Ewa Mioduszewska-Crawford
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Contrastive Polish-English Grammar
I. List of topics to be covered
a. Introduction: What is contrastive grammar?
Reading: IIa Introduction; IIb Chapter 13.
b. Basic Noun Phrase in English and Polish
Reading: IIa Chapter 2.
c. Verb Phrase in English and Polish.
Reading: II a Chapter 3.
d. Questions in English and Polish
Reading: II a Chapter 6.
e. Negation in English and Polish
Reading: II a Chapter 7.
f. Passive, existential and subjectless sentences in English and Polish. Topicalization, emphasis and stress in English and Polish.
Reading: IIa Chapters 8 and 9
g. Complex sentences in English and Polish.
Reading: II 10.
h. Basic systematic differences between English and Polish: summary.
i. Analyzing texts.
II. References
a. Fisiak, J. et al. 1978. An Introductory English-Polish Contrastive Grammar. Warsaw: PWN.
b. Kaznowski, A. (ed.) 1986. Introduction to Linguistics. Wydawnictwa UW.
c. Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics. Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza. Poznań.
d. Handouts.
Additional:
e. Willim, E. 1997. A Contrastive approach to problems with English. Warszawa, Kraków: PWN.
f. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. et al. 2004. Polsko-angielska gramatyka kontrastywna konstrukcji złożonych. Wrocław: Wrocławskie Wydawnictwo Naukowe.
III. Requirements
Final test.
Practice: Analyze the following sentences so that you can find the differences between Polish and English exemplified in them:
1. Would the meeting have been more successful if the chairman had been more clever?
2. Wiadomo powszechnie, że najbardziej genialnym konstruktorem dramatu historycznego był Szekspir.
3. Nigdy nie ma ćwikły w domu.
4. Nie wolno zrywać szarotek.
5. Her nephew won’t be talking long, will he?
6. Nie myśl sobie, że to łatwo zrobić.
7. Kupiłem tę posiadłość dla brata prezydenta republiki.
8. Mary’s cousin has been given a very nice present.
9. Nie słychać tu żadnej interesującej muzyki.
10. John, who is a friend of Mary’s mother, has been reading this book for over a week.
11. Nie trzeba nam żadnej pomocy.
Example
(6)Nie myśl sobie, ze to łatwo zrobić.
(7) Kupiłem tę posiadłość od brata prezydenta republiki.
The enumerated elements show those places in the structure of the Polish language in which it differs from English. The English structure correlates should also be described.
(6)
- preverbal negation
- no auxiliary in negation
- no contraction in negation
- nie does not equal no or not
- negation changes the case of direct object to genitive
- multiple negation
- inflected imperative
- no auxiliary in imperative
- sobie: between reflexive and emphasizing (się, sam/a/o)
- sobie: fully inflected
- że – complementizer: lexical difference with that
- że – comma before
- że – cannot be deleted
- to łatwo zrobić – subjectless construction
- to – fully inflected demonstrative pronoun
- łatwo – adverb (English translation would rather have adjective)
- zrobić – one infinitive form, unifunctional ending
- zrobić – lexical perfective aspect
- informal style
(7)
- pronominal subject deletion
- kupiłem/kupowałem – lexical aspect
- kupiłem – past tense (+ present, future (3 forms))
- kupiłem – person, number, gender, tense (multifunctional ending)
- tę – demonstrative determiner (fully inflected)
- tę – agreement with the head in number, gender, case
- posiadłość – fully inflected, 7 cases
- posiadłość – grammatical gender
- od: preposition assigns case (lexically governed)
- prezydenta republiki – genitive attribute
- brata prezydenta republiki – genitive attribute
- genitive attributes stacking
- nouns – grammatical (+ sometimes natural) gender
- brat – lexical gender
- definiteness marked by tę – posiadłość
- brat – definiteness not marked grammatically
(6)(7)
- inflectional language
- relatively free word order
Basic terminology: revision
Levels of language analysis: phonetics, phonology, morphology, lexicology
(and phraseology), syntax, semantics, pragmatics, text grammar, discourse analysis
Syntax: levels of sentence analysis
- Grammatical classes (parts of speech) and their grammatical categories.
