Polish prepositions and analytic tendencies in Indo-European languagesAs analytic tendencies in Indo-European languages intensify, grammatical forms and lexemes become generalised. In the realm of prepositions, we observe not only semantical generalisation of a limited set of units (including at least de and à) but also their grammaticalization. Both these prepositions: 1. can perform grammatical functions; 2. due to their general and blurry semantics can easily replace a number of specific prepositions, including dans, sur, vers and contre, either introducing a slight change in meaning or without causing such change. In examples like le train de Paris, le chemin de Fatima, which signify place of origin or direction (place of destination), the preposition can be replaced by e.g. pour. In the examples quoted, the preposition signifies a clarification rather than a spatial relation.Polish preposition are, in their turn, all semantical. One argument in favour of this assertion is that the most frequently occurring Polish preposition w is a textual equivalent of the more specific French dans rather than the less specific en. Les prépositions polonaises et la tendance analytique des langues indo-européennesAu fur et à mesure de la tendance analytique qui se manifeste dans les langues indo-européennes, les formes grammaticales et les lexèmes tendent à la généralisation. Dans le domaine des prépositions on observe non seulement la généralisation de la sémantique d’un groupe réduit d’unités (au moins de de et à), mais aussi leur grammaticalisation. Les deux 1º peuvent exercer des fonctions grammaticales et 2º en vertu de leur sémantique générale et affaiblie, sont susceptibles de se substituer à un certain nombre de prépositions concrètes telles dans, sur, vers, contre et autres en introduisant une légère modification de sens ou non. Dans les exemples tels que le train de Paris, le chemin de Fatima, qui expriment soit la provenance soit la destination, la préposition peut être remplacée entre autres par pour. Dans ces exemples elle marque la détermination plutôt qu’une relation spatiale.Les prépositions polonaises sont toutes sémantiques. Un argument est que w, la plus fréquente préposition polonaise, est un équivalent textuel plus souvent de fr. dans, plus spécifique, que de en, moins spécifique.
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Different scholars advance arguments in favour of the tendency in Indo-European languages to shift from impersonal to personal constructions. The article presents some problems which seem to contest this tendency such as “Why, in the analytic languages, more developed or more distant from Proto-Indo-European than the synthetic ones, the impersonal 1) can be formed on almost all intransitive verbs (e.g. in French) and 2) can be used in environments which do not allow its use in the synthetic languages.” The analysis is based on a corpus, relatively big and representative, of texts in languages 1) synthetic, more close to, and 2) analytic, more distant from Proto-Indo-European. Such an approach, which completes traditional methods, is able to lead to establishing evolutive tendencies.
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Polish against the tendency of changing word-order in indo-European languages (left-branching shift to right-branching)One of the evolutive tendencies in indo-European languages is the gradual shift toward right-branching constructions (the head precedes the modifier). The right-branching has begun to dominate in the Romance languages; but not in Latin and not in Polish. However, these languages show this tendency, too; Latin in a lesser degree than Polish. Despite the innovations, Latin still displayed a considerable number of left-branching constructions, which it inherited from the protolanguage. Its specificity is that the basic construction (OV) is archaic, but some others, such as NG, Vmod Inf, N, Rel, NA are innovations. The majority of archaic constructions used in Latin are also acceptable in Polish, but they are much more rare.Contrary to the Romance languages, Polish 1) uses sometimes archaic constructions, and 2) its right-branching constructions are relatively rare.
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