W POSZUKIWANIU KLUCZA DO SEMANTYCZNEGO OPISU POJĘCIA ZDZIWIENIA
Looking for a key to a semantic description of surprise

Summary/Abstract: The reflections presented in this paper focus on comparing the expression representing the notion mentioned in the title and its cognates, that is linguistic units representing the notion of surprise (‘zdziwienie’), startlement (‘zaskoczenie’) and amazement (‘zdumienie’). Juxtaposing the predicates which are similar in meaning serves the purpose of finding significant features differentiating the words in question and determining their distinctiveness. The descriptions of the analysed predicates include such properties as: the form of the units representing the discussed notions; an ability to determine the selectional restrictions imposed on the realisation of the non-subject argument denoting the phenomenon which causes the analysed states, as well as the subject argument referring to the subject experiencing them; the issue of factivity; the issue of possible evaluation implied by the described expressions; and curiosities in the functioning of certain grammatical forms of the analysed expressions. In the discussions of a strictly semantic nature, the issues related to knowledge vs lack of knowledge on the part of the experiencing subject seem to be of key importance. A summary of the search signalled in the title of the paper consists in a preliminary, intended to be the first, proposition of explication of the expression kogoś zdziwiło (to), że p (someone was surprised that p).

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