- open class items: nouns (number, case, definiteness (+gender)), verbs (tense, aspect, modality, mood (+subject/verb agreement), adjectives (classification, comparison, order), adverbs (comparison (adjectives vs adverbs)
- closed system items: pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, interjections, particles, numerals
- Grammatical functions: subject, predicator, object(s), complement(s),
adverbial(s)
- Semantic (theta) roles
- Grammatical units: morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, sentences – simple, compound, complex
Parts of speech and their categories
Open-class items
Nouns
Nouns: sub-classifications: proper/common, count/mass, concrete/abstract
Secondary grammatical categories of nouns:
(1) number: singular, plural, possibly dual. Plural can be regular or irregular
(2) case: traditional cases – nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, vocative. Cases in English: nominative=subjective, objective = oblique=accusative, genitive: Saxon genitive, periphrastic genitive, double genitive
(3) gender (in English): natural=logical=sex-based. Types: lexical, morphological, lexically marked, dual, emotive
(4) definiteness: marked by articles, determiners and position
Verbs
Verbs: sub-classification: lexical, auxiliary – primary (do, be, have) modal (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must, ought to, dare, need). Lexical verbs go into dynamic/stative, intransitive, transitive (mono, di, complex transitive), middle, performative/constative
Secondary grammatical categories of verbs:
(1) tense – Present, Past
(2) aspect – perfective, progressive
(3) modality – necessity, possibility
(4) person
(5) number
(6) mood – indicative (affirmative, negative), interrogative, imperative, conditional, subjunctive
(7) voice – active, passive
Adjectives
- Sub-classification: (1) gradable/non-gradable; (2) inherent/non-inherent; semantic division: intensifying, post-determiners, qualifying, of age, of color, classifying, de-nominal.
- Syntactic functions: predicative, attributive, central, postpositive.
- Secondary grammatical category: comparison – absolute, comparative, superlative degree. Morphological vs periphrastic comparison.
Adverbs
- Sub-classification: see: adjuncts
- Syntactic functions: modifiers, adverbials (complements to prepositions)
- Secondary grammatical categories: comparison: see: adjectives.
Closed-system items
Pronouns
Personal – I, you, he/she/it, we, you, they
me, you, him/her/it, us, you ,them
Reciprocal - each other, one another
Reflexive and emphasizing – myself, yourself, himself/herself/itself, ourselves, yourselves,
themselves, oneself
Possessive – mine, yours, his/hers/its, ours, yours, theirs
Possessive determiners – my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
Demonstrative – this/these, that/those
Demonstrative determiners – this book, that dog...
Relative – who/whom/whose, which, that, 0 (and what in free relatives)
Interrogative: who/whom/whose, which, what
Interrogative determiners: which book..., what time
Wh-words – interrogative pronouns + when, where, why, how (in what way...)
Indefinite:
Universal – all, everyone, everybody, everything + ever, everywhere, every time
Assertive – some, someone, somebody, something + somewhere, some time, somehow
Non-assertive – any, anyone, anybody, anything + anywhere, any time, anyhow
Negative – none, noone, nobody, nothing + never, nowhere, in no way
- prepositions
- conjunctions
- articles
- interjections
- particles
- numerals
Grammatical functions
- subject (S): simple/complex (clausal), empty it, anticipatory it, grammatical there, grammatical/logical
- object (O): direct (Od), indirect (Oi), quasi (Oq), cognate (Oc), clausal objects
- complement ( C): subject complement (Cs), object complement (Co), adverbial complement (Ca/A). Clausal complements.
- adverbials: adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts
Adjuncts
- viewpoint – visually, morally, geographically, program-wise, as far as ... is concerned
- focusing (restrictive) – alone, exactly, just, chiefly, mainly, mostly
- focusing (additive) – again, also, equally, even, similarly
- intensifying (emphasizers) - definitely, actually, certainly, obviously, frankly
- intensifying (amplifiers) - very much, completely, absolutely, entiorely, extremely, badly
- intensifying (downtowners) – kind of, partly, hardly, sort of, quite, rather
- process (manner) – coldly, quickly, loudly
- process (means) – surgically, by car
- process (instrument) – microscopically, with that knife
- subject - resentfully, proudly, bitterly, willingly, intentionally
- formulaic – kindly, cordially, humbly, graciously
- place (position) – above, across, ahead, nearby, upstairs, everywhere
- place (direction) – north, south, up, down
- time (when) – today, afterwards
- time (duration) – briefly, since
- time (frequency) – daily, twice, ususally, always
- time (relationship) – already
- others – purpose, cause, reason...
