imperfective baseline. In addition, we wanted to assess whether matching tense specifications in different words of a sentence can cause grammatical illusions. To this aim, we tested whether the presence of the adverb wczoraj (‘yesterday’) (specified for [past]) could give rise to an illusion of grammaticality for perfectives as l-participles (allegedly [past] marked), but not as infinitives (not having any [past] specification). The study and its results as well as a general discussion of the findings will be presented in Part II of the paper.
Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 171-190
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.019.11337While electronic corpora may not seem adequate sources for anglicisms retrieval, since despite promising attempts they still lack readily available and efficient tools for foreign loans identification, they are indispensable in a systematic verification of the use of preidentified loans. The article offers an assessment of an electronic corpus of Polish in reference to its usefulness for the study of English loans. Though we test a selected corpus and its tools, and use Polish anglicisms as exemplifications, the findings presented in the article pertain to other large corpora and anglicisms in other languages. Corpus tools allow for a multidimensional analysis of loans, yet they fail to meet the requirements of more in-depth analyses of anglicisms, related to their semantics and structure. The limitations of corpora tools will be illustrated with authentic attempted-but-failed corpus searches.
Jerzy Rubach
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 191-217
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.020.11338In classic generative phonology (The Sound Pattern of English, Lexical Phonology) underlying representations and associated rules account for generalizations of two types: alternation-based generalizations and distribution-based generalizations. This article addresses the issue of how distribution-based generalizations are handled in Standard Optimality Theory and in Derivational Optimality Theory. The former uses the principle of the Richness of the Base, the latter relies on underspecification. It is argued that the Richness of the Base and the associated principle of Lexicon Optimization are unable to provide an adequate analysis of three types of generalizations: Nasal Assimilation in English, Vowel Retraction in the process of assimilating borrowings into Polish, and a presonorant voicing process called Cracow Voicing.
Joanna Błaszczak, Juliane Domke
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 149-170
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.018.11336This two-part paper is concerned with the processing of two types of compound future in Polish, with infinitival and participial complements. In the first part we present a design and predictions of an ERP study whose goal was to monitor the EEG correlates of two types of temporal mismatches: i) tense mismatches between the future auxiliary and the past tense modifier wczoraj (‘yesterday’) relative to the jutro (‘tomorrow’) baseline and ii) aspect mismatches between the future auxiliary and the perfective aspect of the lexical complement relative to the imperfective baseline. In addition, we wanted to assess whether matching tense specifications in different words of a sentence can cause grammatical illusions. To this aim, we tested whether the presence of the adverb wczoraj (‘yesterday’) (specified for [past]) could give rise to an illusion of grammaticality for perfectives as l-participles (allegedly [past] marked), but not as infinitives (not having any [past] specification). The study and its results as well as a general discussion of the findings will be presented in Part II of the paper.
Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 171-190
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.019.11337While electronic corpora may not seem adequate sources for anglicisms retrieval, since despite promising attempts they still lack readily available and efficient tools for foreign loans identification, they are indispensable in a systematic verification of the use of preidentified loans. The article offers an assessment of an electronic corpus of Polish in reference to its usefulness for the study of English loans. Though we test a selected corpus and its tools, and use Polish anglicisms as exemplifications, the findings presented in the article pertain to other large corpora and anglicisms in other languages. Corpus tools allow for a multidimensional analysis of loans, yet they fail to meet the requirements of more in-depth analyses of anglicisms, related to their semantics and structure. The limitations of corpora tools will be illustrated with authentic attempted-but-failed corpus searches.
Jerzy Rubach
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 4, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 191-217
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.020.11338In classic generative phonology (The Sound Pattern of English, Lexical Phonology) underlying representations and associated rules account for generalizations of two types: alternation-based generalizations and distribution-based generalizations. This article addresses the issue of how distribution-based generalizations are handled in Standard Optimality Theory and in Derivational Optimality Theory. The former uses the principle of the Richness of the Base, the latter relies on underspecification. It is argued that the Richness of the Base and the associated principle of Lexicon Optimization are unable to provide an adequate analysis of three types of generalizations: Nasal Assimilation in English, Vowel Retraction in the process of assimilating borrowings into Polish, and a presonorant voicing process called Cracow Voicing.
Publication date: 10.2019
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Magdalena Derecka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 101-123
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.016.11081This article aims to investigate the linguistic means of transphobic discrimination observed on the Internet. The languages analysed are English and Polish, since they both offer their speakers direct and indirect ways that discrimination manifests itself, yet Polish seems to enable a more noticeable means because of the presence of grammatical gender in the language. The paper discusses twelve samples of Computer-Mediated Communication, using the methodological tools offered by Critical Discourse Analysis and Queer Theory. Based on the analysis of the samples, the article shows that even though transphobia lies mainly in lexical choices of the speaker, it is not always direct, i.e. visible in insults and attacks on a trans person, but is oftentimes indirect, i.e. visible in the incorrect use of personal pronouns in both English and Polish, or in the incorrect use of grammatical gender in Polish. Moreover, while transphobia visible in language is not always intended by the speaker, it can still be considered to be discriminatory.
Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 125-147
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.017.11082This paper presents a comparison between to-bearing relative clauses, adverbials and interrogatives on the one hand, vs. their to-less variants on the other, and discusses the functions associated with the presence of to. It is argued that at least three different instances of to should be distinguished. One converts relative clauses into appositive ones, which are necessarily semantically connected to the matrix clause and it makes the semantic connection override even apparent lack of appropriate syntactic connection. It attaches to relativizers, including gdzie ‘where’ and kiedy ‘when’ relative clauses. It is argued that the same segment is present in adverbials, triggering a factitive presupposition, as is the case of appositive relatives generally. The second to links the content of a kind relative, an adverbial or a wh-interrogative to previous contexts, possibly triggering a pragmatic presupposition. The third converts standard wh-interrogatives into either rhetorical or thetic questions. It is argued that while in the third instance we are dealing with a separate word and in the second with a clitic, the first to, hitherto unidentified or possibly falsely identified in relevant literature, appears to have both some characteristics of a clitic and of an affix.
Magdalena Derecka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 101-123
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.016.11081This article aims to investigate the linguistic means of transphobic discrimination observed on the Internet. The languages analysed are English and Polish, since they both offer their speakers direct and indirect ways that discrimination manifests itself, yet Polish seems to enable a more noticeable means because of the presence of grammatical gender in the language. The paper discusses twelve samples of Computer-Mediated Communication, using the methodological tools offered by Critical Discourse Analysis and Queer Theory. Based on the analysis of the samples, the article shows that even though transphobia lies mainly in lexical choices of the speaker, it is not always direct, i.e. visible in insults and attacks on a trans person, but is oftentimes indirect, i.e. visible in the incorrect use of personal pronouns in both English and Polish, or in the incorrect use of grammatical gender in Polish. Moreover, while transphobia visible in language is not always intended by the speaker, it can still be considered to be discriminatory.
Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 3, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 125-147
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.017.11082This paper presents a comparison between to-bearing relative clauses, adverbials and interrogatives on the one hand, vs. their to-less variants on the other, and discusses the functions associated with the presence of to. It is argued that at least three different instances of to should be distinguished. One converts relative clauses into appositive ones, which are necessarily semantically connected to the matrix clause and it makes the semantic connection override even apparent lack of appropriate syntactic connection. It attaches to relativizers, including gdzie ‘where’ and kiedy ‘when’ relative clauses. It is argued that the same segment is present in adverbials, triggering a factitive presupposition, as is the case of appositive relatives generally. The second to links the content of a kind relative, an adverbial or a wh-interrogative to previous contexts, possibly triggering a pragmatic presupposition. The third converts standard wh-interrogatives into either rhetorical or thetic questions. It is argued that while in the third instance we are dealing with a separate word and in the second with a clitic, the first to, hitherto unidentified or possibly falsely identified in relevant literature, appears to have both some characteristics of a clitic and of an affix.
