Formalnie – przysłówki, semantycznie – wykładniki aspektu tematycznego

Abstract

The article focuses on Polish expressions formally similar to standard adverbs which semantically turn out to be completely different from them (cf. Teoretycznie masz rację ‘Theoretically you’re right’ and Podchodzisz do tych zagadnień zbyt teoretycznie ‘You approach these issues too theoretically’). The author introduces a set of criteria meant to ensure precision in distinguishing units being the subject of her analysis from common adverbs. These are, first of all, their: (i) capacity of combining with verbs, (ii) relationship to the grammatical category of the degree, (iii) prosodic features, especially the relationship of a word and the sentence stress, (iv) possibility of being negated and (v) position in the linear word order. The forms considered, irrespective of their typical endings -o and -e, perform functions different from those of ordinary adverbs. They belong to the set of thematic-rhematic operators or, more precisely, to the relativizing expressions that specify the aspect in which an object will be characterized in the rhematic part of a sentence. The author claims that the thematic aspect should be treated as one of the components belonging to the thematic-rhematic structure of any utterance. The relativizing adverbials represent a grammatical rather than lexical level of language.