Disjuncts
Style and attitude: frankly, honestly, seriously, truly, truthfully, flatly, strictly speaking, approximately, briefly, broadly, crudely, generally, roughly, simply, literally, personally
(form: frankly, in all frankness, to be frank, to put it frankly, frankly speaking, putting it frankly, if I may be frank)
certainly, indeed, definitely, undeniably, undoubtedly, allegedly, possibly, presumably, reportedly, supposedly, clearly, evidently, obviously, actually, really, ideally, officially, mtechnically
Content: amazingly, astonishingly, curiously, ironically, oddly, remarkably, strangely, inevitably, naturally, typically, amusingly, hopefully, correctly, wisely, understandably
Conjuncts
Listing: first, second, firstly, secondly, one, two, three, a,b,c, to begin with, finally, again, also, furthermore, in addition , correspondingly, equally, likewise
Summative: altogether, overall, then, therefore, thus, in conclusion, to conclude, to sum up
Apposition: namely, thus, in other words, for example, that is
Result: accordingly, consequently, hence, thus, then
Antithetic: contrariwise, contrastingly, conversely, instead, on the contrary, in contrast, in comparison
Concessive: anyhow, anyway, besides, else, however, nevertheless, nonetheless, still, though, yet, in any case, in spite of that
Others: else, otherwise, in that case, better, rather, meanwhile
Semantic roles (theta roles)
Agentive: one who causes the event – John opened the door
Affected : (theme, patient) person or thing directly influenced by the action – The door opened, John opened the door
Recipient: one who is passively related to the event – His son has a radio; John gave a book to Mary
Instrumental: The key opened the door; John opened the door with the key
Attribute: describes or identifies some participant in the event – John is nice
Locative: depicts the place – The bus holds forty people, John put it on the table
Temporal: depicts the time – Tomorrow is my birthday, I`ll do it tomorrow
Eventive: The concert is tomorrow
Object roles
Affected Od: John opened the door
Effected Od: Baird invented television, She sang a song
Locative O: The horse jumped the fence
Recipient Oi: John gave his wife a ring
Affected Oi: He gave the door a kick
Grammatical units
(immediate) constituents
hierarchical groupings
levels: sentence, clause, (extended) phrase, word, morpheme
Sentence
Simple: one predicate, one subject
Compound: two or more sentences joined together by means of coordinate conjunctions of type (1) and, (2) but, (3) or and (possibly) so. The sentences are called conjoins. Each of them may form an independent sentence.
Complex: two or more lexical verbs; possibility of unitary grammatical functions assignment; one or more function (subject, object etc.) contains its own functions. Complex sentences contain main (superordinate) and subordinate (embedded) clauses. Subordinate clauses do not form independent sentences.
Clause
Division by form
Finite: I know that Mary likes John
Non-finite: I want to go (to-infinitive)
I saw them play (bare-infinitive)
Whistling gently, he went home (participle)
Singing is his favourite pastime (gerund)
Verbless: Though empty, the box was still useful
Division by `content`
Complementation
a) nominal complementation : The fact that John is a student is well known
b) adjectival com: They are eager to go
c) adverbial com: John went as slowly as he could
d) verbal com: I want to do it
Relative clauses
a) restrictive (defining): My sister who is nice is asleep
b) non-restrictive (non-defining, adding): John, who is nice, is asleep
c) comment: John visited me, which annoyed me
d) free relatives: What he said was nice
Adverbial clauses (see adverbials)
Division by function
Subject, object, complement, adverbial
a. What is contrastive grammar?
1. Comparative linguistics
a. Historical (diachronic: to reconstruct a proto-language)
b. Typological (synchronic: to classify languages)
c. Contrastive/Confrontative analysis: to find differences and similarities between languages.
2. Contrastive studies
a. theoretical contrastive studies
- to construct a contrastive grammar of two or more languages
- to use/find a model (linguistic theory) for comparison
- comparability basis: contextual equivalence, translational equivalents, congruent constructions, universal categories.
- what do we compare? systems, constructions, rules, vocabulary
Intra-lingual theoretical contrastive analysis: dialects, language acquisition
Inter-lingual theoretical contrastive analysis: language typology.
b. applied contrastive studies
- teaching (interference, error analysis, source and target language)
- analysis of bilingualism
- translating
3. History of theoretical contrastive analysis
a. 19/20th c. W. Vietor 1894: German, English, French phonetics
J. Baudouin de Courtenay 1912: Polish, English, Old-Church Slavonic
P. Passy 1912: Phonetics of European Languages
b. 20th c.: The Prague school (V. Mathesius, B. Trnka, J. Vachek, J. Firbas)
c. 20th c. Post-war American structuralism
C. C. Fries 1945: Teaching and Learning English as a foreign language
R. Lado 1957: Linguistics across cultures (predictable interference, pedagogically oriented American contrastive projects)
d. 1960s: European contrastive projects (theoretically oriented)
e. Contrastive studies in Poland:
1970: 1st International Conference on Polish-English Contrastive Linguistics
1973: „Papers and studies in Contrastive Linguistics”
1978: Fisiak, J. et al. An Introductory English-Polish Contrastive Grammar.