Publication date: 06.2019
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Steven Franks
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 2, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 61-80
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.014.11079In a series of works and using a variety of diagnostics, Bošković argues that languages can be divided into those in which nominals project to DP and those in which they do not. Since Bulgarian (and Macedonian) express definiteness morphologically, they would appear to differ from Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian (and Slovenian) in countenancing DP, but recent work argues that evidence for Bg as a DP-language is not so clear cut. In an attempt to set the record straight about the South Slavic data she describes, this paper addresses the criticisms specifically raised by LaTerza (2016), who explores Despić’s (2009, 2011, 2013) observations about binding and phasehood in BCMS. In revisiting her claims it will be shown that the relevant differences between the South Slavic languages do in fact lend support to the “parameterized DP” account of the different binding possibilities.
Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 2, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 81-99
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.015.11080This paper presents a comparison between to-bearing relative clauses, adverbials and interrogatives on the one hand, vs. their to-less variants on the other, and discusses the functions associated with the presence of to. It is argued that at least three different instances of to should be distinguished. One converts relative clauses into appositive ones, which are necessarily semantically connected to the matrix clause and it makes the semantic connection override even apparent lack of appropriate syntactic connection. It attaches to relativizers, including gdzie ‘where’ and kiedy ‘when’ relative clauses. It is argued that the same segment is present in adverbials, triggering a factitive presupposition, as is the case of appositive relatives generally. The second to links the content of a kind relative, an adverbial or a wh-interrogative to previous contexts, possibly triggering a pragmatic presupposition. The third converts standard wh-interrogatives into either rhetorical or thetic questions. It is argued that while in the third instance we are dealing with a separate word and in the second with a clitic, the first to, hitherto unidentified or possibly falsely identified in relevant literature, appears to have both some characteristics of a clitic and of an affix.
Steven Franks
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 2, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 61-80
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.014.11079In a series of works and using a variety of diagnostics, Bošković argues that languages can be divided into those in which nominals project to DP and those in which they do not. Since Bulgarian (and Macedonian) express definiteness morphologically, they would appear to differ from Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian (and Slovenian) in countenancing DP, but recent work argues that evidence for Bg as a DP-language is not so clear cut. In an attempt to set the record straight about the South Slavic data she describes, this paper addresses the criticisms specifically raised by LaTerza (2016), who explores Despić’s (2009, 2011, 2013) observations about binding and phasehood in BCMS. In revisiting her claims it will be shown that the relevant differences between the South Slavic languages do in fact lend support to the “parameterized DP” account of the different binding possibilities.
Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 2, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 81-99
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.015.11080This paper presents a comparison between to-bearing relative clauses, adverbials and interrogatives on the one hand, vs. their to-less variants on the other, and discusses the functions associated with the presence of to. It is argued that at least three different instances of to should be distinguished. One converts relative clauses into appositive ones, which are necessarily semantically connected to the matrix clause and it makes the semantic connection override even apparent lack of appropriate syntactic connection. It attaches to relativizers, including gdzie ‘where’ and kiedy ‘when’ relative clauses. It is argued that the same segment is present in adverbials, triggering a factitive presupposition, as is the case of appositive relatives generally. The second to links the content of a kind relative, an adverbial or a wh-interrogative to previous contexts, possibly triggering a pragmatic presupposition. The third converts standard wh-interrogatives into either rhetorical or thetic questions. It is argued that while in the third instance we are dealing with a separate word and in the second with a clitic, the first to, hitherto unidentified or possibly falsely identified in relevant literature, appears to have both some characteristics of a clitic and of an affix.
Publication date: 20.03.2019
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Digitization of the academic journal "Studies in Polish Linguistics (SPL)" to ensure and maintain open access of the Internet – task financed from the from the funds of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education designated for science dissemination activities., under contract 688/P-DUN/2018.
Bożena Cetnarowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 1-18
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.001.10281In this paper I will examine N+N juxtapositions in Polish, such as kobieta anioł (woman angel) ‘an angel of a woman’, praca marzenie (job dream) ‘dream job’, dziecko geniusz (child genius) ‘prodigy child’ and kierowca cham (driver lout) ‘a lout of a driver’. I will demonstrate that they exhibit properties of expressive combinations, as discussed for English by Potts (2007) and for German by Meibauer (2013). It will be proposed that Polish expressive N+N juxtapositions under analysis fall into two groups. Juxtapositions belonging to the first group, e.g. kierowca cham ‘a lout of a driver’, behave like coordinate compound-like units. Juxtapositions which form the second group of expressive complexes, such as kobieta anioł ‘an angel of a woman’ and praca marzenie ‘dream job’, can be treated as attributive-appositive (ATAP) combinations (in Scalise and Bisetto’s 2009 classification). The occurrence of a cline between coordinate and attributive multi-word units is postulated.
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 19-42
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.002.10282Based on diachronic data extracted from the available lexicographic sources and historical corpora of Polish, this paper aims at determining whether the initial stage of the adverbialization of indefinite quantifiers of nominal origin typically involves extent modification, degree modification being a posterior development. The results of an investigation into the evolution of the functionalstatusof the commonly used quantifiers trochę ‘a bit’, odrobinę ‘a bit’, as well as masę ‘a lot’ indicate that prior to establishing themselves as degree modifiers, the items function as extent modifiers, i.e. duratives or frequentatives. In their earliest adverbial attestations recorded in the analysed material, the quantifiers under scrutiny modify the duration or frequency of the action denoted by the associated verbal element, or, if the pertinent verb encodes a punctual event, of the resultant state, and only later do they start to combine with scalar predicates, i.e. degree verbs as well as gradable adjectives and adverbs, including adverbials in the form of prepositional phrases. Exceptional in this respect is masę ‘a lot’, as it (still) appears incapable of serving as a degree intensifier
Marijana Marelj
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 43-59
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.003.10283Under any derivational approach, syntactic computations proceed from more complex to less complex domains. Though such multiple workspaces get to be resolved into a single – matrix – workspace, the issue of timing– i.e. the point when multiple workspaces must resolve to a single derivational space has not been addressed in the literature. I argue that not only the direction, but also the timing of syntactic computations is guided by a more general requirement to reduce the computational complexity and I propose Multiple Workspaces Earliness Hypothesis to address this issue. On the empirical side, the technical apparatus and the analysis I propose allow me to capture the seemingly contradictory binding facts involving locative PPs as well as to treat adjuncts as relation, rather than absolute notions.
Bożena Cetnarowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 1-18
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.001.10281In this paper I will examine N+N juxtapositions in Polish, such as kobieta anioł (woman angel) ‘an angel of a woman’, praca marzenie (job dream) ‘dream job’, dziecko geniusz (child genius) ‘prodigy child’ and kierowca cham (driver lout) ‘a lout of a driver’. I will demonstrate that they exhibit properties of expressive combinations, as discussed for English by Potts (2007) and for German by Meibauer (2013). It will be proposed that Polish expressive N+N juxtapositions under analysis fall into two groups. Juxtapositions belonging to the first group, e.g. kierowca cham ‘a lout of a driver’, behave like coordinate compound-like units. Juxtapositions which form the second group of expressive complexes, such as kobieta anioł ‘an angel of a woman’ and praca marzenie ‘dream job’, can be treated as attributive-appositive (ATAP) combinations (in Scalise and Bisetto’s 2009 classification). The occurrence of a cline between coordinate and attributive multi-word units is postulated.
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 19-42
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.002.10282Based on diachronic data extracted from the available lexicographic sources and historical corpora of Polish, this paper aims at determining whether the initial stage of the adverbialization of indefinite quantifiers of nominal origin typically involves extent modification, degree modification being a posterior development. The results of an investigation into the evolution of the functionalstatusof the commonly used quantifiers trochę ‘a bit’, odrobinę ‘a bit’, as well as masę ‘a lot’ indicate that prior to establishing themselves as degree modifiers, the items function as extent modifiers, i.e. duratives or frequentatives. In their earliest adverbial attestations recorded in the analysed material, the quantifiers under scrutiny modify the duration or frequency of the action denoted by the associated verbal element, or, if the pertinent verb encodes a punctual event, of the resultant state, and only later do they start to combine with scalar predicates, i.e. degree verbs as well as gradable adjectives and adverbs, including adverbials in the form of prepositional phrases. Exceptional in this respect is masę ‘a lot’, as it (still) appears incapable of serving as a degree intensifier
Marijana Marelj
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 14, Issue 1, Volume 14 (2019), pp. 43-59
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.19.003.10283Under any derivational approach, syntactic computations proceed from more complex to less complex domains. Though such multiple workspaces get to be resolved into a single – matrix – workspace, the issue of timing– i.e. the point when multiple workspaces must resolve to a single derivational space has not been addressed in the literature. I argue that not only the direction, but also the timing of syntactic computations is guided by a more general requirement to reduce the computational complexity and I propose Multiple Workspaces Earliness Hypothesis to address this issue. On the empirical side, the technical apparatus and the analysis I propose allow me to capture the seemingly contradictory binding facts involving locative PPs as well as to treat adjuncts as relation, rather than absolute notions.
