Biskup, Petr, Marcel Börner, Olav Mueller-Reichau & Iuliia Shcherbina (eds.). Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2021, 361–403. Berlin: Language Science Press., 2023
The article presents a critical discussion of recent work on the semantics of lexical prefixes an... more The article presents a critical discussion of recent work on the semantics of lexical prefixes and of the aspect meanings of n/t-participles of imperfective stems in contemporary Russian and Polish, and on the role of all these formations in the voice system of both languages. On this background, a corpus-based study on the development of the aspect functions of these participles for imperfective and perfective stems in Russian and Polish from 1730 until today is discussed, including their syntactic distribution (predicative, appositive, attributive use) and the role of secondary imperfective stems. Special attention is paid to coarse measures of productivity and the changing relation between type and token frequency. This study can be considered the first usage-based investigation from a diachronic perspective in Slavic linguistics, which, to a large extent, is made possible thanks to a database of aspect triplets.
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Perfective stems are predominantly derived by prefixes from simplex stems; in most cases the prefixes modify the lexical meaning of simplex stems, but there is a considerable number of prefixes that only specify a meaning component inherent to the simplex, up to the point that they seem void of meaning. As a consequence, pairs of an imperfective simplex and a perfective prefixed stem arise. Simultaneously, suffixation of prefixed stems has been spreading as a means to derive imperfective stems from (usually prefixed) perfective stems, which yields so-called secondary imperfectivization. While the morphological preconditions for the joint contribution of prefixes and suffixes to stem-derivational patterns were created already by the Common Slavic period, both “techniques” have since then been strengthening. Suffixation has gained more significance especially in standard Russian, but prefixation has never ceased to be active, the intersection of both prefixation and suffixation has lead to the rise of so-called ‘aspect triplesʼ (Russ. vidovye trojki).
The article assesses the relative weight of prefixes and suffixes in the early and recent stages of the history of Slavic aspect. Their significance is evaluated on the background of properties of the entire system in terms of grammaticalization parameters appropriate for classificatory categories. Special attention is paid to the criteria on which aspectologists have been determining aspect pairs and to the status of aspect triples. The assessment of the system properties ends up with a paradox; it results if one strictly abides by Maslovian criteria of ‘trivial pairednessʼ, which, in practice, require not only identity of lexical meaning, but also an ontology for which telic events are the sole basis in the derivation of aspect pairs.
The article deals with a specific resultative construction, which is particularly characteristic for Polish and Czech. This predicative construction is composed of a copula (Pol. być, Czech být) and a phrase headed by the temporal preposition po ‘after’. It can be considered resultative because it describes a state which implies a telic event causing this state. The construction is peculiar inasmuch as it does not specify the concrete type of state. It can be ascribed three different meanings distributed over two syntactic variants – one containing a nominatival subject, the other occurring without a subject. Our analysis is based mainly on data from four electronic corpora. We point out convergent and divergent features of Polish and Czech, focusing on facts of distribution and observable lexical input to the construction. In particular, our analysis reveals that in both languages the subjectless variant shows more or less identical productivity, while the variant with a subject is much more productive in Polish than it is in Czech. By the same token, our analysis demonstrates that properties related to distribution and productivity of grammatical constructions can only be explored on the basis of corpora.
Abstract: The article deals with a specific resultative construction, which is particularly characteristic for Polish and Czech. This predicative construction is composed of a copula (Pol. być, Czech být) and a phrase headed by the temporal preposition po 'after'. It can be considered resultative because it describes a state which implies a telic event causing this state. The construction is peculiar inasmuch as it does not specify the concrete type of state. It can be ascribed three different meanings distributed over two syntactic variants – one containing a nominatival subject, the other occurring without a subject. Our analysis is based mainly on data from four electronic corpora. We point out convergent and divergent features of Polish and Czech, focusing on facts of distribution and observable lexical input to the construction. In particular, our analysis reveals that in both languages the subjectless variant shows more or less identical productivity, while the variant with a subject is much more productive in Polish than it is in Czech. By the same token, our analysis demonstrates that properties related to distribution and productivity of grammatical constructions can only be explored on the basis of corpora.
