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This article is the result of field research conducted in the Kashubian language area. The analysis of the Polish texts acquired during the research showed that on the syntactic plane there is an interference of the Kashubian dialects in the Polish language. As a result of the Kashubian dialects’ impact on spoken Polish, the following phenomena were revealed in the informants’ statements: changes in verb government, the use of prepositions characteristic of Kashubian, and the influence of Kashubian-specificuse of conjunction indicators. However, it is uncertain whether the use of genetivus partitivus, the frequent repetition of the subject, and the frequent use of the attributive expressed by an indicating pronoun, can be considered as interferences of Kashubian dialects in the Polish language because these features are also characteristic of everyday Polish.
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The Russian-Bulgarian-Polish dictionary that we (Wojciech Sosnowski, Violetta Koseska-Toszewa and Anna Kisiel) are currently developing has no precedent as far as its theoretical foundations and its structure are concerned. The dictionary offers a unique combination of three Slavic languages that belong to three different groups: a West Slavic language (Polish), a South Slavic language (Bulgarian) and an East Slavic language (Russian). The dictionary describes semantic and syntactic equivalents of words between the languages. When completed, the dictionary will contain around 30,000 entries. The principle we build the dictionary on is that every language should be given equal status. Many of our data come from the Parallel Polish-Bulgarian-Russian corpus developed by us as part of the CLARIN-PL initiative. In the print version, the entries come in the order of the Cyrillic alphabet and they are not numbered (except for homonyms, which are disambiguated with Roman numbers). We selected the lemmas for the dictionary on the basis of their frequency in the corpus. Our dictionary is the first dictionary to include forms of address and most recent neologisms in the three languages. Faithful to the recent developments in contrastive linguistics, we begin with a form from the dictionary’s primary language and we define it in Polish. Subsequently, based on this definition, we try to find an equivalent in the second and the third language. Therefore, the meaning comes first and only then we look for the form (i.e. the equivalent) that corresponds to this meaning. This principle, outlined in Gramatyka konfrontatywna języków polskiego i bułgarskiego (GKBP), allows us to treat data from multiple languages as equal. In the dictionary, we draw attention to the correct choice of equivalents in translation; we also provide categorisers that indicate the meaning of verbal tenses and aspects. The definitions of states, events and their different configurations follow those outlined in the net model of verbal tense and aspect. The transitive vs. intransitive categorisers are vital for the languages in question, since they belong to two different types: synthetic (Bulgarian) and analytic (Polish and Russian). We predict that the equal status of every language in the dictionary will facilitate easier and faster development of an electronic version in the future.
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The aim of this programmatic position paper is to show that the semantic syntax tradition of Polish linguistics associated with the name of Stanisław Karolak may be a basis for the development of a taxonomy of entailment types and a corresponding test-suite of entailment examples. The article also puts forward some initial desiderata for such a test-suite.
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Given that synchronicity is one of the dimensions upon which electronic communication can be categorised, this paper examines the linguistic aspects and distinctive features of online communication in real time, within the context of English as a global language, and Netspeak as a new electronic medium of communication. The paper portrays various ways in which the nature of the electronic medium and the global use of the Internet produce impact on the English language. In this corpus-based study, data were collected from a number of Internet sites, the focus is on the characteristics of English used in synchronous settings such as various discussion forums. The analysis, based on Crystal's model (2001), highlights a number of highly distinctive features of Netspeak, and therefore produces evidence that the language of communication in real time is heavily affected in terms of the lexicon and graphology, with particular areas where it is relatively easy to introduce both innovation (nonce formation and other ludic Netspeak extensions) and deviation (abbreviations, acronyms).
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This paper analyzes the functions and meanings of the dative in novels by Mihailo Lalić, which occurs in free and blocked usage, in which all prepositions except towards are monovalent. Given the nature of the relationship that is established in a construction consisting of case and preposition, dative belongs to the contact group of cases. This feature connects it with accusative and locative, which are opposed to genitive and instrumental, i.e. connection cases. In the language of Mihailo Lalić, dative is present in all syntactic and semantic relations and categories that normally characterize this case. The dominant characteristic is directivity, so that dative’s central function is marking the indirect object and spatial determinants, while at a stylistic level the functions of the subject, possessive and ethical dative contribute a particular language expression.