Publication date: 31.10.2018
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Krzysztof Migdalski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 4, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 187-208
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.009.9258This paper accounts for the distribution of two second position effects, the V2 (verb second) order observed in continental Germanic languages and second position cliticization, attested in some Slavic languages. The first part of this paper (Migdalski 2018), published in the previous issue of this journal, showed that it is necessary to distinguish two types of second position effects: one of them affects finite verbs and pronominal and auxiliary clitics, whereas the other one is restricted to the contexts of marked illocution and is observed among a small class of so-called operator clitics. Furthermore, the first part of Migdalski (2018) addressed Bošković’s (2016) generalization concerning the distribution of clitics, which states that second position pronominal and auxiliary clitics are found only in languages without articles. It showed that although this generalization is empirically correct, it does not account for the distribution of auxiliary clitics and is not supported by diachronic considerations. The second part of this paper proposes an alternative generalization, which restricts verb-adjacent cliticization to tensed environments.
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 4, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 209-236
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.010.9259This article reports on a study into epistemic strategies used in the trial on the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 air crash which took the lives of many high-ranking Polish officials including the President of Poland. It follows the KUB model proposed by Bongelli and Zuczkowski (2008), in which three epistemic stances are distinguished: Knowing, Unknowing and Believing. Taking into account the political context of the trial, the study focuses on the ways in which the witness, Poland’s former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, communicates his knowledge (certainty), unknowledge (neither certainty nor uncertainty) and belief (uncertainty). As the data reveal, when referring to the circumstances of the crash itself, the witness most willingly communicates unknowledge and belief while his declarations of certitude (knowledge) concern mostly procedural matters which are not directly related to the crash. As regards the explicit marking of (un)knowledge with the verb wiedzieć (‘know’), both wiem (‘I know’) and nie wiem (‘I don’t know’) are used rather sparingly. By contrast, phrases including references to the witness’s memory (e.g. to, co mam w pamięci [‘what I can remember’]) – marking either unknowledge or limited/uncertain knowledge (belief) – resurface as the witness’s preferred strategy. The data also demonstrate frequent co-occurrences of ‘knowing,’ ‘unknowing’ and ‘believing’ markers, reducing the overall degree of certainty communicated by the speaker. In sum, the study reveals how Poland’s former Prime Minister skillfully avoids unequivocal or categorical answersand conveys a low degree of certainty in his testimony.
Krzysztof Migdalski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 4, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 187-208
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.009.9258This paper accounts for the distribution of two second position effects, the V2 (verb second) order observed in continental Germanic languages and second position cliticization, attested in some Slavic languages. The first part of this paper (Migdalski 2018), published in the previous issue of this journal, showed that it is necessary to distinguish two types of second position effects: one of them affects finite verbs and pronominal and auxiliary clitics, whereas the other one is restricted to the contexts of marked illocution and is observed among a small class of so-called operator clitics. Furthermore, the first part of Migdalski (2018) addressed Bošković’s (2016) generalization concerning the distribution of clitics, which states that second position pronominal and auxiliary clitics are found only in languages without articles. It showed that although this generalization is empirically correct, it does not account for the distribution of auxiliary clitics and is not supported by diachronic considerations. The second part of this paper proposes an alternative generalization, which restricts verb-adjacent cliticization to tensed environments.
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 4, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 209-236
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.010.9259This article reports on a study into epistemic strategies used in the trial on the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 air crash which took the lives of many high-ranking Polish officials including the President of Poland. It follows the KUB model proposed by Bongelli and Zuczkowski (2008), in which three epistemic stances are distinguished: Knowing, Unknowing and Believing. Taking into account the political context of the trial, the study focuses on the ways in which the witness, Poland’s former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, communicates his knowledge (certainty), unknowledge (neither certainty nor uncertainty) and belief (uncertainty). As the data reveal, when referring to the circumstances of the crash itself, the witness most willingly communicates unknowledge and belief while his declarations of certitude (knowledge) concern mostly procedural matters which are not directly related to the crash. As regards the explicit marking of (un)knowledge with the verb wiedzieć (‘know’), both wiem (‘I know’) and nie wiem (‘I don’t know’) are used rather sparingly. By contrast, phrases including references to the witness’s memory (e.g. to, co mam w pamięci [‘what I can remember’]) – marking either unknowledge or limited/uncertain knowledge (belief) – resurface as the witness’s preferred strategy. The data also demonstrate frequent co-occurrences of ‘knowing,’ ‘unknowing’ and ‘believing’ markers, reducing the overall degree of certainty communicated by the speaker. In sum, the study reveals how Poland’s former Prime Minister skillfully avoids unequivocal or categorical answersand conveys a low degree of certainty in his testimony.
Publication date: 31.10.2018
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Hanna Kędzierska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 3, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 145-166
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.007.9256The main aim of the reported study is to establish the stage of grammaticalisation of the indefinite article in Polish by contributing the results of a corpus study. We selected and analysed 20.000 sentences containing the word jeden. The obtained results demonstrate that the uses of jeden as a presentative marker and a specific marker have been both attested, which would suggest that Polish numeral has already reached the specific marker stage. Based on the statistical analysis carried out for the obtained results, a statistically significant increase in the use of jeden as an indefinite marker has been revealed. This may be interpreted as evidence for the grammaticalisation phenomena, enhanced by language contacts with article-possessing languages (English and German).
Krzysztof Migdalski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 3, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 167-185
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.008.9257This paper accounts for the distribution of two second position effects, the V2 (verb second) order observed in continental Germanic languages and second position cliticization, attested in some Slavic languages. It shows that it is necessary to distinguish two types of second position effects: one of them affects finite verbs and pronominal and auxiliary clitics, whereas the other one is restricted to the contexts of marked illocution and is observed among a small class of so-called operator clitics. Furthermore, this paper addresses Bošković’s (2016) generalization concerning the distribution of clitics, which states that second position pronominal and auxiliary clitics are found only in languages without articles. This paper shows that although this generalization is empirically correct, it does not account for the distribution of auxiliary clitics and is not supported by diachronic considerations. It proposes an alternative generalization, which restricts verb-adjacent cliticization to tensed environments.
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Hanna Kędzierska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 3, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 145-166
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.007.9256The main aim of the reported study is to establish the stage of grammaticalisation of the indefinite article in Polish by contributing the results of a corpus study. We selected and analysed 20.000 sentences containing the word jeden. The obtained results demonstrate that the uses of jeden as a presentative marker and a specific marker have been both attested, which would suggest that Polish numeral has already reached the specific marker stage. Based on the statistical analysis carried out for the obtained results, a statistically significant increase in the use of jeden as an indefinite marker has been revealed. This may be interpreted as evidence for the grammaticalisation phenomena, enhanced by language contacts with article-possessing languages (English and German).
Krzysztof Migdalski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 3, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 167-185
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.008.9257This paper accounts for the distribution of two second position effects, the V2 (verb second) order observed in continental Germanic languages and second position cliticization, attested in some Slavic languages. It shows that it is necessary to distinguish two types of second position effects: one of them affects finite verbs and pronominal and auxiliary clitics, whereas the other one is restricted to the contexts of marked illocution and is observed among a small class of so-called operator clitics. Furthermore, this paper addresses Bošković’s (2016) generalization concerning the distribution of clitics, which states that second position pronominal and auxiliary clitics are found only in languages without articles. This paper shows that although this generalization is empirically correct, it does not account for the distribution of auxiliary clitics and is not supported by diachronic considerations. It proposes an alternative generalization, which restricts verb-adjacent cliticization to tensed environments.
