Demonstrative Pronoun Ten and Definiteness in Polish

Demonstrative Pronoun ten and Deﬁniteness in Polish

Diana Venneri

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany

Abstract. In Polish, a language without articles, the (in)deﬁniteness of a noun phrase is expressed by the interaction of (at least) four factors: sentence stress, word order, topic-comment distinction, and determiners. But the demonstrative pronoun ten often seems to be used in a redundant way, since it occurs in contexts that are already marked for deﬁniteness in another mode. I will argue that the occurrence of ten -in an anaphoric context- depends not only on the four factors but also on the semantic relation between the antecedent and the anaphoric noun phrase.

Traditionally, researchers assumed that in Polish bare nouns in the topic position are preferentially interpreted as definite, and bare nouns in the comment position are preferentially interpreted as indefinite. Szwedek’s (1976) examples (1)-(5)1 illustrate this view on the interaction between information structure and bare noun versus nouns with a determiner. As anticipated, the bare noun mężczyzna ’man’ in the topic position is interpreted as definite (2). The other possible continuation of (1) in (3) demonstrates that in order to be interpreted as indefinite a nominal phrase in the topic position has to be explicitly marked for indefiniteness, for example with jeden ‘one‚. In contrast, the bare noun in the comment position is interpreted as indefinite (4). For definite interpretation of a noun phrase in the comment a definite determiner is required, for example the demonstrative pronoun ten as in (5).

(1) Widziałem jak do pokoju wchodził mężczyzna. see-PST-3SG as to room enter-PST-3SG man ’I saw as to the room was coming in a man.’ (= I saw a man coming into the room.) (2) Kiedy wszedłem zobaczyłem, że mężczyzna stał przy oknie. When enter-PST-1SG see-PST-1SG that man stay-PST-3SG by window ’When I entered I saw that the man was standing by the window.’ (3) Kiedy wszedłem zobaczyłem, że jeden mężczyzna stał przy oknie. When enter-PST-1SG see-PST-1SG that one man stay-PST-3SG by window ’When I entered I saw that a man was standing by the window.’

1 Examples regrouped Bacz (1991) 208 Diana Venneri

(4) Kiedy wszedłem zobaczyłem, że przy oknie stał mężczyzna. When enter-PST-1SG see-PST-1SG that by window stay-PST-3SG man ’When I entered I saw that by the window was standing a man.’ (5) Kiedy wszedłem zobaczyłem, że przy oknie stał ten mężczyzna. When enter-PST-1SG see-PST-1SG that by window stay-PST-3SG that man ’When I entered I saw that by the window was standing this man.’ However, Topolinska (1976) maintained that the demonstrative pronoun ten appears with nouns in both topic and comment. In the example in (6) the noun budynek ’building’ occurs in the topic, but the bare noun can not be used, ten is required. (6) Wiesz, nareszcie wyburzono stary dworzec. Ten budynek/*budynek strasz- nie oszpecał centrum miasta. Knew-PRS-2SG finally torn-down-PASS old station that building/building terribly disfigured centre city-GEN ’You know, finally, the old railway station was torn down. That building has disfigured the city centre terribly.’ (Topolinska 1981: 48) The proxonimal demonstrative pronoun ten is one of three demonstrative pronouns in Polish. The proximity-distance opposition between ten and its distal counterpart tamten has nearly disappeared in Polish. Ten is unmarked for the proximity-distance opposition and tamten is marked as a distal pronoun (Miodunka). The third demonstrative pronoun ów is an equivalent of ten, which is considered as stylistically marked. Because of its elevated character ow appears almost only in the written language. In the following I examined only ten, due to the fact that it behaves in a different way and appears much more frequently than tamten and ów. As well as in anaphoric noun phrases ten can appear in other contexts that are considered typical for a definite article: with proper names and semantically unique referents (sun). This observation has been discussed extensively in the literature (Kryk 1987, Topolinska 1981, Bacz 1991, Mendoza 2004), and some authors (Bacz 1990 and 1991) have claimed that ten could one day become a definite article. However, ten occurs with proper names and with unique referents only in emotive contexts (Lakoff 1974). Furthermore, Wolter (2006) demonstrates that the English demonstrativethat is also used in a similar way in emotive contexts. A comparison with German shows similar effects, too. These observa- tions suggest that the emotive use is typical for demonstrative pronouns and not for definite articles. Turning back to the anaphoric contexts, we notice a frequent but facultative use of ten. However, even though in most cases ten is not obligatory, the possibi- lity of using ten in anaphoric noun phrases, both in the topic and in the comment raises questions. Is the definiteness of the topic position not strong enough? Is ten in this position redundant? Or have we overlooked another function(s) of ten? Demonstrative Pronoun ten and Definiteness in Polish 209

As Mendoza (2004) already noted, the comparison of examples like (6) and (7) suggests that the semantic relation between the linguistic antecedent and the anaphoric noun phrase may be crucial for the use of ten. While the hypernym budynek ’building’ in (6) refers to the hyponym dworzec ’railway station’, the description para studencka ’student couple’ in (7) introduces two persons into the discourse who are indicated individually and not as a whole/unit? Only in (6) is the use of ten obligatory, its use in (7) triggers ungrammaticality.

