Name: Anna Kibort (Ms) Title of paper: Morpholexical rules in Polish revisited Affiliation: Research Centre for English & Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, UK Morpholexical rules in Polish revisited --------------------------------------- The present paper offers an account of several Polish constructions which can be seen as resulting from an application of morpholexical rules operating on the argument structure. It will also demonstrate that some Polish impersonal constructions, such as the -no/-to impersonal or the impersonal reflexive construction with 'sie', are not produced by morpholexical operations. The analysis is based on the notion of argument structure as consisting of two independent, though formally related, levels: the level of argument positions (traditionally referred to as the 'transitivity', or the 'valency' of the predicate) mapped onto grammatical functions, and the level of thematic roles. Following (broadly) the suggestion of Sadler & Spencer (1998), I propose to distinguish between the operations on the argument structure which affect the classification of the arguments into grammatical functions (morphosyntactic operations), and the operations which affect the mapping of the thematic roles onto the arguments (morphosemantic operations). This distinction allows us to sort out the syntactic detransitives (such as the personal and impersonal passive) from both the semantic detransitives (such as the anticausative/middle and the adversity personal/demi-active) and the active indefinites such as the -no/-to impersonal, the impersonal reflexive and the adversity impersonal. I will use the example of the -no/-to impersonal to demonstrate that, despite its diachronic connection with the passive and its (superficial) similarity to the (impersonal) passive of intransitives, synchronically its morphology is indeed not passive, but active indefinite. To support the view that the construction is not an impersonal passive, I will, first of all, gather together the evidence demonstrating that it is not subjectless. I will then argue that the construction is not passive - by showing that -no/-to impersonalization and passivization can be applied to a predicate independently of each other, and that the two operations display different restrictions. I will then demonstrate that the -no/-to construction does not result from an operation affecting the semantic role of the agent either. Finally, I will argue that the -no/-to impersonal should be best analysed as an active indefinite construction, along with other conventional, lexicalized or grammaticalized indefinites or generics in Polish which do not result from an application of any operation altering the predicate's argument structure. The analysis of the -no/-to impersonal suggested in this paper, therefore, represents a view which is incompatible with the accounts which have sought for the formal analysis of the -no/-to construction in terms of the seemingly related canonical passive (e.g. Comrie 1977; Borsley 1988; Kipka 1989; Franks 1995; Babby 1998). It, however, follows a long-established Polish descriptive tradition in which the -no/-to impersonal has been regarded as an active indefinite, primarily due to its interpretation (the long list of references includes, e.g., Szober 1923; Koneczna 1955, 1956; Wierzbicka 1966; Siewierska 1988; Rozwadowska 1992; also in RG: Neubauer 1979; Dyła 1983; Dziwirek 1994). (My own preliminary analysis of the -no/-to construction presented at GliP1 last year was seeking a compromise between the two views; I now believe, however, that such a compromise is not possible.) A suggested formalization of the morpholexical rules outlined above will use the descriptive conventions of LFG's Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT). Finally, I will have a brief look at some classes of verbs in Polish (such as unaccusatives, or verbs taking dative or instrumental objects) whose behaviour with respect to morpholexical operations has presented problems of analysis. I will hypothesize their argument structure representations and demonstrate how LMT correctly predicts the restrictions on the morpholexical operations that can be applied to the various types of predicates. Babby, L.H. 1998. "Voice and diathesis in Slavic". Position paper at the Comparative Slavic Morphosyntax conference in Bloomington, Indiana, 5-7 June 1998 Borsley, R.D. 1988. "A note on impersonal passives", Journal of Linguistics 24: 483-487 Comrie, B. 1977. "In defense of spontaneous demotion: The impersonal passive", in: Cole, P. & J.M. Sadock (eds) Syntax & Semantics 8: Grammatical Relations. Academic Press Dyła, S. 1983. "Some further evidence against an impersonal passive analysis of Polish impersonal constructions", Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 15: 123-128 Dziwirek, K. 1994. Polish Subjects. Garland Franks, S. 1995. Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax. OUP Kipka, P.F. 1989. "Impersonals and inflection in Polish", in: Laka, I. & A. Mahajan (eds) Functional Heads and Clause Structure. [MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 10: 135-150]. Koneczna, H. 1955. "Od zdan podmiotowych do bezpodmiotowych", Poradnik Jezykowy 8: 281-292 Koneczna, H. 1956. "O budowie zdania Imc Pana Paskowego słów kilkoro: 2. Orzeczenia na -no, -to", Poradnik Jezykowy 9: 345-356 Neubauer, P. 1979. "The score on 'impersonal passive': Dutch - 1, Polish - 0". An unpublished paper presented at the 17th International Conference on Polish-English Contrastive Linguistics in Boszkowo. Rozwadowska, B. 1992. Thematic Constraints on Selected Constructions in English and Polish. Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo UW Sadler, L. & A. Spencer 1998. "Morphology and argument structure", in: Spencer, A. & A.M. Zwicky (eds) The Handbook of Morphology. Blackwell Siewierska, A. 1988. "The passive in Slavic", in: Shibatani, M. (ed.) Passive and Voice. John Benjamins Szober, S. 1923. Gramatyka jezyka polskiego. Lwów - Warszawa Wierzbicka, A. 1966. "Czy istnieja zdania bezpodmiotowe", Jezyk Polski 46(3): 177-196