Publication date: 29.06.2018
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Maria Bloch-Trojnar
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 69-92
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.004.8743The paper presents the constraints on the formation of dispositional adjectives in Polish marked with the suffix -liw(y) and situates the process in a larger-scale picture of the entire class of deverbal adjectivizations. Derivatives with dispositional semanticsare argued to be a subclass of Subject adjectivizations/potential adjectives since both are one-participant eventualities, the sole participant being mapped onto the subject position of the main verb. The difference between dispositional and potential semantics is not categorical but a matter of degree. The domain of this process includes intransitive verbs of communication and emission, reflexively marked intransitive verbs referring to emotional states (deponents), (reflexively marked) decausatives, verbs denoting psychological/emotional/mental experiences which syntactically may be transitive but can be viewed as one-participant internal eventualities, non-prototypical transitive verbs which take genitive- and dative-marked objects and verbal roots which alternate between transitive and middle semantics. The dispositional semantics of the adjective depends on the personal/animate or inanimate nature of the participant involved in the eventuality. Thus, it rests with the base (or partly with the nominal argument) and is not supplied by the suffix.
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Hanna Kędzierska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 93-121
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.005.8744The aim of this paper is to assess the change of Polish numeral jeden ‘one’ into an indefinite marker in the view of the grammaticalization theory. Although Slavic languages are principally believed not to possess articles, certain usages of one (e.g., in Bulgarian and Macedonian) demonstrate the same features as the ones ascribed to the usages of indefinite articles in non-Slavic languages, such as English, German or Italian. Language contact of article-possessing languages is often claimed to enhance the grammaticalisation process of an indefinite article (Heine and Kuteva 2006). This type of grammaticalisation is said to follow five distinctive stages: (i) numeral, (ii) presentative marker, (iii) specific marker, (iv) non-specific marker and (v) generalized article (e.g., Givón 1981, Heine 1997). We assessed that in the case of Polish, the grammaticalisation stage is that of a specific marker, with some occasional uses leaning towards the non-specific marker stage. The conclusion was supported by the results of 53 native speakers’ judgments as well as the diagnostic tests based on relevant literature.
Ewelina Wojtkowiak, Geoffrey Schwartz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 123-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.006.8745Sandhi-voicing in dialectal Polish affects word-final obstruents in pre-sonorant and pre-vocalic environments. According to the standard descriptions, the process occurs irrespectively of the ‘underlying’ laryngeal specification of the consonant. The process has been problematic for phonological theory, with earlier accounts either requiring ad-hoc mechanisms to allow the ‘spreading’ of [voice], or providing an inadequate explanation of why the process is limited to word boundaries. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that sandhi-voicing dialects is a function of weaker word boundaries in the given dialects. Weaker boundaries go hand in hand with weaker initial syllables. We compare the speech of Standard Polish speakers (N=10) with speakers of the Poznań-Kraków dialect (N=10), who recorded sentences containing obstruent-sonorant sequences spanning word boundaries. We found acoustic evidence of weaker initial syllables for two prosodic parameters in the productions of dialect speakers. The relative strength of word-boundaries is described in the Onset Prominence model (OP; Schwartz 2010 et seq.), which also explains the role of manner of articulation in triggering the process.
Maria Bloch-Trojnar
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 69-92
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.004.8743The paper presents the constraints on the formation of dispositional adjectives in Polish marked with the suffix -liw(y) and situates the process in a larger-scale picture of the entire class of deverbal adjectivizations. Derivatives with dispositional semanticsare argued to be a subclass of Subject adjectivizations/potential adjectives since both are one-participant eventualities, the sole participant being mapped onto the subject position of the main verb. The difference between dispositional and potential semantics is not categorical but a matter of degree. The domain of this process includes intransitive verbs of communication and emission, reflexively marked intransitive verbs referring to emotional states (deponents), (reflexively marked) decausatives, verbs denoting psychological/emotional/mental experiences which syntactically may be transitive but can be viewed as one-participant internal eventualities, non-prototypical transitive verbs which take genitive- and dative-marked objects and verbal roots which alternate between transitive and middle semantics. The dispositional semantics of the adjective depends on the personal/animate or inanimate nature of the participant involved in the eventuality. Thus, it rests with the base (or partly with the nominal argument) and is not supplied by the suffix.
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Hanna Kędzierska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 93-121
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.005.8744The aim of this paper is to assess the change of Polish numeral jeden ‘one’ into an indefinite marker in the view of the grammaticalization theory. Although Slavic languages are principally believed not to possess articles, certain usages of one (e.g., in Bulgarian and Macedonian) demonstrate the same features as the ones ascribed to the usages of indefinite articles in non-Slavic languages, such as English, German or Italian. Language contact of article-possessing languages is often claimed to enhance the grammaticalisation process of an indefinite article (Heine and Kuteva 2006). This type of grammaticalisation is said to follow five distinctive stages: (i) numeral, (ii) presentative marker, (iii) specific marker, (iv) non-specific marker and (v) generalized article (e.g., Givón 1981, Heine 1997). We assessed that in the case of Polish, the grammaticalisation stage is that of a specific marker, with some occasional uses leaning towards the non-specific marker stage. The conclusion was supported by the results of 53 native speakers’ judgments as well as the diagnostic tests based on relevant literature.
Ewelina Wojtkowiak, Geoffrey Schwartz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 2, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 123-143
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.006.8745Sandhi-voicing in dialectal Polish affects word-final obstruents in pre-sonorant and pre-vocalic environments. According to the standard descriptions, the process occurs irrespectively of the ‘underlying’ laryngeal specification of the consonant. The process has been problematic for phonological theory, with earlier accounts either requiring ad-hoc mechanisms to allow the ‘spreading’ of [voice], or providing an inadequate explanation of why the process is limited to word boundaries. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that sandhi-voicing dialects is a function of weaker word boundaries in the given dialects. Weaker boundaries go hand in hand with weaker initial syllables. We compare the speech of Standard Polish speakers (N=10) with speakers of the Poznań-Kraków dialect (N=10), who recorded sentences containing obstruent-sonorant sequences spanning word boundaries. We found acoustic evidence of weaker initial syllables for two prosodic parameters in the productions of dialect speakers. The relative strength of word-boundaries is described in the Onset Prominence model (OP; Schwartz 2010 et seq.), which also explains the role of manner of articulation in triggering the process.
Publication date: 06.04.2018
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 1-23
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.001.8463This paper aims to use the results of linguistic analyses, including corpus studies, and psycholinguistic experiments to present the relation of semantic opposition in terms of the prototype theory of concepts. A synthesis of linguists’ views on the factors defining the prototype of the category of semantic opposition is presented, and an attempt is made to determine the relationship between these factors. The need to distinguish prototypical and canonical examples of the relationship is also indicated. The results of the most important corpus studies concerning the relation of opposition are analysed in order to find ways of delineating the peripheral zones and the boundaries of the relation based on real contexts of use. The particular role of opposition pairs extracted from cohyponymic multi-element sets in forming the boundary areas of the category of opposition is highlighted. It is determined, on the basis of selected studies, which psycholinguistic techniques can provide evidence of the psychological reality of the prototypical nature of the category of semantic opposition, and which may serve as a basis for distinguishing the prototype of the category from the canon. In conclusion, some semantic, corporal, and psycholinguistic criteria are proposed for locating particular examples of the relation within the structure of the category of semantic opposition – that is, conditions for classifying examples as, accordingly: a) belonging to the strict centre of the category, b) lying near the centre, c) located in the peripheral part, or d) forming the fuzzy boundary of the category.
Agnieszka Piskorska, Maria Jodłowiec
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 25-44
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.002.8464The paper offers an analysis of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the production and comprehension of verbal jokes in terms of what relevance theorists refer to as weakly communicated import. While pragmatic analyses of humour emphasize the role of the inferential stages that the audience is intended (or even manipulated, Yus 2016) to go through in processing a joke, the weak communication model presented here focuses on the punch-line effect, exploring the nature of the “cognitive climax” that is created. On this account, a vast array of weakly communicated assumptions, resulting in a cognitive overload effect, rather than incongruity resolution on its own, is identified as the laughter-inducing mechanism underlying verbal humour. The central idea is that universal and culture-specific humour-generating elements in jokes have one quality in common, viz. their potential to cause a cognitive overload effect, which may, and often does, result in amusement. On this approach, what is typically recognized as national or ethnic humour is posited to recruit the same humour-invoking pragmatic mechanisms as in other kinds of jokes, the principal difference lying in the choice of the target being mocked, which must be well-known to the audience for the cognitive overload effect to be brought forth.
Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 45-67
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.003.8465While English-Polish language contact results chiefly in English lexical loans, the influence of English on Polish in recent decades has not been limited to lexis and semantics. English penetrates deep into the structural patterns of Polish, and English N+N compound loanwords and loanblends become models for Polish structural neologisms, whose coining may be seen as a violation of native word-formation rules or, at best, as the boosting of a native potential yet non-productive word-formation pattern. It is argued in the article that the increasing productivity of the word-formation rule for deriving right-headed interfixless N+N compounds in Polish is a by-product of intensive lexical borrowing from English. The article explains the mechanism that is responsible for the contact-induced increased productivity (or perhaps the adoption) of a word-formation rule in the recipient language and illustrates it with corpus-sourced material. Most of the newly coined contact-induced N+N formations in Polish are hybrid creations formed in series by analogy to English structural models. The identified formal features of the analysed N+N compounds place them outside of the traditionally recognized types of Polish compounds.
Nawoja Mikołajczak-Matyja
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 1-23
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.001.8463This paper aims to use the results of linguistic analyses, including corpus studies, and psycholinguistic experiments to present the relation of semantic opposition in terms of the prototype theory of concepts. A synthesis of linguists’ views on the factors defining the prototype of the category of semantic opposition is presented, and an attempt is made to determine the relationship between these factors. The need to distinguish prototypical and canonical examples of the relationship is also indicated. The results of the most important corpus studies concerning the relation of opposition are analysed in order to find ways of delineating the peripheral zones and the boundaries of the relation based on real contexts of use. The particular role of opposition pairs extracted from cohyponymic multi-element sets in forming the boundary areas of the category of opposition is highlighted. It is determined, on the basis of selected studies, which psycholinguistic techniques can provide evidence of the psychological reality of the prototypical nature of the category of semantic opposition, and which may serve as a basis for distinguishing the prototype of the category from the canon. In conclusion, some semantic, corporal, and psycholinguistic criteria are proposed for locating particular examples of the relation within the structure of the category of semantic opposition – that is, conditions for classifying examples as, accordingly: a) belonging to the strict centre of the category, b) lying near the centre, c) located in the peripheral part, or d) forming the fuzzy boundary of the category.
Agnieszka Piskorska, Maria Jodłowiec
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 25-44
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.002.8464The paper offers an analysis of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the production and comprehension of verbal jokes in terms of what relevance theorists refer to as weakly communicated import. While pragmatic analyses of humour emphasize the role of the inferential stages that the audience is intended (or even manipulated, Yus 2016) to go through in processing a joke, the weak communication model presented here focuses on the punch-line effect, exploring the nature of the “cognitive climax” that is created. On this account, a vast array of weakly communicated assumptions, resulting in a cognitive overload effect, rather than incongruity resolution on its own, is identified as the laughter-inducing mechanism underlying verbal humour. The central idea is that universal and culture-specific humour-generating elements in jokes have one quality in common, viz. their potential to cause a cognitive overload effect, which may, and often does, result in amusement. On this approach, what is typically recognized as national or ethnic humour is posited to recruit the same humour-invoking pragmatic mechanisms as in other kinds of jokes, the principal difference lying in the choice of the target being mocked, which must be well-known to the audience for the cognitive overload effect to be brought forth.
Alicja Witalisz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 13, Issue 1, Volume 13 (2018), pp. 45-67
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.18.003.8465While English-Polish language contact results chiefly in English lexical loans, the influence of English on Polish in recent decades has not been limited to lexis and semantics. English penetrates deep into the structural patterns of Polish, and English N+N compound loanwords and loanblends become models for Polish structural neologisms, whose coining may be seen as a violation of native word-formation rules or, at best, as the boosting of a native potential yet non-productive word-formation pattern. It is argued in the article that the increasing productivity of the word-formation rule for deriving right-headed interfixless N+N compounds in Polish is a by-product of intensive lexical borrowing from English. The article explains the mechanism that is responsible for the contact-induced increased productivity (or perhaps the adoption) of a word-formation rule in the recipient language and illustrates it with corpus-sourced material. Most of the newly coined contact-induced N+N formations in Polish are hybrid creations formed in series by analogy to English structural models. The identified formal features of the analysed N+N compounds place them outside of the traditionally recognized types of Polish compounds.
Publication date: 28.02.2018
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 4, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 199-219
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.010.8242Drawing on corpus data, this paper investigates the hypothesis that the delexicalization of the English nouns pile and stack as well as their Polish counterparts sterta ‘pile’ and stos ‘stack’, evidenced by collocational expansion, is to a considerable extent fuelled by the conceptual contiguity between their prototypical concrete N2-collocates and certain abstract notions which may be instantiated by means thereof. It is postulated that this metonymic relation leads to the items gradually loosening their original selectional requirements, thereby contributing to the schematization of their source semantics. The results of an empirical analysis show that the collocational broadening of all of the nouns under scrutiny indeed largely stems from metonymization, yet the tendency is more pronounced in the case of the Polish items, particularly stos ‘stack’. This finding can be accounted for in view of the fact that in contrast to their English equivalents, they have not yet established themselves as schematic quantifiers, as corroborated by their current dictionary definitions, and therefore still heavily rely on the aforementioned conceptual mechanism in their delexicalization.
Kamil Stachowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 4, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 221-240
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.011.8243Apart from offering a contribution to perceptual dialectology of Poland, the paper discusses an experiment in which two groups were set a map drawing task. One group was given a map on which major cities were marked while the other a map with the main regions. The two maps combined from their answers have proven to be nothing alike, suggesting that this one detail in the design of the study can dramatically influence its results, and as such it needs to be paid particular attention and further investigated.
Damian Herda
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 4, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 199-219
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.010.8242Drawing on corpus data, this paper investigates the hypothesis that the delexicalization of the English nouns pile and stack as well as their Polish counterparts sterta ‘pile’ and stos ‘stack’, evidenced by collocational expansion, is to a considerable extent fuelled by the conceptual contiguity between their prototypical concrete N2-collocates and certain abstract notions which may be instantiated by means thereof. It is postulated that this metonymic relation leads to the items gradually loosening their original selectional requirements, thereby contributing to the schematization of their source semantics. The results of an empirical analysis show that the collocational broadening of all of the nouns under scrutiny indeed largely stems from metonymization, yet the tendency is more pronounced in the case of the Polish items, particularly stos ‘stack’. This finding can be accounted for in view of the fact that in contrast to their English equivalents, they have not yet established themselves as schematic quantifiers, as corroborated by their current dictionary definitions, and therefore still heavily rely on the aforementioned conceptual mechanism in their delexicalization.
Kamil Stachowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 4, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 221-240
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.011.8243Apart from offering a contribution to perceptual dialectology of Poland, the paper discusses an experiment in which two groups were set a map drawing task. One group was given a map on which major cities were marked while the other a map with the main regions. The two maps combined from their answers have proven to be nothing alike, suggesting that this one detail in the design of the study can dramatically influence its results, and as such it needs to be paid particular attention and further investigated.
Publication date: 21.09.2017
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Anna Bondaruk, Bożena Rozwadowska, Wojciech Witkowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 123-144
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.006.7199The current paper is an attempt to provide a syntactic account of the immunity of Polish stative Object Experiencer (OE) verbs to verbal passivisation. In search for the syntactic structure of stative OE verbs, and the hierarchy of their arguments, it is demonstrated here that the evidence based on Condition A, pronominal variable binding, and Condition C effects is inconclusive, and hence does not allow us to determine which of the two arguments – the Experiencer or the Target/Subject Matter (T/SM) – is projected higher in the structure. It is then suggested that the answer to the question why stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives crucially relies on their having a complex ergative structure as in Bennis (2004), where both arguments are internal, while the external argument is missing altogether. At the same time, it is assumed after Landau (2010) that the Experiencer is projected higher than the T/SM.
