Ancora a proposito dell’uso dei “prenomi” polacchi

Abstract

The paper takes up the theme of the mandatory (or almost mandatory) use of concrete indicators of definiteness/indefiniteness in a text translated from Italian into Polish, which did not grammaticalise it, in correspondence to the articles in the original text. As far as the indefinite pronouns pewien ‘certain’ and jakiś ‘some’ are concerned, it proposes to demonstrate that their more or less mandatory use depends, rather than on the thematic/rhematic structure of the utterance and the semantic role of the nominal, on the semantics of the NP itself, and on the relationship between the referent and its class, considered as more or less homogeneous. The zero determiner is admissible only with components of classes conceived as homogeneous, whereas the indefinite “prenoun” is a trace of the retrieval of an element inside a heterogeneous class. In the absence of such an indicator, the retrieval is considered as assumed, and this leads to interpret the noun as a definite description. For what concerns the demonstrative pronoun ten (and its synonym ow), the mandatoriness of its use is limited to the textual anaphora stricto sensu, whereas a situational one makes the utterance more colloquial.