G. Hentschel & R. Laskowski (eds.), Studies in Polish morphology and syntax - synchronic and diachronic problems. München 1993 (= Specimina Philologiae Slavicae 99, hrsg. von O. Horbatsch, G. Freidhof und P. Kosta), xiii + 313 S. (original) (raw)

Studies in Polish Morphology and Syntax

1993

This volume presents a sampling of papers devoted to different phenomena of Polish (and theoretical) morphology and syntax. The focus of attention of the Authors of the present volume is concentrated mostly on questions of syntactic and morphological analysis of Modern Standard Polish with exception of W. MAŃCZAKłs and (in part) G. Hentschel's articles, which take the diachronic perspective. Some brief information should be provided about the papers included in the volume as well as about the arrangement of the papers. The first section containing the papers by A

Polish in the light of grammaticalization theory

2010

Polish in the light of grammaticalization theoryThe paper is concerned with grammaticalization, a type of language change whereby lexical items, in specifi contexts, come to serve grammatical functions, and grammatical items acquire new grammatical functions. The aim is twofold: to shed light at the main properties of grammaticalization, and to demonstrate its applicability to Polish data. Some prominent examples in Polish are discussed: the grammaticalization of modals, imperative and avertive constructions. The paper closes with a non-exhaustive list of leads for further research into grammaticalization in Polish.

Grammatical Dictionary of Polish Presentation by the Authors

The dictionary provides a comprehensive grammatical description of Polish words. It covers about 180,000 lexical items (lexemes). The dictionary has been compiled in an electronic form and made accessible via a computer program. All lexemes are morphologically and syntactically characterized by a set of features, which display on the monitor. Additionally, some regular derivatives are presented in entries. The inflectional description strives for completeness, while the derivation and syntax are described as far as a clear formalized approach was feasible. Non-inflected lexemes are provided with their part-of-speech feature and the valence information is added where instructive (case government for prepositions, type of conjoined phrase for conjunctions). The compact disc containing the program is accompanied by a printed introduction, facilitating its use and presenting the authors' theoretical principles. The dictionary may serve as a source of research in the domain of inflec...

The diachronic syntax of perfective auxiliaries in Polish

Diachronic Slavonic Syntax: Gradual Changes in Focus; Editors: Björn Hansen, Jasmina Grković-Major; Wiener Slawistischer Almanach: Sonderband, 2010

This paper analyzes the syntax of perfective auxiliaries in Polish, which may assume two syntactic positions: they may follow the clause-initial word as Wackernagel clitics, or they can be affixed onto the participle. The traditional assumption made in the literature is that the variation is due to a diachronic reinterpretation of their morphological status, and that the affixed form is an innovation. This paper investigates the distribution of Polish auxiliaries in a broader Slavic perspective and argues that the observed variation does not exemplify a language change, but rather it involves two independent syntactic processes: one of them is related to auxiliary affixation; the other one, inherited from Old Church Slavonic, is a case of second position cliticization that marks the Illocutionary Force of a clause.

Lexicalization and grammaticalization - similarities and differences (On the example of the Polish language

East European Studies, 2011

The paper makes reference to existing linguistic work on the subject of lexicalization and grammaticalization. These phenomena are described in the text on the basis of Polish linguistic material. The morphological plane of language is set as the main point of reference, while the description is done from a diachronic perspective. Formal criteria, referring to the techniques by means of which the described changes take place (composition, clipping, fossilization of the phrase), as well as the semantic changes being the effect of said changes (generalization, specialization of meaning), are taken into consideration in the comparison. Two terms are described in the final part of the paper: degrammaticalization and delexicalization, both of which do not yet have an unequivocal definition in linguistic literature. It is proposed to limit the understanding of grammaticalization to the following type of changes: grammatical element > less grammatical > lexical; while the term delexicalization is to be used in reference to folk etymology.

