Kategoria jednokrotności w polskich czasownikach

Abstrakt

The Category of Semelfactivity in Polish Verbs

Iterativity occurs in opposition to semelfactivity; when no contrast is present, these terms lose their meaning. Iterativity may be difficult to perceive in verbs such as robić ‘to do’, smucić się ‘to be sad’, malować ‘to paint’, which can be used both in an iterative and a semelfactive capacity. It is therefore worthwhile to consider the problem of the opposition between iterativity and semelfactivity; it is worthwhile to investigate the morphological form of verbs which refer to actions that only happen once; it is worthwhile to examine the role of the aspect in those verbs, and to analyse their semantic marking (apart from semelfactivity). The issue is important for the Polish language, and yet it is commonly said that iterativity is in Polish in a state of decline. It is, however, only one certain type of the iterative : semelfactive pairs that is in decline; the emergence of the aspect changed the morphological nature of these pairs.

The final part of the article (Section 6) poses the problem of word formation properties of verbs that refer to one-time acts. In those verbs in which the prefix only has an inchoative or final value in reference to the base (pomyśleć ‘to think’, zrobić ‘to do’), a blocking of the formation of iterativa can be observed. It might be even said that if such a verb is formed, it is an indication that the prefix introduced not only the value of perfectiveness, but perhaps another meaning as well. The peculiarity of semelfactivity has further consequences for the derivational system. It turns out that verbs which refer to actions that happen only once are incapable of creating substantive derivatives apart from names of actions, e.g. kopnięcie ‘a kick’, przewrócenie się ‘falling over’, zmartwienie się ‘becoming worried’. The problem is illustrated on the basis of examples furnished by dictionaries of word formation nests edited and developed by Mirosław Skarżyński.