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Dorota Klimek-Jankowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 145-171
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.008.7200The main goal of the reported study is to test the cross-linguistic validity of the existing psycholinguistic models of morphological processing by contributing the results of a masked priming lexical decision experiment on the processing of Polish semantically transparent and opaque compounds. All these models are concerned with the question of whether morphologically complex words are decomposed during online processing or whether they are stored as chunks in the mental lexicon. We contribute new data from Polish showing that reaction times to target words semantically related to the heads of transparent compounds were significantly faster than to target words semantically related to the heads of opaque compounds in Polish. This may be interpreted as evidence in favour of the view that semantically transparent compound words are decomposed and we access the lemmas of their constituent elements whereas semantically opaque compounds are not decomposed and there is no access to their constituent lemmas.
James E. Lavine
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 173-198
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.009.7201This paper analyzes the historical divergence of predicates marked with old passive neuter -no/-to in Polish and Ukrainian. It is argued that the locus of change leading to the rise of the transitivity property involved a rearrangement of morphologically-eroded voice morphology. Despite the surface similarity of the Polish and Ukrainian constructions, their divergent distribution in the modern languages indicates that grammaticalization of the old passive morpheme proceeded along different pathways, implicating the internal structure of vP, and creating new accusative case-assigning possibilities.
Anna Bondaruk, Bożena Rozwadowska, Wojciech Witkowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 123-144
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.006.7199The current paper is an attempt to provide a syntactic account of the immunity of Polish stative Object Experiencer (OE) verbs to verbal passivisation. In search for the syntactic structure of stative OE verbs, and the hierarchy of their arguments, it is demonstrated here that the evidence based on Condition A, pronominal variable binding, and Condition C effects is inconclusive, and hence does not allow us to determine which of the two arguments – the Experiencer or the Target/Subject Matter (T/SM) – is projected higher in the structure. It is then suggested that the answer to the question why stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives crucially relies on their having a complex ergative structure as in Bennis (2004), where both arguments are internal, while the external argument is missing altogether. At the same time, it is assumed after Landau (2010) that the Experiencer is projected higher than the T/SM.
Krzysztof Hwaszcz, Dorota Klimek-Jankowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 145-171
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.008.7200The main goal of the reported study is to test the cross-linguistic validity of the existing psycholinguistic models of morphological processing by contributing the results of a masked priming lexical decision experiment on the processing of Polish semantically transparent and opaque compounds. All these models are concerned with the question of whether morphologically complex words are decomposed during online processing or whether they are stored as chunks in the mental lexicon. We contribute new data from Polish showing that reaction times to target words semantically related to the heads of transparent compounds were significantly faster than to target words semantically related to the heads of opaque compounds in Polish. This may be interpreted as evidence in favour of the view that semantically transparent compound words are decomposed and we access the lemmas of their constituent elements whereas semantically opaque compounds are not decomposed and there is no access to their constituent lemmas.
James E. Lavine
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 173-198
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.009.7201This paper analyzes the historical divergence of predicates marked with old passive neuter -no/-to in Polish and Ukrainian. It is argued that the locus of change leading to the rise of the transitivity property involved a rearrangement of morphologically-eroded voice morphology. Despite the surface similarity of the Polish and Ukrainian constructions, their divergent distribution in the modern languages indicates that grammaticalization of the old passive morpheme proceeded along different pathways, implicating the internal structure of vP, and creating new accusative case-assigning possibilities.
Publication date: 06.09.2017
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Anna Bondaruk, Bożena Rozwadowska, Wojciech Witkowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 57-73
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.003.7021The paper aims to verify Landau’s (2010) claim that the inability of stative Object Experiencer (OE) verbs to form verbal passives is directly linked to their unaccusativity. In the first part of the article it is shown that given the polysemous nature of OE verbs in Polish, the collected corpus data confirm that unambiguously stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives in Polish. However, it is argued that this fact cannot be taken as evidence for the unaccusativity of these predicates. A number of arguments are provided against the claim that Polish stative OE verbs are unaccusative. Firstly, in contrast to their English equivalents, stative OE verbs in Polish cannot co-occur with an expletive subject. Secondly, the accusative case of the Experiencer is clearly structural in Polish, as it is affected by the Genitive of Negation. The second part of the article (to be published in a forthcoming issue of this journal) focuses on the mutual hierarchy of the two arguments of OE verbs: the Experiencer and the Target/Subject Matter (T/SM). The evidence based on Condition A, pronominal variable binding, and Condition C effects is inconclusive, and hence does not allow us to determine which of the two arguments is projected higher in the structure. For this reason, it is assumed after Landau (2010) that the Experiencer is projected higher than the T/SM. The overall conclusion reached in the paper is that stative OE verbs in Polish are not syntactically unaccusative, and therefore their immunity to the verbal passive must be sought elsewhere. The answer to the question why stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives crucially relies on their having a complex ergative structure as in Bennis (2004), where both arguments are internal, while the external argument is missing altogether.
Björn Wiemer, Anna Socka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 75-95
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.004.7022The present study aims at differentiating between semantically-coded and pragmatically-conditioned meaning components of Polish and German sentence adverbs whose meaning is conventionally associated with hearsay (»Eng. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). In the current part of the study, we argue why our objective should be reached on the basis of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), and we show which particular communicative principles distinguished in Neo-Gricean frameworks can sensibly be considered as triggers of GCIs that evoke ‘epistemic overtones’ in the use of hearsay adverbs. We differentiate between GCIs which work for all relevant adverbs and implicatures which only apply to more individual properties of hearsay adverbs on more specific, “deeper” levels of their meaning structure. In accordance with this more descriptive task, we discuss general issues concerning presumable hierarchies of factors that influence (trigger or cancel) epistemic implicatures in the usage of lexical markers of information source. We argue that many discourse properties on the semantics-pragmatics interface which are characteristic of grammatical evidentials also hold true for lexical markers of information source.
Paulina Zydorowicz, Paula Orzechowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 97-121
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.005.7023The goal of this paper is to investigate Polish phonotactics from the point of view of different measures of phonotactic preferability. The inventory of word-initial and -final clusters is extracted from a dictionary and analysed in accordance with two principles of phonotactic complexity, namely, the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation and Net Auditory Distance. Sonority entails measurements of distances between consonants expressed by the manner of articulation, whereas NAD uses the manner of articulation, place of articulation as well as the obstruent/sonorant distinction. These differences are likely to contribute to a different assessment of clusters, which is the main focus of this paper. Moreover, since a set of Polish clusters arise due to morphology, a distinction is drawn between phonotactic and morphonotactic clusters, i.e. phonologically and morphologically motivated. We are interested in verifying to what extent the principles under investigation reflect the relation between cluster preferability and morphological complexity. The analysis shows that NAD, as a more restrictive measure of phonotactics, rejects a larger portion of word-initial and -final clusters on well-formedness grounds. Secondly, we demonstrate that both principles generally show a strong relation between cluster preferability and morphological complexity.
Anna Bondaruk, Bożena Rozwadowska, Wojciech Witkowski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 57-73
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.003.7021The paper aims to verify Landau’s (2010) claim that the inability of stative Object Experiencer (OE) verbs to form verbal passives is directly linked to their unaccusativity. In the first part of the article it is shown that given the polysemous nature of OE verbs in Polish, the collected corpus data confirm that unambiguously stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives in Polish. However, it is argued that this fact cannot be taken as evidence for the unaccusativity of these predicates. A number of arguments are provided against the claim that Polish stative OE verbs are unaccusative. Firstly, in contrast to their English equivalents, stative OE verbs in Polish cannot co-occur with an expletive subject. Secondly, the accusative case of the Experiencer is clearly structural in Polish, as it is affected by the Genitive of Negation. The second part of the article (to be published in a forthcoming issue of this journal) focuses on the mutual hierarchy of the two arguments of OE verbs: the Experiencer and the Target/Subject Matter (T/SM). The evidence based on Condition A, pronominal variable binding, and Condition C effects is inconclusive, and hence does not allow us to determine which of the two arguments is projected higher in the structure. For this reason, it is assumed after Landau (2010) that the Experiencer is projected higher than the T/SM. The overall conclusion reached in the paper is that stative OE verbs in Polish are not syntactically unaccusative, and therefore their immunity to the verbal passive must be sought elsewhere. The answer to the question why stative OE verbs do not form verbal passives crucially relies on their having a complex ergative structure as in Bennis (2004), where both arguments are internal, while the external argument is missing altogether.
