COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
JADWIGA WAJSZCZUK
University of Warsaw, Poland
FUNCTIONAL CLASS (SO CALLED “PART OF SPEECH”)
ASSIGNMENT AS A KIND OF MEANING-BOUND WORD
SYNTACTIC INFORMATION
Abstract. The traditional division of the lexicon into parts of speech which
seems to satisfy the requirements of a syntactic description, on the one hand,
and a word formation description, on the other hand, cannot be looked upon
as a result of a strict classification covering the totality of the lexicon and
being based on a coherent set of criteria. Making the criteria more precise
or correcting them is an issue of extreme importance and urgency in the
work on the theory of language. Such achievements can help solve many
other problems, in particular, syntactic ones. The article presents a scheme
of several preliminary steps of an amelioration program (a scheme which
has been improved compared to the author’s earlier attempts going in the
same direction). The program is based on combinability characteristics of
words, i.e. on those properties that are responsible for the tasks to be accomplished by a given class of expressions in making up a higher order unit,
i.e. a syntagm (the author emphasizes this point: it is syntagm rather than
sentence which is the category the recommended approach is focusing on),
and that, importantly, determine the limits of syntactic rules, i.e. the ins
and outs of the rules (the limits concerning the overall stock of words).
Keywords: part of speech, syntactic partitioning of words, functional properties of word classes, two kinds of position opening: with and without semantic impact (syntactic connotation), syntactic lexemes vs. quasi-syntactic
(para-syntactic) lexemes.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
BJÖRN HANSEN1
ANA DROBNJAKOVIĆ2
1
2
Institut für Slavistik, Universität Regensburg, Regensburg
KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven
POLISH IN THE LIGHT OF GRAMMATICALIZATION THEORY 1
Abstract. The paper is concerned with grammaticalization, a type of language change whereby lexical items, in specific contexts, come to serve grammatical functions, and grammatical items acquire new grammatical functions. The aim is twofold: to shed light at the main properties of grammaticalization, and to demonstrate its applicability to Polish data. Some prominent examples in Polish are discussed: the grammaticalization of modals, imperative and avertive constructions. The paper closes with a non-exhaustive
list of leads for further research into grammaticalization in Polish.
Keywords: grammaticalization, Polish, grammatical markers, constructions, contact induced grammaticalization.
1
This article overlaps with parts of the previous work Björn Hansen & Ana Drobnjaković
Grammaticalization theory as a basis for the panchronic study of the Serbian language:
setting the agenda. In: Radovanović, Milorad / Grković-Major, Jasmina (Eds.) The
theory of diachronic linguistics and investigations into the Serbian language. Beograd:
Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
SVETLANA TIMOSHENKO
OLGA SHEMANAEVA
Institute for Information Transmission Problems RAS, Moscow, Russia
THE DIVERSITY OF LEXICAL FUNCTIONS IN BULGARIAN
AND RUSSIAN: AN APPROACH TO COMPATIBLE DIGITAL
COMPARATIVE LEXICOGRAPHY
Abstract. This paper presents an approach to the creation of RussianBulgarian digital dictionary of collocations using the apparatus of lexical
functions. The project is aimed not only at the high-quality translation and
word sense disambiguation but also at the cross-linguistic analysis and at
comparing the semantics and compatibility of the words in Slavic languages (here: Russian and Bulgarian) by means of digital lexicographical data.
Another important application is computer-assisted language learning: Bulgarian data can be incorporated in the educational project being developed
for Russian and English at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Keywords: lexicon, collocations, lexical functions, digital lexicography,
computer-assisted language learning, cross-linguistic. study
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
VIOLETTA KOSESKA-TOSZEWA1
ANTONI MAZURKIEWICZ2
1
2
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
CONSTRUCTING CATALOGUE OF TEMPORAL SITUATIONS2
Abstract. The paper is aiming to create a common basis for description,
comparing, and analysis natural languages. As a subject of comparison we
have chosen temporal structures of some languages. For such a choice there
exists a perfect tool, describing basic temporal phenomena, namely an ordering of states and events in time, certainty and uncertainty, independency
of histories of separate objects, necessity and possibility. This tool is supported by the Petri nets formalism (Petri 1962), which seems to be well
suited for expressing the above mentioned phenomena. Petri nets are built
form three primitive notions: of states, of events that begin or end the states,
and so-called flow relation indicating succession of states and events. This
simple constituents give rise to many possibilities of representing temporal
phenomena; it turns out that such representations are sufficient for many
(clearly, not necessarily all) temporal situations appearing in natural languages (Koseska-Toszewa 2007, Reichenbach 1944).
