Tendencje w zakresie uzgadniania formy liczby orzeczenia przy podmiocie szeregowym od staropolszczyzny do współczesności

Abstract

In prescriptive studies, the rule of the necessity to agree the form of the number of a personal word with the whole series in the function of the subject is often formulated. It is usually illustrated with the sequence of the type Mąż i żona siedzieli przy stole (‘a husband and a wife sat at the table’). Meanwhile, from the very beginning of the development of the Polish language, even a slight modification of this type of series, for example a change of order, resulted in different syntactic dispositions, see: Przy stole siedzieli / siedział mąż i żona (‘a husband and a wife sat at the table’). The author’s own research on significantly extensive material proved that in quantitative terms, the syntax expected by normativists almost unconditionally occurred only in one type of series, while in others it represented other methods of syntactic accommodation. The aim of the article is to trace the methods of aligning the form of the number of a verb with different types of word sequences and the changes taking place in this respect over several hundred years. This will make it possible to formulate conclusions that will allow for the revision of the normative rules.