Björn Wiemer, Anna Socka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 75-95
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.004.7022The present study aims at differentiating between semantically-coded and pragmatically-conditioned meaning components of Polish and German sentence adverbs whose meaning is conventionally associated with hearsay (»Eng. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). In the current part of the study, we argue why our objective should be reached on the basis of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), and we show which particular communicative principles distinguished in Neo-Gricean frameworks can sensibly be considered as triggers of GCIs that evoke ‘epistemic overtones’ in the use of hearsay adverbs. We differentiate between GCIs which work for all relevant adverbs and implicatures which only apply to more individual properties of hearsay adverbs on more specific, “deeper” levels of their meaning structure. In accordance with this more descriptive task, we discuss general issues concerning presumable hierarchies of factors that influence (trigger or cancel) epistemic implicatures in the usage of lexical markers of information source. We argue that many discourse properties on the semantics-pragmatics interface which are characteristic of grammatical evidentials also hold true for lexical markers of information source.
Paulina Zydorowicz, Paula Orzechowska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 97-121
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.005.7023The goal of this paper is to investigate Polish phonotactics from the point of view of different measures of phonotactic preferability. The inventory of word-initial and -final clusters is extracted from a dictionary and analysed in accordance with two principles of phonotactic complexity, namely, the Sonority Sequencing Generalisation and Net Auditory Distance. Sonority entails measurements of distances between consonants expressed by the manner of articulation, whereas NAD uses the manner of articulation, place of articulation as well as the obstruent/sonorant distinction. These differences are likely to contribute to a different assessment of clusters, which is the main focus of this paper. Moreover, since a set of Polish clusters arise due to morphology, a distinction is drawn between phonotactic and morphonotactic clusters, i.e. phonologically and morphologically motivated. We are interested in verifying to what extent the principles under investigation reflect the relation between cluster preferability and morphological complexity. The analysis shows that NAD, as a more restrictive measure of phonotactics, rejects a larger portion of word-initial and -final clusters on well-formedness grounds. Secondly, we demonstrate that both principles generally show a strong relation between cluster preferability and morphological complexity.
Publication date: 29.05.2017
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Wojciech Guz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 1, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 1-26
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.001.6728The paper examines syntactic features of non-canonical relativization in spoken Polish that loosen the structural integration of two types of relative clauses – one introduced by the complementizer co, the other by the wh-pronoun który. The resulting unintegration holds between the head NP and the co/który clause and contrasts with the integrated structure of canonical relatives. I discuss the range of unintegration features observed for both types in corpus data and indicate the distinct quantitative extents to which the two types are unintegrated. Although the nature of spontaneous conversation is such that it imposes some loosening of structural cohesion in both types, co clauses (especially non-subject relative clauses) are far more frequently unintegrated than który clauses. Also, co clauses depart functionally from the canonical relative structure in that the complementizer co serves functions other than that of a straightforward relativizer, namely it has conjunction-like uses (temporal, spatial, and general conjunction), indicating an expansion of the categorial status of co. The observed unintegration of Polish conversational relatives is in line with previous analyses of the syntax of unplanned speech (e.g. Miller and Weinert 1998)
Björn Wiemer, Anna Socka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 1, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 27-56
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.002.6729The present study aims at differentiating between semantically-coded and pragmatically-conditioned meaning components of Polish and German sentence adverbs whose meaning is conventionally associated with hearsay (≈ Eng. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). In the first part, we present a systematic corpus study of hearsay adverbs in Polish and German providing the empirical basis for our analysis and conclusions. In the second part, we provide reasons why our objective should be reached on the basis of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), and we show which particular communicative principles distinguished in Neo-Gricean frameworks can sensibly be considered as triggers of GCIs that evoke ‘epistemic overtones’ in the use of hearsay adverbs. We differentiate between GCIs which work for all relevant adverbs and implicatures which only apply to more individual properties of hearsay adverbs on more specific levels of their meaning structure. In accordance with this more descriptive task, we discuss general issues concerning presumable hierarchies of factors that influence (trigger or cancel) epistemic implicatures in the usage of lexical markers of information source. We argue that many discourse properties on the semantics-pragmatics interface which are characteristic of grammatical evidentials also hold true for lexical markers of information source
Wojciech Guz
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 1, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 1-26
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.001.6728The paper examines syntactic features of non-canonical relativization in spoken Polish that loosen the structural integration of two types of relative clauses – one introduced by the complementizer co, the other by the wh-pronoun który. The resulting unintegration holds between the head NP and the co/który clause and contrasts with the integrated structure of canonical relatives. I discuss the range of unintegration features observed for both types in corpus data and indicate the distinct quantitative extents to which the two types are unintegrated. Although the nature of spontaneous conversation is such that it imposes some loosening of structural cohesion in both types, co clauses (especially non-subject relative clauses) are far more frequently unintegrated than który clauses. Also, co clauses depart functionally from the canonical relative structure in that the complementizer co serves functions other than that of a straightforward relativizer, namely it has conjunction-like uses (temporal, spatial, and general conjunction), indicating an expansion of the categorial status of co. The observed unintegration of Polish conversational relatives is in line with previous analyses of the syntax of unplanned speech (e.g. Miller and Weinert 1998)
Björn Wiemer, Anna Socka
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 12, Issue 1, Volume 12 (2017), pp. 27-56
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.17.002.6729The present study aims at differentiating between semantically-coded and pragmatically-conditioned meaning components of Polish and German sentence adverbs whose meaning is conventionally associated with hearsay (≈ Eng. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). In the first part, we present a systematic corpus study of hearsay adverbs in Polish and German providing the empirical basis for our analysis and conclusions. In the second part, we provide reasons why our objective should be reached on the basis of Generalized Conversational Implicatures (GCIs), and we show which particular communicative principles distinguished in Neo-Gricean frameworks can sensibly be considered as triggers of GCIs that evoke ‘epistemic overtones’ in the use of hearsay adverbs. We differentiate between GCIs which work for all relevant adverbs and implicatures which only apply to more individual properties of hearsay adverbs on more specific levels of their meaning structure. In accordance with this more descriptive task, we discuss general issues concerning presumable hierarchies of factors that influence (trigger or cancel) epistemic implicatures in the usage of lexical markers of information source. We argue that many discourse properties on the semantics-pragmatics interface which are characteristic of grammatical evidentials also hold true for lexical markers of information source
Publication date: 20.01.2017
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
Magdalena Charzyńska-Wójcik
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 167-187
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.009.6168The objective of the paper is to argue against a common denotation for Walenty Wróbel's sixteenth-century translation of the Psalter into Polish and its printed version prepared by Andrzej Glaber. It is customary to treat Glaber's interventions into Wróbel's rendition as purely editorial and, in effect, consider the printed version of the Żołtarz to be the work of Wróbel. On the basis of Glaber's treatment of one syntactic phenomenon (the placement of the possessive pronoun in an NP), the paper shows that Glaber's involvement into Wróbel's text far exceeds what Glaber is usually credited with. Therefore, the paper claims that the two works –the manuscript and its printed edition –should be classified and discussed as distinct productions.