1980. Krzeszowski, T. Gramatyka angielska dla Polaków.
b. Basic Noun Phrase in English and Polish
Primary grammatical categories: lexical categories, parts of speech, word classes
Phrasal categories
Secondary grammatical categories: nominal - number, gender, case, definiteness
Number
1. pan - panowie boy - boys /z/
stół - stoły box - boxes /iz/
wąż - węże pen - pens /z/
bruk - bruki cook - cooks /s/
kiść - kiście girl - girls /z/
kość - kości
lampa - lampy
2. ------foot - feet; man - men
3. człowiek - ludzie; rok - lata (person - people/persons - peoples)
4. ------sheep - sheep; means - means; salmon; pike; series,species
5. Singularia tantum
odzież (clothes) furniture (meble)
broń (arms) information (informacje)
wygląd (looks) gossip (plotki)
owies (oats) money (pieniądze)
otoczenie (surroundings) checkers (warcaby)
6. Pluralia tantum
skrzypce (violin/s) binoculars (lornetka/i)
usta (mouth/s) scales (waga/i)
drzwi (door/s) tweezers (pincetka/i)
imieniny, urodziny pyjamas (piżama)
zaręczyny (engagement) thanks (podziękowanie)
Subject - Verb Agreement
1. Ja lubię, lubiłem/lubiłam, będę lubić (lubił/lubiła)
Ty lubisz, lubiłeś/lubiłaś, będziesz lubił (lubić/lubiła)
On lubi, lubił, będzie lubił (lubić)
------
I, you, we, you, they - like, liked, will like
he, she, it - likes, liked, will like
2. Wielu/paru/sześciu chłopców pali papierosy
Kilkoro dzieci bawi się
Trzech chłopców pali papierosa. Trzej chłopcy palą papierosy.
Many/some/six boys smoke cigarettes
Several children are playing
3. Państwo wyszli The family are leaving
The family is a basic social unit
The police go to work; the government are resting
The herd are grazing; The crew are working
Gender
ten mały chłopiec przyszedł / a nice boy (he) came
to piękne dziecko przyszło / a beautiful child (he/she/it) came
ta szafa, ten stół, to krzesło / this wardrobe, table, chair - it
2. ------/ ship - she; the moon - she, the sun - he
3.a) brat-siostra / a)brother - sister
matka ojciec / mother - father
kawaler - stara panna / bachelor - spinster
b)zakonnik - zakonnica / monk - nun
siostrzeniec - siostrzenica / nephew - niece
książe - księżna / b)duke - duchess
kelner -kelnerka / waiter - waitress
wdowiec -wdowa / widow - widower
4. artysta - artystka / artist
kucharz - kucharka / cook
student - studentka / student
gość, człowiek / guest, man
5.pani inżynier, kobieta marynarz / woman student, male nurse
6. to chłopię, babsko, psisko, dziewczątko
7. Uczeń szkoły średniej powinien czytać książki i nic go nie usprawiedliwia jeśli ich nie czyta / A highschool student should read books and nothing excuses him if he doesn`t
8. Biegnący chłopcy wołali głośno
Biegnące psy szczekały basem
Kogo/czego - kogo/co: dziewczynki - dziewczynkę
dziewczynek - dziewczynki
psa - psa; psów - psy
sportowca, sportowców (virile)
Case
Nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, vocative
Nominative (subjective, unmarked), objective/oblique, genitive (Saxon, periphrastic)
1. chłopiec czyta; książka chłopca; dałem chłopcu książkę; widzę chłopca, kroję nożem, mówię o chłopcu; oj, chłopcze!
The boy (he) is reading; The boy`s (his) book; I gave a book to the boy. I gave him the book; I see the boy (him); I cut with a knife; I talk about a boy
2. Janek kupił książkę/Książkę kupił Janek John bought a book/ *A book bought John
3. Janek nie ma czasu. Wolałem nie kupować tej książki. Nie chciałem kupić tej książki
zabraniać, zakazywać, odmawiać, potrzebować, szukać, chcieć książki, zazdrościć sukienki, nienawidzieć koleżanki, bać się, spodziewać się klęski, dosypać, nasypać cukru
- od domu, bez papierosów, wśród ludzi, dla ludzi
4. Dajcie mi chleba/ Dajcie mi chleb - Give me some bread/Give me a loaf of bread
Dolejcie mi wina/Lejcie wino - Pour out some more wine/Pour out wine
Definiteness
- proper nouns, nouns preceded by a demonstrative or possessive determiner, personal pronouns are definite both in English and in Polish (demonstratives can precede a possessive or a proper noun in Polish)
- nouns preceded by indefinite determiners (certain, some, any, pewien, jakiś, jakikolwiek) and indefinite pronouns are indefinite both in English and in Polish.