Concomitantly, this article investigates which functions have been and are borne by independent infinitives on not only the illocutionary and propositional levels, but also on the level of higher discourse functions. Special emphasis is put on a distinction between clauses conveying propositions and those only containing states-of-affairs (SoAs). The proposition—SoA contrast is linked to discussions on (non)finiteness features and (non)factivity.
Corresponding with these main targets, the analysis is predominantly semantic-pragmatic. However, since Evans’ concept of insubordination implies assumptions about main clause ellipsis (which probably did not occur in any single case in Slavic) and syntactic reanalysis (which might have occurred in some cases under a certain understanding of ‘reanalysis’), diachronic syntactic processes are considered here as well. Rather than being provided within a specific (formal) framework, an account of these is given in terms of very basic notions which seem to be assumed and accepted by most mainstream theories of syntax (whether generative or functionalist).
Streszczenie: Artykuł stanowi próbę rozróżnienia zakodowanych semantycznie oraz uwarunkowanych pragmatycznie komponentów znaczenia polskich i niemieckich reportatywnych przysłówków zdaniowych (ang. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). W niniejszej, drugiej części artykułu na podstawie teorii Uogólnionych Implikatur Konwersacyjnych (Generalized Conversational Implicatures, GCI) pokazujemy, w jaki sposób mechanizmy komunikacyjne przyjęte w ujęciach neo-Grice'owskich prowadzą do GCI nadających przysłówkom reportatywnym zabarwienie epistemiczne. Rozróżniamy przy tym GCI towarzyszące użyciu wszystkich przysłówków reportatywnych oraz te implikatury, które wiążą się z ich indywidualnymi cechami na głębszym poziomie struktury znaczeniowej. Następnie poruszamy problem ogólniejszy, dotyczący przypuszczalnych hierarchii czynników, które
wywołują (lub znoszą) implikatury epistemiczne u jednostek leksykalnych wyrażających źródło informacji. Uważamy, że jednostki te wykazują na poziomie dyskursu wiele właściwości dotyczących styku semantyki i pragmatyki, które dotychczas przypisywano tylko gramatycznym eksponentom ewidencjalności.
The purpose of this case study consists in registering and differentiating as comprehensively as possible changes in (a) the meaning range and (b) the syntactic distribution of jakoby during the 14th-16th centuries and to compare the results with the distribution and meaning range in contem-porary Polish. Special attention was paid as to whether jakoby started being used as a marker of clausal arguments with propositional status and where this originated. This task was undertaken on the basis of the material assembled and described in the two largest historical dictionaries of Polish presently available (Słownik staropolski and Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku). Since the description in these dictionaries details a traditional philological account and was not guided by a consistent theory of ‘minor parts of speech’, the information of the entries on jakoby was considerably revis-ed. Among other things, this resulted in different quantitative figures for the syntactic distribution of jakoby in the 16th century than those given in the dictionary itself.
Despite their tentative nature, a comparison of these figures with figures obtained from corpus-based studies on contemporary jakoby clearly shows remarkable differences in both its meaning range and its syntactic environments. First of all, by the end of the 16th century jakoby only margin-ally appeared as an, at least potential, reportive marker; likewise its association with volition, deon-tic and final clauses (which vanished later) remained strong. In line with this, we find only few in-dications of it acquiring the properties of a propositional marker, although one has to account for diverse analytical problems in testing relevant properties. Furthermore, the frequency of jakoby as an adnominal connective was very low compared to its use in the post-war period. Conversely, its rather frequent use as an adverbial connective (conjunction) has died out altogether. From these findings, we may, among other things, infer that the periods not covered by this study (and under-represented in Polish historical lexicography), namely the 17th-19th centuries, must have been critic-al to the development of evidential meanings which are typical for jakoby today.