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Punctuation errors are common in Polish texts. The author of this paper provides numerous examples of this kind of errors from students’ written works in evidence. According to the data, the use of commas proved to be most difficult for the students. From the author’s point of view, the cause of problems with using punctuation is poor knowledge of the difference between spoken and written language. When you treat spoken language as a model for writing, you cannot avoid punctuation errors. The author believes that awareness about the specifi city of written language needs to change. Moreover, curricula must be modified with respect to teaching grammar and syntax should be learnt in connection with punctuation.
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This text analyses selected examples of punctuation shortcomings encountered in Polish statements (an official document, scientific and journalistic texts, a known idiom). The errors consist mainly in misusing commas (unjustified insertion after a phrase in a clause or omission from a subordinate clause). The author puts forward a thesis that the punctuation confusion in Polish texts results from insufficient familiarity with punctuation rules among numerous editors and proofreaders of articles before approving them for publishing. The author admits that, at times, a statement is not as unambiguous when it comes to evaluating punctuation as it seems. In such a situation, optionality of the punctuation standard should be permitted. In the conclusion part, the author points to the fact that “punctuation is a lesson of thinking” and that, as a result of the noticeable deterioration of linguistic competence among authors and editors, a subject such as Advanced Punctuation should be introduced for students of Polish Philology and Journalism.
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This paper aims to show that the four-way BE-system of Maltese can best be accommodated in a theory of non-verbal predication that builds on alternative states, without making any reference to the Davidsonian spatio-temporal event variable. The existing theories of non-verbal predicates put the burden of explaining the difference between the ad hoc vs. habitual interpretations either solely on the non-verbal predicate, by postulating an event variable in their lexical layer (see Kratzer 1995; Adger and Ramchand 2003; Magri 2009; Roy 2013), or solely on the copular or non-copular primary predicate, which contains an aspectual operator or an incorporated abstract preposition, responsible for such interpretive differences (Schmitt 2005, Schmitt and Miller 2007, Gallego and Uriagereka 2009, 2011, Marín 2010, Camacho 2012). The present proposal combines Maienborn’s (2003, 2005a,b, 2011) discourse-semantic theory of copular sentences with Richardson’s (2001, 2007) analysis of non-verbal adjunct predicates in Russian, based on alternative states. Under this combined account, variation between the ad hoc vs. habitual interpretations of non-verbal predicates is derived from the presence or absence of a modal OPalt operator that can bind the temporal variable of non-verbal predicates in accessible worlds, in the sense of Kratzer (1991). In the absence of this operator, the temporal variable is bound by the T0 head in the standard way. The proposal extends to non-verbal predicates in copular sentences as well as to argument and adjunct non-verbal predicates in non-copular sentences.
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The inter-related goals of this paper are: (i) To contribute to a better understanding of the semantic and morphological properties of amount relatives in Romanian, (ii) to compare and contrast these constructions with their English counterparts, and (iii) to bring into bolder relief than has so far been done in the literature the fact that amount relatives in general are compatible not only with an amount denotation of the complex DPs that contain them, but with an entity denotation as well.
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My goal in the present paper is to carry out an analysis of the syntactic and discourse properties of Information Focus (IF) in Southern Peninsular Spanish (SPS) and Standard Spanish (SS) varieties. Generally, it has been argued that IF tends to occur last in a sentence since new information is placed in final position, following the End-Focus Principle as well as the Nuclear Stress Principle (Zubizarreta 1998). Focus fronting has been hence reserved for those cases in which a clear contrast between two alternatives is established, namely Contrastive Focus (CF) and Mirative Focus (MF) (cf. Cruschina 2012). The starting hypothesis here is that IF can appear as a fronted element in a sentence and that SPS speakers show a higher degree of acceptability and grammaticality towards such constructions, as opposed to SS speakers. This points toward a certain degree of microparametric variation in Spanish syntax (an understudied area), which will be tested by means of a grammaticality judgement task run among both SPS and SS speakers.
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The first part of the paper constitutes an analysis of the term “transitory category” as presented by Adam Heinz, and a justification of the view that there is a need to eliminate the term from the metalanguage of syntax. The second part of the paper is a reconstruction of the reasoning mechanism Adam Heinz developed in order to postulate the existence of a transitory category between the complement and the adverbial. The last part of the text shows an effective method of analysing relations between parts of the sentence without a necessity to use the term “transitory category”.