On NP-internal agreement. A study of some adjectival and nominal modifiers in Polish

Current Issues in Formal Slavic Linguistics, 80-95. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH., 2001

In this paper I investigate two classes of modifiers, adjectival and nominal, found in the syntactic projection of the noun in Polish, as illustrated in (1) and (2) below, and propose that such complexes should be given a uniform analysis by virtue of the fact that they a) share some important morphosyntactic properties and b) the modifiers establish a similar semantic relationship with the head noun: (1) ogród zoologiczny garden-sg,m(asc),n(om) zoological(A)-sg,m,n ‘a zoological garden’ (2) anioł stróż angel-sg,m,n guardian(N)-sg,m,n ‘the guardian angel’ I suggest here that both N+A complexes such as in (1) and N+N complexes such as in (2) are syntactic rather than morphological objects. Some morphological and syntactic arguments in favor of this proposal are presented in section 2, where I discuss the morphosyntactic properties of such complexes against the morphosyntactic properties of compound words in Polish. In section 3 I argue that both adjectival and nominal modifiers are predicates which apply to the individual or the event arguments of the nominal predicate in the complexes under discussion and as such, they selectively bind different qualia of the noun in a similar fashion. Based on the fact that such modifiers in general cannot be related to the noun under syntactic predication, I conclude that they do not originate in a (reduced) copular structure. Consequently, in section 4 I take modifiers in complexes like (1) and (2) to originate ‘close’ to the head noun and account for their surface postnominal position by claiming that the noun raises overtly in Polish, interfering with the surface position of the modifier relative to it. I also offer an explanation as to why the head noun must raise into the highest functional head in its syntactic projection in overt syntax in Polish.

115Studies in Polish Linguistics 6, 2011

2014

Suffi x order in double and multiple diminutives: with data from Polish and Bulgarian1 In this article we investigate suffi x combinations in second- and third-grade diminutive nouns in Polish and Bulgarian. We show that the formation of double and multiple diminutives in both languages is subject to phonological, morphological, semantic and psycholinguistic constraints. Although diminutive suffi xes constitute a semantically homogeneous set, they do not combine freely with each other and of all possible combinations of diminutive suffi xes in a language only a very few exist. Both languages under scrutiny in this paper ‘fi lter ’ their relatively large sets of DIM1 suffi xes and use a very few of them for the formation of DIM2 nouns, and Bulgarian also for DIM3 nouns. Moreover, only suffi xes that occur in DIM2 nouns can derive DIM3 nouns in Bulgarian. Th e combinations of diminutive suffi xes in double and multiple diminutives are fi xed and resemble to some extent a template orde...

Dephrasal adjectives in Polish – A case of syntax-inside-morphology

Linguistics Beyond and Within (LingBaW), 2019

The present paper is part of a larger project which investigates the issue of "syntax-inside-morphology" in the domain of Polish word-formation. In what follows, we explore the thus far unstudied territory of dephrasal adjectives, such as tużpopołudniowy 'right-after-noon' and ponadstustronicowy 'over-one-hundred-page' built on phrasal bases subjected to suffixation. It is generally acknowledged that the Polish word-formation system is not designed to comprise phrasal compounding-a word-formation type which has come to be considered a flagship representative of the morphology-syntax interface (see Szymanek 2017 and Pafel 2017). Nevertheless, one may come across a number of Polish word-formation patterns, such as the class of nouns derived from PPs (e.g. nausznik 'earmuff' [[na P uszy N ] PP-nik] N) or synthetic compound words (e.g. bydłobójnia 'abattoir' [[bydł No -bój V ] VP-nia] N) which should clearly be considered legitimate members of the global "syntax-inside-morphology" community (see Kolbusz-Buda 2019a). In what follows, we want to argue that Polish dephrasal adjectives should be recognised as a case of morphology-syntax interplay on a par with the already attested cross-linguistic material. The phrasal character of the Polish data to be discussed in this study is so strong that researching this sui generis type of derivation seems not only a valid linguistic undertaking but also one with important implications. The study may have far-reaching consequences for the descriptive adequacy of the Polish word-formation system and point to new directions in the discussion on the morphology-syntax interface. The morphological structure of the adjectives to be discussed will be juxtaposed with the class of Polish compounds proper, in particular, synthetic compounds-a word-formation type which can be considered the closest in its morphological make-up to the presented material. Offering such a comparative perspective seems necessary as the adjectives to which we choose to refer as products of dephrasal suffixation are casually classified as compounds. Moreover, although Polish does not note any cases of phrasal compounding, the morphological structure of the adjectives in question will be additionally examined to discover potential parallels between the two word-formation types. The reason behind this undertaking is twofold. Firstly, as has already been mentioned, dephrasal adjectives are classified as compounds; secondly, they contain a phrasal unit. In our analysis, we draw on a revised version of the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis, i.e. Lieber and Scalise's (2007) Firewall Theory, which belongs to the current of the so-called mixed models of word-formation advanced in the recent years by, for instance, Ackema and Neeleman 2004 and Pafel 2017, allowing for a limited intermodular interaction between morphological and syntactic domains.