Perfective stems are predominantly derived by prefixes from simplex stems; in most cases the prefixes modify the lexical meaning of simplex stems, but there is a considerable number of prefixes that only specify a meaning component inherent to the simplex, up to the point that they seem void of meaning. As a consequence, pairs of an imperfective simplex and a perfective prefixed stem arise. Simultaneously, suffixation of prefixed stems has been spreading as a means to derive imperfective stems from (usually prefixed) perfective stems, which yields so-called secondary imperfectivization. While the morphological preconditions for the joint contribution of prefixes and suffixes to stem-derivational patterns were created already by the Common Slavic period, both “techniques” have since then been strengthening. Suffixation has gained more significance especially in standard Russian, but prefixation has never ceased to be active, the intersection of both prefixation and suffixation has lead to the rise of so-called ‘aspect triplesʼ (Russ. vidovye trojki).
The article assesses the relative weight of prefixes and suffixes in the early and recent stages of the history of Slavic aspect. Their significance is evaluated on the background of properties of the entire system in terms of grammaticalization parameters appropriate for classificatory categories. Special attention is paid to the criteria on which aspectologists have been determining aspect pairs and to the status of aspect triples. The assessment of the system properties ends up with a paradox; it results if one strictly abides by Maslovian criteria of ‘trivial pairednessʼ, which, in practice, require not only identity of lexical meaning, but also an ontology for which telic events are the sole basis in the derivation of aspect pairs.
The article deals with a specific resultative construction, which is particularly characteristic for Polish and Czech. This predicative construction is composed of a copula (Pol. być, Czech být) and a phrase headed by the temporal preposition po ‘after’. It can be considered resultative because it describes a state which implies a telic event causing this state. The construction is peculiar inasmuch as it does not specify the concrete type of state. It can be ascribed three different meanings distributed over two syntactic variants – one containing a nominatival subject, the other occurring without a subject. Our analysis is based mainly on data from four electronic corpora. We point out convergent and divergent features of Polish and Czech, focusing on facts of distribution and observable lexical input to the construction. In particular, our analysis reveals that in both languages the subjectless variant shows more or less identical productivity, while the variant with a subject is much more productive in Polish than it is in Czech. By the same token, our analysis demonstrates that properties related to distribution and productivity of grammatical constructions can only be explored on the basis of corpora.
Abstract: The article deals with a specific resultative construction, which is particularly characteristic for Polish and Czech. This predicative construction is composed of a copula (Pol. być, Czech být) and a phrase headed by the temporal preposition po 'after'. It can be considered resultative because it describes a state which implies a telic event causing this state. The construction is peculiar inasmuch as it does not specify the concrete type of state. It can be ascribed three different meanings distributed over two syntactic variants – one containing a nominatival subject, the other occurring without a subject. Our analysis is based mainly on data from four electronic corpora. We point out convergent and divergent features of Polish and Czech, focusing on facts of distribution and observable lexical input to the construction. In particular, our analysis reveals that in both languages the subjectless variant shows more or less identical productivity, while the variant with a subject is much more productive in Polish than it is in Czech. By the same token, our analysis demonstrates that properties related to distribution and productivity of grammatical constructions can only be explored on the basis of corpora.
Concomitantly, this article investigates which functions have been and are borne by independent infinitives on not only the illocutionary and propositional levels, but also on the level of higher discourse functions. Special emphasis is put on a distinction between clauses conveying propositions and those only containing states-of-affairs (SoAs). The proposition—SoA contrast is linked to discussions on (non)finiteness features and (non)factivity.
Corresponding with these main targets, the analysis is predominantly semantic-pragmatic. However, since Evans’ concept of insubordination implies assumptions about main clause ellipsis (which probably did not occur in any single case in Slavic) and syntactic reanalysis (which might have occurred in some cases under a certain understanding of ‘reanalysis’), diachronic syntactic processes are considered here as well. Rather than being provided within a specific (formal) framework, an account of these is given in terms of very basic notions which seem to be assumed and accepted by most mainstream theories of syntax (whether generative or functionalist).
