Polish Descriptive Grammar 2 3003-11A2GO

Practice classes in inflectional morphology deal with the following topics:
1. Subject-matter of inflectional morphology. Functions of inflectional constructions (semantic, syntactic). Inflection vs. syntax.
2. Various meanings of the notion of wyraz («word»): słowo (word in the text), forma wyrazowa (word form, grammatical form), leksem (lexeme). Definition of lexeme.
3. Polish systems of dividing lexemes into parts of speech.
4. Controversial issues of lexeme classification (i.a. pronouns, particles, numerals, adverbs).
5. Structure of inflectional constructions: stem, inflectional marker.
6. Synthetic, agglutinative and analytic constructions.
7. Morphonological alternations. Morphonology.
8. Polish as an inflectional language. The problem of homonymy of inflectional forms. The notion of syncretism.
9. The notions of: grammatical category, values of grammatical categories. Criteria of division and typology of grammatical categories. Structure of grammatical categories: marked and unmarked element.
10. Grammatical categories of nouns, and values thereof (functional characteristics). Case. Number. Gender. Gender classification of nouns.
11. Noun declension. Criteria of repartition of common-function endings. Substantival pronouns.
12. Grammatical categories of adjectives, and values thereof (functional characteristics). The problem of degree.
13. Grammatical categories of numerals, and values thereof (functional characteristics). Borders of the class of lexemes. (types of numerals. So-called cardinal and collective numerals, range of usage).
14. Grammatical categories of verbs, and values thereof (functional characteristics: primary and secondary functions). Person, tense, mood, aspect, number, gender. The problem of voice. Regular verbs and predicatives (classification of predicatives).
15. Verbal paradigm. Non-personal forms of verbs and their function. The problem of participles. Rules of participles formation. Aspect vs. inventory of verb forms.

Practice classes in syntax deal with the following topics:

1. Subject-matter of syntax. Utterance vs. sentence, announcement, notification.
2. Analysis of simple sentences according to Klemensiewicz.
3. Obligatory elements of an utterance. The notion of constituent.
4. Immediate constituents analysis. Various types of dependency: the notions of co-ordinateness, subordinateness and inclusion.
5. The notion of syntactic relation: agreement, government. Accommodation. Accommodation properties of lexemes and Word forms. Detailed issues: subject–verb agreement, numeral phrases, prepositions.
6. Connotation. Connotation properties of lexemes an word forms. Structure of sentences. Basic connotation pattern. Sentence schemata.
7. Boundaries of a complex sentence. Semantically complex structures expressed by a simple sentence.
8. Group vs. sentence. Classification of syntactic groups in Polish.
9. Types of paratactic sentences.
10. Types of hypotactic sentences (Klemensiewicz and modern approaches).

Practice classes are accompanied by course lectures in inflectional morphology (winter semester) and syntax (summer semester). The lectures cover the following topics:

Winter semester – INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
1. Overall characteristics of the Polish morphological subsystem. The notion of morpheme, morph, allomorph. Types of morphemes and morpheme constructions. Typology of morphonological alternations. Subject-matter and boundaries of inflection. Inflection as a section of grammar/morphology (alongside derivational morphology). Paradigmatic and syntagmatic inflection (the problem of so-called uninflected parts of speech). Inflection vs. dictionary. Inflection vs. derivation. Inflection vs. syntax. Inflection vs. semantics.
2. Basic notions of inflection. Definition of lexeme - identification of lexemes. Simple and compound lexemes. Inflectional category, values of grammatical category. Examples of neutralization of inflectional categories. Syncretism and homonymy of grammatical forms. Inflected (formally, functionally) and uninflected lexemes. Defective lexemes. Inflectional paradigm.
3. Definition of word form. Stem and inflectional ending. Allomorphy: alternative and suppletive stems. Common-function and multifunctional endings. Types of grammatical forms: analytic and synthetic, fusional and agglutinative.
4. Polish inflectional categories. Typology. Types of oppositions within categories. Noun case.
5. Polish morphological categories inventory - characteristics, values. Nominal categories: gender, number, case.
6. Gender classification of nouns. Values of gender and number in the system and in the text. Meaning and reference. Grammatical categories of numerals.
7. Verbal categories: tense, mood, person. Diathesis and grammatical category of voice. Value of categories and meaning correlation.
8. Parts of speech - what are they? Criteria of division: semantic, inflectional and syntactic. Classification of lexemes: traditional ('school') approach, Z. Saloni's and R. Laskowski's approach (comparison, controversial issues).
9. Parts of speech in the National Corpus of Polish. Traditional and latest descriptions of Polish uninflected lexemes.
10. Synthesis and analysis of word forms (chosen issues).
11. Polish as an inflectional language - typological characteristics.
Summer semester – SYNTAX
I. INTRODUCTION: Basic notions of syntax. [1-2 lectures]
1. Syntax within the language system.
2. Basic questions of syntax: what is put together to form what? how is it put together?
3. Units of the syntactic description (utterance, sentence, syntactic group).
4. Various definitions of ‘sentence’ and ‘utterance’.
5. Various levels of syntactic analyses: syntax of a sentence, syntax of an utterance, semantic, structural and surface syntax.
II. SYNTAX OF A SENTENCE
A. Semantic syntax. [4 lectures]
1. Predicates and arguments. The notion of basic predicate-argument structure (BPAS).
2. Discovering the BPAS.
3. Semantic roles of arguments. Selective restrictions imposed on the arguments.
4. Formal characteristics of argument positions.
5. Valency / connotation properties of Polish verbs. So-called obligatory and facultative connotation (discussion).
6. Division of verbal predicates with respect to the number and character of the arguments they imply. Problem of the so-called sentence schemata of the contemporary Polish language.
6. Ways of filling in the argument positions and expanding the BPAS.
7. Putting together the basic structures into non-basic ones. So-called simple and complex sentences.
B. Structural syntax. [4 lectures]
1. Sentence versus syntactic group.
2. The notion of constituent. What is not a constituent?
3. The core of a syntactic relation. Types of syntactic relations. Expressions that do not enter into syntactic relations.
4. Trees depicting syntactic dependency.
5. The notion of syntactic accommodation.
6. Detailed issues of accommodation (within the simple and the complex sentences).
C. Surface syntax: linear order of an utterance. [1 lecture]
III. SYNTAX OF AN UTTERANCE: realization of sentences in utterances [3 lectures]
1. Problems of the reference.
2. The core of predication. Rhetic act. Assertion vs. modality.
3. Thematic-rhematic organization of utterances.