Elżbieta Chrzanowska-Kluczewska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 189-208
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.008.6167The article refers briefly to the development, over the last half-century, of the sub-discipline of literary linguistics called literary semantics in anglophone tradition (mostly British), pointing out its roots in other scholarly paradigms (among others Russian formalism and the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics) and its close connection with cognitive poetics. The author mentions also a development of studies on artistic language in contemporary Polish linguistic theorizing. Conceived by Trevor Eaton as a broad linguistic approach to literary texts, interdisciplinary in nature, literary semantics – in a natural way – enters into dialogue with translation studies in the area of research called comparative stylistics. The author discusses the notion of semantic dominant, introduced into linguistics by Roman Jakobson in 1976 and into the Polish critical theory of translation by Stanisław Barańczak (2004) to designate the most salient element of the poem’s complex structure, acting as a clue to its interpretation and translation. The examples provided by Barańczak, voiced as metalinguistic comments on the construal of his own translations of selected English poems as well as critical evaluation of other translators’ output, lead us to the conclusion that the concept of semantic dominant should be re-named stylistic dominant, the term that better reflects a peculiar characteristic of a multi-level and often multimodal nature of meaning in poetic texts (plurisignation, after Wheelwright 1954/1968). What’s more, we should talk about sets of stylistic dominants (rather than their single occurrences) that act as keys to complex semantics of poetry. An important dominant remains figuration (troping in particular) but the orchestration of the poem (the totality of its phonetics and versification) and often its graphic layout are of no less import in meaning construction.
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 209-234
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.010.6169Akin to stereotype, gossip is a transmission mechanism which fulfils persuasive functions, but which does not seek to answer questions about the genuineness of the transmitted information or its anchoring in reality other than the reality created during the communication process (Wagner 2006: 39). Such is also the case with online celebrity gossip, in the case of which writers recruit various strategies to vary the epistemic strength of their assessments and to claim or disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of the provided information. Given the foregoing, basing on English and Polish linguistic material, this article investigates elements of epistemological positioning (Bednarek 2006) which underlie the construction of online celebrity news in two languages lacking grammaticalised systems of evidentiality. To this end, the study outlines the main strategies related to the communication of knowledge and identifies the resources used for the construal of (un)certainty in this type of discourse. The sources of evidence analysed in the study include: ‘Perception/Inference,’ ‘General knowledge,’ ‘Proof,’ ‘Obviousness,’ ‘Unspecified,’ ‘Hearsay’ and ‘Mindsay,’ based on which diverse English and Polish EP markers are discussed. As the findings expose, rather than offer solid evidence, the authors of both sets of articles rely chiefly on perception, inference and hearsay, showing little epistemic commitment and decreasing the informative value of their reports.
Magdalena Charzyńska-Wójcik
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 167-187
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.009.6168The objective of the paper is to argue against a common denotation for Walenty Wróbel's sixteenth-century translation of the Psalter into Polish and its printed version prepared by Andrzej Glaber. It is customary to treat Glaber's interventions into Wróbel's rendition as purely editorial and, in effect, consider the printed version of the Żołtarz to be the work of Wróbel. On the basis of Glaber's treatment of one syntactic phenomenon (the placement of the possessive pronoun in an NP), the paper shows that Glaber's involvement into Wróbel's text far exceeds what Glaber is usually credited with. Therefore, the paper claims that the two works –the manuscript and its printed edition –should be classified and discussed as distinct productions.
Elżbieta Chrzanowska-Kluczewska
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 189-208
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.008.6167The article refers briefly to the development, over the last half-century, of the sub-discipline of literary linguistics called literary semantics in anglophone tradition (mostly British), pointing out its roots in other scholarly paradigms (among others Russian formalism and the Moscow-Tartu school of semiotics) and its close connection with cognitive poetics. The author mentions also a development of studies on artistic language in contemporary Polish linguistic theorizing. Conceived by Trevor Eaton as a broad linguistic approach to literary texts, interdisciplinary in nature, literary semantics – in a natural way – enters into dialogue with translation studies in the area of research called comparative stylistics. The author discusses the notion of semantic dominant, introduced into linguistics by Roman Jakobson in 1976 and into the Polish critical theory of translation by Stanisław Barańczak (2004) to designate the most salient element of the poem’s complex structure, acting as a clue to its interpretation and translation. The examples provided by Barańczak, voiced as metalinguistic comments on the construal of his own translations of selected English poems as well as critical evaluation of other translators’ output, lead us to the conclusion that the concept of semantic dominant should be re-named stylistic dominant, the term that better reflects a peculiar characteristic of a multi-level and often multimodal nature of meaning in poetic texts (plurisignation, after Wheelwright 1954/1968). What’s more, we should talk about sets of stylistic dominants (rather than their single occurrences) that act as keys to complex semantics of poetry. An important dominant remains figuration (troping in particular) but the orchestration of the poem (the totality of its phonetics and versification) and often its graphic layout are of no less import in meaning construction.
Magdalena Szczyrbak
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 4, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 209-234
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.010.6169Akin to stereotype, gossip is a transmission mechanism which fulfils persuasive functions, but which does not seek to answer questions about the genuineness of the transmitted information or its anchoring in reality other than the reality created during the communication process (Wagner 2006: 39). Such is also the case with online celebrity gossip, in the case of which writers recruit various strategies to vary the epistemic strength of their assessments and to claim or disclaim responsibility for the accuracy of the provided information. Given the foregoing, basing on English and Polish linguistic material, this article investigates elements of epistemological positioning (Bednarek 2006) which underlie the construction of online celebrity news in two languages lacking grammaticalised systems of evidentiality. To this end, the study outlines the main strategies related to the communication of knowledge and identifies the resources used for the construal of (un)certainty in this type of discourse. The sources of evidence analysed in the study include: ‘Perception/Inference,’ ‘General knowledge,’ ‘Proof,’ ‘Obviousness,’ ‘Unspecified,’ ‘Hearsay’ and ‘Mindsay,’ based on which diverse English and Polish EP markers are discussed. As the findings expose, rather than offer solid evidence, the authors of both sets of articles rely chiefly on perception, inference and hearsay, showing little epistemic commitment and decreasing the informative value of their reports.
Publication date: 30.11.2016
Editor-in-Chief: Ewa Willim
Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief: Mateusz Urban
Barbara Citko
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 3, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 85-110
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.005.5879While there has been a lot of research on the differences between restrictive and appositive relative clauses as well as on different types of restrictive relatives, distinctions within the class of appositive relatives have not been studied to the same extent till relatively recently (see, for example, Cinque (2008), Citko (2008b), Del Gobbo (2003, 2007, 2010)). My main goal in this paper is to add to this growing body of research on appositive relatives, by first reviewing the distinctions that have been pointed out to exist within this class, focusing on the distinction between what Cinque (2008) refers to as integrated and non-integrated appositives, and, second, by applying Cinque’s diagnostics to Polish, to show that Polish appositives are non-integrated. I then examine the structures Cinque assigns to the two types, pointing out some problems with assimilating non-integrated appositive relatives either to coordinate structures or to parentheticals in general. Drawing on recent views of labeling in syntax (Hornstein 2009 and Citko 2008c), I conclude by offering an alternative structure for non-integrated appositives relatives, on which the appositive CP starts out as a unlabeled DP adjunct, which forces it to move and adjoin to the root clause, thus deriving the main insight behind the so-called Main Clause Hypothesis for appositive relatives.
Paweł Rydzewski
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 3, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 111-131
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.006.5880This article argues against the single-phoneme approach discussed in Padgett (2001, 2003, 2010), which does not recognize the phonemic status of the vowel [ɨ]. The relevant data are drawn from the processes of Polish palatalization in the class of velars, while the presented analyses are couched in the theory of Lexical Phonology. It is argued that the lack of [ɨ] enforces the use of diacritics and leads to the proliferation of rules that are necessary to accommodate diacritically-specified contexts of palatalization. It is also shown that the singlephoneme approach leads to the morphologization of processes that are typically phonological. On the other hand, assuming the existence of underlying [ɨ] allows for a transparent and uniform account of palatalization effects.
Bartosz Wiland
Studies in Polish Linguistics, Vol. 11, Issue 3, Volume 11 (2016), pp. 133-165
https://doi.org/10.4467/23005920SPL.16.007.5881Remnant movement, once believed not to be a part of grammar at all, has since become a tool of analyzing phenomena like verb fronting, word order alternations, or covert movement. What has been largely missing from the discussion of remnant movement are the effects a remnant constituent has on the nodes in the clause it has crossed. This paper argues that remnant movement has particular consequences for clausal syntax since it gives rise to crossing and nesting movement dependencies. This point is illustrated on the example of certain robust asymmetries in the Polish OVS syntax. The analysis of Polish OVS sentences has a broader benefit, namely that the proper identification of crossing and nesting paths provides convergent evidence for the existence of remnant movement in the first place.