Streszczenie: Artykuł stanowi próbę rozróżnienia zakodowanych semantycznie oraz uwarunkowanych pragmatycznie komponentów znaczenia polskich i niemieckich reportatywnych przysłówków zdaniowych (ang. allegedly, reportedly, supposedly). W niniejszej, drugiej części artykułu na podstawie teorii Uogólnionych Implikatur Konwersacyjnych (Generalized Conversational Implicatures, GCI) pokazujemy, w jaki sposób mechanizmy komunikacyjne przyjęte w ujęciach neo-Grice'owskich prowadzą do GCI nadających przysłówkom reportatywnym zabarwienie epistemiczne. Rozróżniamy przy tym GCI towarzyszące użyciu wszystkich przysłówków reportatywnych oraz te implikatury, które wiążą się z ich indywidualnymi cechami na głębszym poziomie struktury znaczeniowej. Następnie poruszamy problem ogólniejszy, dotyczący przypuszczalnych hierarchii czynników, które
wywołują (lub znoszą) implikatury epistemiczne u jednostek leksykalnych wyrażających źródło informacji. Uważamy, że jednostki te wykazują na poziomie dyskursu wiele właściwości dotyczących styku semantyki i pragmatyki, które dotychczas przypisywano tylko gramatycznym eksponentom ewidencjalności.
The purpose of this case study consists in registering and differentiating as comprehensively as possible changes in (a) the meaning range and (b) the syntactic distribution of jakoby during the 14th-16th centuries and to compare the results with the distribution and meaning range in contem-porary Polish. Special attention was paid as to whether jakoby started being used as a marker of clausal arguments with propositional status and where this originated. This task was undertaken on the basis of the material assembled and described in the two largest historical dictionaries of Polish presently available (Słownik staropolski and Słownik polszczyzny XVI wieku). Since the description in these dictionaries details a traditional philological account and was not guided by a consistent theory of ‘minor parts of speech’, the information of the entries on jakoby was considerably revis-ed. Among other things, this resulted in different quantitative figures for the syntactic distribution of jakoby in the 16th century than those given in the dictionary itself.
Despite their tentative nature, a comparison of these figures with figures obtained from corpus-based studies on contemporary jakoby clearly shows remarkable differences in both its meaning range and its syntactic environments. First of all, by the end of the 16th century jakoby only margin-ally appeared as an, at least potential, reportive marker; likewise its association with volition, deon-tic and final clauses (which vanished later) remained strong. In line with this, we find only few in-dications of it acquiring the properties of a propositional marker, although one has to account for diverse analytical problems in testing relevant properties. Furthermore, the frequency of jakoby as an adnominal connective was very low compared to its use in the post-war period. Conversely, its rather frequent use as an adverbial connective (conjunction) has died out altogether. From these findings, we may, among other things, infer that the periods not covered by this study (and under-represented in Polish historical lexicography), namely the 17th-19th centuries, must have been critic-al to the development of evidential meanings which are typical for jakoby today.
словоформ (§1). Затем я остановлюсь на критериях, на которые исследователи в явном, а часто и в
неявном виде опирались при определении грамматической оппозиции вида, в частности при выделении
видовых пар (§2). В конце я рассмотрю ряд положений и предпосылок, связанных с попытками
максимальной редукции основных значений НСВ (§3).
Above these descriptive findings, a thorough analysis of the available facts allows to make a principled case for the necessity of a case-for-case investigation of clause structures that look identical in contemporary languages, but may turn out as the results of radically different diachronic processes. In fact, these processes may rest on fundamentally different preconditions and take opposite directions (in terms of increase vs. decrease of material, or of morphosyntactic complexity). Alleged cases of (semi-)insubordination can turn out as artefacts of anachronistic approaches toward syntactic structures if these structures are assessed only on a synchronic basis. In addition, semi-insubordination may be an areally restricted phenomenon inasmuch as the preconditions for changes to patterns that are salient for specific languages (e.g., an almost obligatory use of finite verbs, including copulae) are not given elsewhere.