Presentational relative clauses introduced by że in Polish

Abstract

Summary In this article, I examine relative uses of Polish że, which is normally regarded as a ‘that’-type complementizer. As is shown with corpus data, że is in some contexts used as a non-canonical relativizer in colloquial spoken language, a use which may be seen as a relic function reflecting the historical origin of the subordinator. Crucially, I argue that contemporary relative uses of że are restricted to a specific functional variety, i. e. the presentational relative construction, as developed by, among others, Lambrecht (1988a, 1988b), Duffield et al. (2010), and Murelli (2011). Additional issues that will be addressed are the varying degrees of clausal integration and the rather fluid continuum of the very functions performed by że: its relative uses, general subordinator uses, że marking elaboration/reformulation, as well as the relativization/complementation contrast.