BASIC SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF POLISH AND ENGLISH SIMPLE SENTENCES AND THEIR GRAMMATICAL CONTRASTS

Thre types of differences concerning the above matter have been distinguished:

• structural differences: where one of the languages allows for a syntactic structure to be derived which has no syntactically congruent counterpart in the other language and where the difference can be attributed to a phrase structure rule not shared by the grammars of both compared languages.

• categirial contrast: where corresponding elements in semantically equivalent and congruent sentences in both languages belong to different syntactic categories (as in the following example:

E. You look wonderful. (adj.)

P Wyglądasz cudownie. (adv.)

• functional contrasts: where the transition of a sentence in one language into another involves a change of a systematic function of one of its elements. For instance, the subject noun phrase in the Polish sentence 2P becomes a direct object in its English equivalent:

P: Brakuje nam wyobraźni.

E: We lack imagination.

STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCES

The consideration of the phrase structure rule that divides every sentence into its subject noun phrase & a verb phrase discloses an important SYNTACTIC DIFFERENCE between English and Polish. The subject noun phrase is regarded as an obligatory constituent in the structure of an English sentence. In Polish the main clause need not have a subject on the surface. When the S is a pronoun it can be deleted by Pronominal Subject Deletion transformation:

P: On wyjechał z Poznania. Wyjechał z Poznania.

E: He left Poznań.

• The notion of „subjectless” constructions in Polish also accounts for the fact why the subject noun phrase is not an obligatory main sentence element in Polish. Already mentioned constructions are characterized by the lack of a noun phrase in nominative case with which the main verb could agree in person, number and gender.

• The following types of subjectless constructions can be distinguished, namely:

1. a third person singular neuter verb (e.g. Padało wczoraj. It rained yesterday.)

2. a third person singular neuter reflexive verb (e.g. Podaje się tu kawę. Coffe is served here.)

3. special -no, -to impersonal verb forms (e.g. Pobito Janka. John has been beaten up.)

4. a third person plural (e.g. W Poznaniu otwarli nowe kino. They opened a new cinema in Poznań.)

5. special non-inflected form of a verb (e.g. (Jest) widać stąd miasto. The town can be seen

from here.)

• The analysis of the sentences: Zmierzchało. Or Bylo słonecznie. Leads to the postulation of the phrase structure rule in Polish in which the subject noun phrase is an optional constituent:

(P) S (NP) Aux + VP

The following rule actually contrasts with corresponding rule formulated for English in which the subject noun phrase is an obligatory element which cannot be omitted:

(P) S NP Aux + VP

• Another difference concerning the set of phrase structure rules of English and Polish is that the internal structure of the verb phrase in Polish has to allow for an adverb of manner to occur in post-copular (predicative) position:

A: (P) S Aux + VP

B: (P) VP być + NPdative Adv manner

(No rule like Bexists in English. Here the copula can be followed only by an adjective phrase, noun phrase, adverb of place, or a prepositional phrase.)

• The last difference involves Polish subjectless constructions like: Jest nam ich żal. (We feel pity for them.) The rule is as follows:

(P) VP być + NPdative + NPgenitive + NPnominative

However, this construction has no counterpart in English.

BASIC TERMINOLOGY AND KEY CONCEPTS CONCERNING COMPARATIVE STUDIES

1. Terminology:

• Contrastive Studies (CS): any systematic comparison of two languages

• Contrastive Linguistics (CL): the whole field of cross-language comparisons with a focus on theory and methodology of comparison

• Contrastive Analysis (CA) the third step in classical contrastive studies: description, juxtaposition, comparison

2. Contrastive Studies (CS) in the past and at present.

History of CS:

• since Aelfric's Grammatica (1000AD) till now - CS mostly for pedagogical purposes

• 20th c.: grow of interest theory and methodology

• nowadays CS is conducted to support some theoretical claims not connected with CL proper, emphasis on practice and application of CS and to develop CL, emphasis on theory and methodology in CS

3. Two approaches to CS:

A) Theoretical: its aim is to find all the differences and similarities between different languages and determine how and which elements are comparable

B) Applied: its aim is to find differences and similarities necessary for a specific purpose and draw on the findings of theoretical contrastive studies

4. The notion of contrastive linguistics.

G. L. Trager (1949)in discussing the filed of linguistics, employed the term Contrastive linguistics to denote the branch of linguistics that uses the products of the analysis of descriptive linguistics & deals with both differences and similarities between linguistic systems and subsystems.

- Motivation behind contrastive linguistics:

• similarities and differences between L1 and L2 help the learner of L2

• human translators need systematic L1 and L2 description

• natural language processing needs machine-readable contrastive grammars

- Approaches to CL :

• comparative historical linguistics:

- looking for common genetic background of different languages

- diachronic studies

• comparative typological linguistics:

- group languages according to their characteristics

- synchronic studies

• contrastive (non-classificational) linguistics

- note and describe similarities and differences between languages

- do not group them in any way

- compare languages synchronically

5. The comparison between two languages is valid only if similarity between two or more languages can be established in terms of some universal features. Those elements which are not similar are different by definition.

Similar elements are those which are equivalent i.e. equal in value or meanig - the constructions or structures posess the same underlying semantic structure although they may differ on the surface to some extent.

6. The criticism of against CS.

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