In description formalisms used till now there is no possibility of expressing such reality phenomena as temporal dependencies in compound statement, or combination of temporality and modality. Moreover, using these
formalisms one cannot distinguish between two different sources of uncertainty of the speaker while describing the reality: one, due to the lack of
knowledge of the speaker what is going on in outside world, the second, due
to objective impossibility of foreseen ways in which some conflict situations
will be (or already have been) resolved. Petri net formalism seems to be
perfectly suited for such differentiations.
There are two main description principles that encompassed this paper.
First, that assigns meaning to names of grammatical structures in different languages may lead to misunderstanding. Two grammatical structures
with apparently close names may describe different reality. Additionally,
some grammatical terms used in one language may be absent and not understandable in the other. It leads to assign meanings to situations, rather
than to linguistic forms used for their expression. The second principle is
2
Work supported by EU FP7 project GA211938 MONDILEX “Conceptual Modelling
of Neworking of Centres for High-Quality Research in Slavic Lexicography and Their
Digital Resources”.
limit the discussed issues to such a piece of reality that can be possible for
precise description. The third is to avoid introducing such information to
the described reality that is not explicitly mentioned by linguistic means.
The authors try to following these principles in the present paper.
The paper is organized as follows. First, some samples of situations related to
present tense are given together with examples of their expressions in four
languages: English, (as a reference language) and three Slavic languages,
representing South slavonic languages (Bulgarian), West slavonic languages
(Polish), and East slavonic languages (Russian). Within the same framework
the next parts of the paper are constructed, supplying samples of using Past
tenses and, finally, future tenses and modalities.
The formal tools for description purposes are introduced stepwise, according to needs caused be the described reality. There are mainly Petri nets,
equipped additionally with inscriptions or labeling in order to keep proper
assignations of description units to described objects.
Keywords: Sentences, tenses, states, events, time flow, Petri nets, modality
References
Koseska-Toszewa, V. (2007). Gramatyka konfrontatywna bułgarsko-polska. vol. 7.
Semantyczna kategoria czasu, Slawistyczny Ośrodek Wydawniczy, Warszawa.
Petri, C. A. (1962). Fundamentals of the Theory of Asynchronous Information Flow,
In Proc. of IFIP’62 Congress, North Holland Publ. Comp., pages 386–390.
Reichenbach, H. (1944). Elements of Symbolic Logic, New York, McMillan Publ.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
VIARA MALDJIEVA
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
SEMANTIC MOTIVATION FOR THE DENOTATIONAL
IDENTITY OF ARGUMENTS IN PREDICATION STRUCTURES
Abstract. This text is an attempt at a preliminary outline of the factors
that motivate the denotational identity of argument content in the predication structure as well as the consequences of this identity for the shape of
the sentence expression which is a realization of such a structure.
The first question this analysis attempts to answer concerns the structure
of predicative concepts that constitute the predication structure with arguments of the identical content?
The second question the cursory analysis done attempts to answer concerns
the manner, in which the identity existing on the semantic structure level
is signaled on the surface, in the formal structure.
Keywords: denotational identity, predication structures, argument, Polish,
Bulgarian.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
MAKSIM DUŠKIN
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
APPROXIMATION AND SUPPOSITION
Abstract. This article compares exponents of approximation (expressions
like Russian , , , , ) and the
words expressing supposition (for example Russian !" , #$ ,
% ). These words are often confused in research, in particular researchers often mention exponents of supposition in case of exponents of
approximation. Such approach arouses some objections.
The author intends to demonstrate in this article a notional difference between approximation and supposition, therefore the difference between exponents of these two notions. This difference could be described by specifying
different attitude of approximation and supposition to the notion of knowledge. Supposition implies speaker’s ignorance of the exact number, while
approximation does not mean such ignorance. The article offers examples
proving this point of view.
Keywords: approximation, supposition, Russian.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
JOANNA SATOŁA-STAŚKOWIAK
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
FROM MOMENTARITY TO PERFECTIVE MULTIPLICITY.
DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE AORIST
Abstract. The aim of this work is a analysis of temporal meanings, and
aspectual research. That problems raised in the article are analysed on concrete examples of past sentences translated from the Polish language into
the Bulgarian language.