(7) Do tramwaju wsiadła jakaś młoda para studencka. (*Ta) dzwiewczyna rozejrzała się i przeszła od razu na przednią platformę, (*ten) chłopiec zatrzymał się przy konduktorze. Into tram got-on some young couple student-ADJ that girl look-around- PST-3SG REFL and go-PST-3SG immediately to frontal platform that boy stop-PST-3SG REFL by conductor ’A young student couple got on a tram. The young woman looked around and went immediately to the front platform, and the young man stopped by the conductor.’ (Topolinska 1981: 48)

The bridging data support this hypothesis as well. According to Schwarz (2009) in German there are two different types of bridging use of definite de- scriptions: part-whole bridging and relational anaphora (producer-product). In Polish, the use of the pronoun ten is always ungrammatical in the former type of bridging reference (8). But in the letter type of bridging we find confusing data, compare examples (9) and (10) where the demonstrative competes not only against the bare noun but also against the possessive pronoun. In (9), the producer-product relation between two bare nouns ’painter and painting’ esta- blishes co reference. We are dealing with the same relation in example (10): the author and his or her article. In this case a possessive pronoun is preferred to both a demonstrative pronoun and a bare noun.

(8) Po tym jak Alex kupił obraz najpierw usunł rysy na (*tej) ramie. After this as Alex bought painting first of all removed scratches on that frame ’After Alex bought the painting he removed the scratch on the frame first thing.’ (9) Kolekcjoner był pod tak wielkim wrażeniem obrazu, że zdecydował się zadzwonic do *jego malarza/*tego malarza/malarza. Collector was under so big impression painting that decided REFL call to its painter/that painter/painter ’The collector was so impressed by the painting that he decided to call the painter.’ (10) Artykuł na pierwszej stronie gazety bardzo zainteresował Piotra, ale jesz- cze nigdy nie słyszał o jego autorze/*autorze/?tym autorze. article on first page newspaper very interested Peter but yet never NEG hear-PST-3SG about its author/author/that author 210 Diana Venneri

’Peter really liked the article on the title page of the newspaper, but he had never heard of the author before.’ 2

There is no clear evidence for the two types of bridging in Polish as defined by Schwarz (2009). But it is obvious that in the case of part-whole bridging the noun which denotes the part of the whole does not need any determiners. Relational anaphora requires a possessive pronoun or is satisfied with a bare noun. This observation is interesting for the discussion about the grammaticalisation of the definite article. The absence of the demonstrative pronoun in bridging contexts is a further argument against the article status of ten. Further research is necessary to determine which kind of relation between the antecedent and the anaphoric used noun is decisive for the use of pronouns and a bare noun. This will help us to understand the mechanism behind the use of ten in anaphoric contexts and we will see whether it depends on definiteness or not.

References

1. Bacz, Barbara: Do cases define? On expressing the definite/indefinite opposition in Polish. Jordan M.P. (ed.) The 16th LACUS Forum. (1989) 81‚ 89 2. Bacz, Barbara: On some article-like uses of the demonstrative ten (= this) in Polish. Could ten become an article? 17 (1991) 1-16 3. Kryk, Barbara: On deixis in English and Polish. (1987) Frankfurt 4. Lakoff, Robin: Remarks on This and That. CLS 10 (1974) 245-356 5. Miodunka Władysław: Funkcje zaimkow w grupach nominalnych. (1974) 6. Mendoza, Imke: Nominaldetermination im Polnischen. Die primären Ausdrucksmit- tel. (2004) 7. Schwarz, Florian: Two Types of Definiteness in Natural Language. (2009) PhD thesis, University of Massachusetts 8. Szwedek, Aleksander: Word order, sentence stress and reference in English and Polish. (1976) Edmonton/Alberta 9. Topolinska, Zuzanna: Remarks on the slavic noun phrase. (1981) Wrocław 10. Wolter, Lynsey: That’s That: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Demonstrative Noun Phrases (2006) PhD thesis, University of California Santa Cruz

2 All examples of bridging are adapted from Schwarz (2009:51-52)