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As for other enclitics, there are special positional rules for the arrangement of verb enclitics in the Serbian language. The most important limitation is the impossibility of using enclitics in the initial position, or after the conjunctions i, a and ni. However, in certain dialects of the Serbian language, enclitics appear in the initial position, and that is when they become proclitics. In some parts of Banat and Prizren-Timok dialects, proclitication of enclitics is a well-known feature, resulting from interference with the neighbouring Slavic and non-Slavic languages. An inspection of dialect material confirms a wider scope of this phenomenon, e.g. in the Koso- vo-Resava dialect, both in the south of the area, in northern Metohija, and in the north, in the Braničevo district. Proclitically used enclitics have also been recorded in the speech of Eastern Šumadija, as well as in some expatriate Serb dialects.
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The paper provides an analysis for preposition stranding (P-stranding) under sluicing in Serbo-Croatian (SC). SC does not allow P-stranding under regular wh-movement, yet it optionally allows it under sluicing. I show instances of sluicing in which P-stranding can occur and I propose an analysis that accounts for this. In SC, D-linked wh-remnants can optionally appear without prepositions, whereas non- D-linked ones generally cannot. Following Van Craenenbroeck (2012), I argue that D-linked wh-remnants are derived differently from non-D-linked ones, resulting in the distinct behavior with respect to Ps.
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The aim of the article is to answer the question why the concessive conjunction aczkolwiek (from Old Pol. acz ‘if; though’) looks like an indefinite pronoun, e.g. cokolwiek ‘whatever’. In other words, what do condi tion, concession, and indefiniteness have in common? Universal concessive conditionals that combine some features of conditional and concessive sentences were used as the starting point.
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The paper describes German word formations according to their predicate-argument-structure. It focuses on the description of derivatives as well as compounds whose second part functionally corresponds to a suffix (of the Lehrer / Lehrkraft type) and presents the most typical structures. The description begins with simple derivatives and ends with incorporations. The most common incorporated actant is the accusative object. The model allows both to classify the word forma- tions in a more detailed way and allows the reader to get a better understanding of word structures.
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The present paper, based on the widely accepted literature, focuses initially on the definitions and modes of synaesthesia on the neuropsychological level. Further attention is paid to the definitions of linguistic synaesthesia. In the next section, the paper deals with the question of how the linguistic synaesthesia in general is approached, i.e. if it should be viewed as metaphor, metonymy or meta- phtonymy. In the empirical part, one exemplary German sentence is analyzed in order to show that linguistic synaesthesia and especially its linguistic-conceptual nature should always be approached with strict consideration of the contextual embedding it occurs in.
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The paper discusses the distribution of subordinate clauses introduced by the conjunction THAT within complex sentences, focusing on the functions they can perform, and, at the same time, concentrating on a number of transformations that can take place in the surface structure of clauses, namely extraposition, particle movement, passivization, THAT-deletion, analysing the specific structures for each transformation.
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Since West’s seminal article, it has been assumed that there were (only) four instances in epic Greek (Homer, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns) in which the in- junctive (often called an unaugmented indicative in the commentaries) could be in- terpreted as having a timeless (or omnitemporal) meaning. In an article, divided into two parts, I will argue and show that there could be more of these forms. I will also an- alyze several other instances in which an injunctive has been transmitted, instances in which it refers to a background action or an event in a remote past. In part 1, I address the interaction and difference in use between the injunctive and the (augmented) indicative in epic Greek, paying special attention to the gnomic aorist, the similia, the instances with τε-épique and the so-called “Hymnic aorist”, explaining why they mostly comprise the augment. Following West for Greek and Hoffmann for Vedic, I argue that the injunctives or unaugmented indicatives are not simply metrical variants of the indicative, but have their own distinct meanings and func- tions, as they are used to “mention” or describe background actions, preserve an old “timeless” meaning or refer to a more remote (and often mythical) past. As some of the instances have an aorist and others a present injunctive, I also take into account the aspectual difference(s) between these forms, discussing scholarship on tense and aspect in general and Homer in particular. In part 2, I proceed to actual instances and will investigate them for both the use of the injunctive or indicative and for that of the aspectual stem.
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