The role of text type in the choice of Polish verbal aspect and the case of the Finnish object

www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto

The role of text type in the choice of Polish verbal aspect and the case of

Finnish object Edyta Jurkiewicz-Rohrbacher

University of Helsinki

The role of text type in the choice of Polish aspect & the case of Finnish object 205/23/14www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto

Can text type have anything in common with aspect? former study theoretical existence of relation between aspect

and text type text type Polish verbal aspect and the case of Finnish direct

object – an empirical research


Problem

Polish verbal aspect opposition (perfective vs. imperfective) Przeczytam gazetę. – Czytam gazetę.

Finnish object structural case opposition

(nominative+genitive+accusative=total object vs.

partitive=partitive object) Luen lehden. - Luen lehteä.

is supposed to play similar part in forming the notion of aspect


Former mini-experiment

5 sample texts (Polish contemporary fiction) variables: Polish tense, Finnish tense, number of

object, type of object (binary opposition) H0 hypothesis: Finnish object is not a translation

equivalent of Polish aspect method: contingency tables analysis, Fishers test


Results

no strong correlation (but statistically significant) no significant observation in present tense Finnish past tenses: total object seemed to

correlate with the perfective aspect, partitive was equally distributed between the perfective and and the imperfective aspect, it was best visible with regard to the Finnish present perfect tense


Doubts

too small data set texts did not vary enough (only Polish-Finnish

translations, only fiction etc.) too little variables was chosen the relation does not need to be symmetric


Relation between aspect and text

Dahl (1985: 112-128) discusses the relation between the narrative context and TMA systems

Werlich (1967: 146) Aspect is that component of point of view which indicates in the encoder's linguistic choices how he views changes or states in relation to segments in the continuum of time. The encoder can choose to view changes or states in relation to definite or indefinite segments in the continuum of time.


Relation between aspect and text

Longackre (1983: 16) the aspectual distinctions of the Romance languages (and, for that matter, Slavic and classical Greek) distinguish better the event-line versus supportive material than do the tense-forms of English.

Bartnicka (2004 : 383,425-438 ) on the text level, aspect together with tempus are responsible for actional chronology, as they build either narrative passages (mainly with past tense) or situative passages (mainly with non-past tenses)


Text type

groupings of texts that are similar with respect to their linguistic form (Biber, 1988: 70)

there is no similar studies on text types (according t Biber's definition) of Finnish and Polish


Textual dimensions

there are two dimensions of text types that seem to appear across many languages:

involved vs. informational

represented by:

conversations vs. fiction and official documents

narrative vs. non-narrative

represented by:

fiction vs. official documents, conversations


New data set

film subtitles from www.opensubtitles.org

(Katyń, Mies vailla menneisyyttä, Polish dialogues from Trois couleurs: Blanc) – 209 clauses

fiction: 3 Finnish authors and 4 Polish – 213 clauses

judgements of the Europen Court from the European Court Reports (3 original Polish, 3 original Finnish) – 184 clauses

http://www.opensubtitles.org/


Features

Polish verb: tense, aspect, person, number, voice, mood

Polish object*: case, number Finnish verb: tense, person, number, voice, mood Finnish object: case/opposition type, number source language, type of text

*Polish object is not equal to Polish term “dopełnienie” – It was this part of clause that corresponded with the Finnish object


Differences

aspect (imperfective 56% to perfective 44%):● judgements: 75% to 25%● subtitles 47% to 53%● fiction 47% to 53%

partitive vs. total (38% to 62%):● judgements 41,5% to 58,5%● subtitles 30% to 70%● fiction 43% to 57%

68% of success | subtitles 71%, fiction 68%, official 67%


Improvements?

general:● aspect: 76,4%● object: 68,8%

according to text type● aspect: 78,9%● object: 73,6%


Conclusion There is a correlation between Polish verbal aspect and

Finnish object case opposition.* Polish verbal aspect is quite good correlate for the

Finnish object case opposition. Finnish object case opposition is more relevant for

Polish verbal aspect in texts with dimension involved (or spoken) than in informative (or literate ?)

* So it seems that empirical research supports the theory.


Conclusion

More attention should be paid to the relation between Finnish object and the nominal parts of Polish sentence that correspond with Finnish object.

Polish verbal aspect seem to be stronger correlated to Finnish tense than to Finnish object case/type**

**As Polish verbal aspect interacts more with tense in building the temporal frame than object in Finnish


References

Grammatik des Polnischen. (2004). Bartnicka, B. et al. (ed) Munich.

Baayen R.H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data. Cambridge.

Biber, D. (1988). Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge.

Biber, D. (1995). Dimensions of register variation. Cambridge.

Dahl, Ö. (1985). Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford.

Longacre, R. E. (1983). The grammar of discourse. New York.

Werlich, E. (1976). A Text Grammar of English. Heidelberg.

The role of text type in the choice of Polish verbal aspect and the case of the Finnish object

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