1. Odwiedziłem staruszkę I visited the/an old woman
2. Te najtańsze też mają swój urok The cheapest ones are also nice
3. Ta twoja ciotka to bohater * That your aunt is a hero
Czy wiesz co ten Janek zrobił? * Do you know what this John did?
3. Chcę kupić pewną książkę. Chcę kupić jakąś książkę.
5. Zobaczyłam na ulicy psa. Szczekał pies.
Zobaczyłam na ulicy psa. Pies szczekał.
NP structure in Polish and English
1. John`s book Książka Jana
John Brown`s book Książka Jana Kowalskiego
The Queen of England`s visit Wizyta królowej angielskiej
John`s and Mary`s children Dzieci Jana i Marii
John and Mary`s children Dzieci Jana i Marii
A friend of John`s Jeden z przyjaciół Jana
the title of the book tytuł książki
2. Ta bogata wdowa
Ten bogaty wdowiec
To bogate dziecko this rich widow, widower, child
3. stary niedźwiedź old bear
niedźwiedź brunatny brown bear
mała kurka little hen
kurka wodna water hen
4. student medycyny medical student
operacja kręgosłupa spinal operation
przemysł lotniczy aviation industry
ogród kwiatowy flower garden
c. Basic Verb Phrase in English and Polish
Verb phrase - secondary grammatical categories: tense (and time reference), aspect, mood, modal verbs. Sequence of tenses, reported speech, conditionals.
1. verbal phrase, verb phrase, predicator, predicate
2. tense, time, aspect, mood (indicative/declarative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, subjunctive, affirmative, negative), modality.
3. Secondary grammatical categories on verb (phrase)
a) person: piszę, piszesz I write, he writes
b) number: piszę, piszemy he writes, they write
c) gender: pisał, pisała, pisało ------
d) tense:
present: piszę I write
past: pisałem I wrote
future: będę pisać/pisał
napiszę ______
e) aspect: robię/zrobię, pisał/na...
krzyczeć/krzyknąć, skakać/
skoczyć ------
------perfective: I have written, I had written
------progressive: I am writing, I was writing
f) mood
Piszę książkę I am writing a book
Czy piszesz książkę? Are you writing a book?
Napisz książkę! Write a book!
Napisałbym książkę, gdyby.... I would write a book if....
Chcę, żeby napisał/ć książkę They request that he write a book
If I were you....
4, Verb phrase morphology
a) Base I: myj-ący = myj Base: work, drive
present: myj-ę, myj-esz imperative: work!
imperative: myj, myj-cie, myj-my infinitive: (to) work
future (perfective): u-myj-ę s-forms: works, drives
Base II: my-ć = my
past: myłem, myłeś past: worked, drove
pluperfect: myłem był present participle: working
future (imperfective): będę mył past participle: worked, driven
infinitive: myć
future (imperfective): będę myć
after modals: mogę myć
past participle: był myty, został umyty, jestem/będę myty, umywszy
impersonal: umyto
b) simple verbal phrases: myję, myj, umyję, myłem, myłbym, myjąc, umywszy, myto, myty vs work(s), worked, working
c) complex verbal phrases: myłem był, będę mył/myć, mogę myć, mógłbym był myć, został umyty, został był umyty vs have written, is writing, have been writing, can write, can have written, can be writing, can have been writing, having written , to be writing, to have written + passive correlates.
5. There is no future tense in English
„Perfective” is an aspect and not tense in English
„Progressive” is an aspect and not tense in English>
6. Aspect in English.
PRESENT PERFECT
resultative
I have read that book Przeczytałem tę książkę
I have cooked dinner Ugotowałem kolację
experience
He has lived in many places Mieszkał w wielu miejscach
continuative
I have read that book many times Czytałem tę książkę wele razy
I have lived in Warsaw since 1953 Mieszkam w Warszawie od 1953
I have lived in Warsaw for many years Mieszkam w Warszawie od wielu lat
You have asked this question for weeks Zadajesz to pytanie od tygodni
I have admired you all my life Podziwiam cię całe życie