Keywords: momentarity, perfective multiplicity, aspectual forms, type of
the Polish past sentences translated by means of the aorist, translating.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
VIOLETTA KOSESKA-TOSZEWA
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
FORM, ITS MEANING, AND DICTIONARY ENTRIES
Abstract. As we know, a language form is a unit which plays a specific
form in the language, e.g. a semantic or syntactical one. We establish the
function of a form based on its use (occurrence), i.e. its relation with the
meanings of other forms in speech or in a text. The meaning of a form is
the value of its function. In the traditional grammar, form is opposed to its
meaning. However, various grammar schools have big problems with distinguishing between a form and its function. For example, the present tense
form has a number of basic temporal meanings in Bulgarian as well as in
Polish and Russian, and in none of those languages this is only the present
time, (see past, future and habituality expressed using the present tense
form). It is a big mistake not to distinguish between the meanings of article
in article languages. For example, in Bulgarian the same form of article can
express both uniqueness and universality (or, respectively: definiteness and
indefiniteness). In the quoted book (?), I put forward a hypothesis on the
development of the meaning of Bulgarian article. In my opinion, initially
the article expressed uniqueness of an element (object), and then started to
express also uniqueness of a set, which later, due to equalling two completely
different semantically-logical structures, i.e. structures with universal and
unique quantification, lead to a homonymy and to the article expressing
also universality, i.e. indefiniteness. Similarly in English, French, Rumanian
or Albanian, where the same form of article can express either uniqueness
or universality This proves that the above homonymy is of a general rather
than typological (e.g. Balkan) character. Naturally, in the above languages
the definite article form can also express uniqueness of an object or a set, so
it also expresses definiteness. Ambiguity of the definite article form is a phenomenon exceeding the area of Balkan languages, and the only Balkanism
is the position of the article — speaking more precisely, its postpositiveness
(postpositive position). However, that position gives us no right to treat
it differently than the English or French article. In Bulgarian, Rumanian
and Albanian the postpositive article is written together with the name its
concerns, but it is neither a unit belonging to the root of the word nor the
ending of the word.
The above observations, based first of all on the semantically-logical aspects
of the definiteness category, have been confirmed by the language material
from the Suprasl Code, where Bulgarian article does not occur in universally
quantified nominal structures, but in uniquely quantified nominal expres-
sions, denoting satisfaction of the predicate either by one element of the
sentence or by the whole set treated as the only one.
It is worth stressing that distinguishing between the form and its meaning
in comparing the material 6 languages belonging to three different groups
of Slavic languages (as is the case in the MONDILEX Project) will allow us
to avoid numeorus substantiva mistakes and erroneous conclusions. Hence
dictionary entries should be verified and made uniform in that respect before they are “digitalized”... Distinction between the form and its meaning
in a dictionary entry is fully possible, as shown by works of Z. Saloni (2002)
and A. Przepiórkowski (2008).
Keywords: Language form, meaning of a form aspect and tense, semantic category of definiteness/indefiniteness, contrastive studies, semantic interlanguage, terminological dictionary, contrastive description leading from
meaning to form.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
LUDMILA DIMITROVA1
RADOVAN GARABÍK3
LEONID IOMDIN5
VIOLETTA KOSESKA-TOSZEWA2
TOMAŽ ERJAVEC4
VOLODYMYR SHYROKOV6
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia, Bulgaria
Institute of Slavic Studies, Warsaw, Poland
3
Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Bratislava, Slovakia
4
Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia
5
Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow, Russia
6
Ukrainian Lingua-Information Fund, Kiev, Ukraine
1
2
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
MONDILEX — TOWARDS THE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
FOR DIGITAL RESOURCES IN SLAVIC LEXICOGRAPHY
Abstract. The paper presents activities of the EU project MONDILEX,
Conceptual Modelling of Networking of Centres for High-Quality Research
in Slavic Lexicography and their Digital Resources. The main objective of
MONDILEX is to design the conceptual scheme of a research infrastructure that supports the networking of centres for high-quality research in
traditional and digital Slavic lexicography.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
ADAM PRZEPIÓRKOWSKI
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences
and University of Warsaw, Poland
TOWARDS A CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR ACCOUNT
OF THE DISTRIBUTIVE PO IN POLISH3
Abstract. Polish distributive constructions involving the form po are well
known for their syntactic and semantic idiosyncrasy. The aim of this paper
is to show that, contrary to the received wisdom, two different lexemes po
take part in such constructions: a preposition and an adnumeral operator.
This explains some of the idiosyncratic behaviour, namely, the apparent
ability of po to combine with different grammatical cases. A preliminary
Construction Grammar analysis is proposed which eschews the potential
problem of missed generalisations that such a dual account of po might
engender.
Keywords: Distributive po, adnumeral operator, Sign-Based Construction
Grammar, Polish.
