Abstract
The aim of the paper is to consider the pragmatic effects of the Polish (Proszę) ‘request1 SG. NON-PAST.’ + VINF construction in different contexts. The specific research problem is how these effects are related to the conceptual make-up of the construction. The framework for the analysis is the theory of cognitive grammar (cf. e. g. Langacker 1987, 1991, 2008, 2009).
The analysis starts with an account of the conceptual make-up of the construction. Then, its selected uses are considered, with emphasis on the pragmatic effects in the relevant contexts. The study offers a qualitative analysis of two kinds of data: a sample of hand-picked utterances and a corpus of utterances extracted from the National Corpus of Polish (NCP).
The claim made in the study is that the construction profiles a process figuring in a directive scenario in the role of the process the speaker wishes the hearer to engage in. At the same time, it involves defocusing of the trajector of the profiled process, identified with the hearer. The construction’s pragmatic effects in specific contexts are claimed to follow from how this trajector defocusing is put in correspondence with specific aspects of the actual ground.
6 Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to two anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper for all their helpful comments and suggestions, from which the final version of the paper greatly benefited. Needless to say, all the remaining flaws and errors are entirely my own.
List of abbreviations
- 1/2/3 –
-
first/second/third person
- ACC. –
-
accusative
- FEM. –
-
feminine gender
- GEN. –
-
genitive
- IMP. –
-
imperative construction
- IMP.PARTICLE –
-
imperative particle
- INF. –
-
infinitive
- INSTR. –
-
instrumental
- MASC. –
-
masculine gender
- NCP –
-
National Corpus of Polish.
- NEUT. –
-
neuter gender
- NOM./VOC. –
-
nominative used as vocative
- NON-PAST –
-
non-past tense indicative construction
- PAST –
-
past tense indicative construction
- PL. –
-
plural
- REFL. –
-
reflexive
- SG. –
-
singular
- VOC. –
-
vocative
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