Jednostki apelatywne

W poszukiwaniu wyróżnika

Abstrakt

Appellative units. In search for a differentiator

The goal of the paper is to characterize four units with a dominating appellative function: Uwaga! (‘Warning!’ / ‘Attention!’), Start! (‘Start!’), Stop! (‘Stop!’), and Dalej! (‘Carry on!’). Their nature is performative; they are excluded from the reach of negation; they cannot be presented in reported speech. The author indicates the syntactic independence of these units and their deep rooting in the situational context. She believes that the essential property of appellatives is the marked position of the addressee, contextually identified by the action he or she is to perform or performs. This is reflected in the description of the function of these units, one that reveals their specific character which, according to K. Bühler’s (2004: 32) advice, is particular behaviour of the addressee of the utterance, a reaction to the uttering of those units.