3
I am grateful to the Institute of Polish Language at the University of Warsaw for an
invitation to present some of the material of this article at the institute seminar in
November 2009 and to the audience of that seminar for positive feedback. The article
greatly benefitted from the remarks by Magdalena Danielewiczowa, Jadwiga LindeUsiekniewicz and Paweł Rutkowski. The usual exculpations apply.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
MACIEJ PIASECKI
Instytut of Informatics, Politechnika Wroclaw University of Technology
[email protected], www.plwordnet.pwr.wroc.pl
AUTOMATED EXTRACTION OF LEXICAL MEANINGS FROM
POLISH CORPORA: POTENTIALITIES AND LIMITATIONS
Abstract. Large corpora are often consulted by linguists as a knowledge
source with respect to lexicon, morphology or syntax. However, there are
also several methods of automated extraction of semantic properties of language units from corpora. In the paper we focus on emerging potentialities
of these methods, as well as on their identified limitations. Evidence that
can be collected from corpora is confronted with the existing models of
formalised description of lexical meanings. Two basic paradigms of lexical
semantics extraction are briefly described. Their properties are analysed on
the basis of several experiments performed on Polish corpora. Several potential applications of the methods, including a system supporting expansion
of a Polish wordnet, are discussed. Finally, perspectives on the potential
further development are discussed.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
KRISTINA HMELJAK SANGAWA1
TOMAŽ ERJAVEC2
1
2
[email protected], University of Ljubljana
[email protected], Jožef Stefan Institute
THE JAPANESE-SLOVENE DICTIONARY JASLO:
ITS DEVELOPMENT, ENHANCEMENT AND USE
Abstract. The paper presents the on-line Japanese-Slovene dictionary jaSlo,
in particular the ways in which it has been used, and how it has been extended with examples mined from a parallel corpus. The paper first describes
jaSlo and the structure of its dictionary entry, its Web interface for searching, and an analysis of the access logs. The use of jaSlo in the context of
the Japanese reading-support tool Reading Tutor is described next, again
followed by an analysis of the access logs. Also discussed is the manner in
which usage examples were added to the dictionary, and an evaluation of
their usefulness. The paper concludes with directions for further work.
Keywords: digital dictionaries, Japanese language, Slovene language, usability studies.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
LUDMILA DIMITROVA1 , VIOLETTA KOSESKA-TOSZEWA2
DANUTA ROSZKO2 , ROMAN ROSZKO2
1
2
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia
Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
APPLICATION OF MULTILINGUAL CORPUS
IN CONTRASTIVE STUDIES (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE
BULGARIAN-POLISH-LITHUANIAN PARALLEL CORPUS)
Abstract. In this paper we present applications of a trilingual corpus in
language research. Comparative and contrastive studies of Polish and Bulgarian as well as Polish and Lithuanian have been already conducted, but
up to the best of our knowledge no such studies exist for Bulgarian and
Lithuanian. On the one hand, it is interesting to note that two Slavic languages are compared to a Baltic language (Lithuanian). On the other hand,
the three languages are marginally present in the EU because of the later
ascension of the three countries to the EU. The paper shortly describes the
first electronic Bulgarian–Polish–Lithuanian experimental corpus, currently
under development only for research. We also focus our attention on the
morphosyntactic annotation of the parallel trilingual corpus according to
the Corpus Encoding Standard: we present a review of the Part-of-Speech
(POS) classification of the participle in the three languages — Bulgarian,
Polish, and Lithuanian in comparison to another POS, the adjective. We
briefly discuss tagsets for corpus annotation from the point of view of possible unification in the future with some examples.
Keywords: multilingual electronic corpora, parallel and comparable corpora, corpus annotation, lexical databases, multilingual electronic dictionaries.
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
LUDMILA DIMITROVA
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
MULTILINGUAL DIGITAL RESOURCES
WITH BULGARIAN LANGUAGE
Abstract. The paper presents in brief Bulgarian language resources as a
part of multilingual digital resources developed in the frame of some international projects, among them parallel annotated and aligned corpora,
comparable corpora, morpho-syntactic specifications for corpora annotation
and dictionaries encoding, lexicons, lexical databases, and electronic dictionaries.
Keywords: corpora (parallel, comparable, aligned), corpus annotation, digital dictionaries, lexical databases, morpho-syntactic specifications
COGNITIVE STUDIES | ÉTUDES COGNITIVES, 10
SOW Publishing House, Warsaw 2010
OLEG V. BUGAKOV
Ukrainian Lingua-Information Fund, NAS Ukraine, Kiev
INTERPRETATION FORMULAS FOR CONJUNCTIONS
AND PARTICLES IN THE EXPLANATORY UKRAINIAN
LANGUAGE DICTIONARY
Abstract. Interpretation formulas for conjunctions and particles in the
Ukrainian Language Dictionary are defined. The peculiarities of presenting
lexical semantics for these parts of speech in the explanatory part of the
dictionary entry are described. The way of presenting interpretation formulas using synonyms is also described.
Keywords: explanatory dictionary, Ukrainian Language Dictionary, conjunction, particle, lexical semantics, syntactic semantics, interpretation formula.