Volume 51, Issue 4

The aspectual opposition in Polish is encoded morphologically at the verb level. However, it is not immediately evident, whether by word-formation or inflectional means. Aspect marking is obligatory but semantically non-uniform and formally irregular. Traditionally, prefixed formations (e.g. "pisać" 'write, imperf.' – "na-pisać" 'write, perf.') have been regarded as products of word-formation, whereas suffixed forms (e.g. "kup-i•ć" 'buy, perf.' – "kup-owa•ć" 'buy, imperf.') as products of inflection. More recent approaches attempt to tip the scales in favour of a uniform process. The Polish data are analysed in an inferential-realisational Lexeme Morpheme Base Morphology framework. It is argued that the semantic information pertaining to event structure [±dynamic, ±durative, ±Consequent State] can be made available to syntax thanks to the mediation of the features [±Imperfective, ±Perfective] in the morpho-lexical representation of the verbal stem. At the point of lexical insertion, verb stems are already endowed with an abstractly specified value as perfective or imperfective and aspect information is lexically encoded as part of verb class specification. Consequently, the processes which alter aspect values are in the domain of the lexicon too.

This paper focuses on detecting and measuring traces of "formulaic language". For this purpose, we test a number of computational formulae that quantify the degree to which a text type incorporates inflexible sequences of words. We assess these candidate indices using a number of reference corpora representing a wide variety of text types, both routine and creative. We adopt the concept of "phrase-frame" proposed by Fletcher (2002–2007) as a means of exploring phraseological pattern variability. To date, there have been few studies explicitly addressing this issue, with the exception of Roemer (2010). We examine ten productivity indices, including Roemer's VPR, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index, Simpson's diversity index and relative Shannon entropy. We report that a novel measure, which we term Hapaxity, best meets our criteria, and show how this index of micro-productivity (in phrase-frames) may be used to assess macro-productivity (in text registers), thus quantifying an important aspect of a register’s reliance on formulaic subsequences.

It has frequently been noted that non-native speakers of English find it difficult to express their views with the appropriate degree of conviction. However, many of the problems which non-native speakers have with specific modal expressions are still waiting to be identified. The aim of this paper is to compare native and non-native (student) uses of two English epistemics: "surely" and "for sure". The students' uses are mostly examined with reference to PICLE (the Polish subsection of the International Corpus of Learner English), while native uses are analyzed on the basis of two corpora of texts written by native speakers of English available at the PICLE website, the British National Corpus, and scholarly publications concerning the two particles. The study demonstrates that Polish students tend to wrongly assume the functions of surely and for sure to be identical with the functions of the Polish expression "na pewno" (a literal equivalent of "for sure" with a broader range of uses). In consequence, they use the challenging and pressure-building particle "surely" in contexts which require neutral epistemic adverbs, such as "clearly". They also tend to put "for sure" in positions characteristic of epistemic adverbs, and use it in formal discourse.

This paper outlines the results of an analysis of syntactically marked yes/no interrogatives in American English and Montenegrin from the persepctive of intonation. The analysis, based on the theoretical framework of Autosegmental-Metrical Phonology and the use of the computer software package Praat, treats issues regarding the different types of pitch contours and boundary tones at the end of yes/no interrogatives, gathered from various American and Montenegrin TV talk shows. Particularly, it focuses on specific intonational constituents, which indicate and clarify the alternative meanings of these questions. Having in mind the very nature of TV talk shows, which are seen as a part of a semi-institutionalized discourse, we start from the assumption that one type of intonation contour will be the prevailing one in yes/no interrogatives in both languages. Furthermore, all melodic deviations within these structures will influence and modify their basic meaning. The findings partially confirm our hypothesis, indicating a difference in the terminal contour between the two languages.