Reflexive Forms in English and Polish

Reflexive Forms in English and Polish

• Reflexive forms in English and Polish have been studied extensively within various theoretical frameworks.
• This lecture approaches reflexivization from a Cognitive Grammar perspective, offering a semantic account of the differences in the behavior of English and Polish reflexive pronouns.
• The analysis is based on Ronald Langacker's (1991) analyses of English reflexives.

Overview of the Study

• The selected study offers a concise presentation of Polish reflexive pronouns and other reflexive forms, highlighting their differences from English.
• It discusses Langacker's and other scholars' approaches to English reflexives.
• It compares English reflexive constructions with their Polish counterparts, attempting to explain the discrepancies in their distribution based on semantic facts.

The System of Polish Reflexives - Description of the Forms

• The system of English reflexives is well-documented (Quirk 1994), so the focus will be on the system of Polish reflexives, emphasizing the differences between them.

• Polish has the following reflexive forms (Kardela 1985:45; Reinders-Machowska 1991):

  • Reflexive pronouns in Polish are marked for case but not for number, gender, and person:

    • (1) Nom. -
    • Gen. siebie
    • Dat. sobie
    • Acc. siebie
    • Inst. sobą
    • Loc. sobie

• Possessive determiners modifying a noun, marked for case, gender, and number:

  • (2) swój masc. / neuter sing.
  • swoja fem. sing.
  • swoje neut. / fem. pl.
  • swoi masc. pl

• The emphatic pronouns marked for case, gender, and number:

  • (3) sam masc. sing
  • sama fem. sing
  • samo neut. sing
  • sami masc. pl.
  • same fem / neut. pl.

Differences Between Polish and English Reflexive Pronouns

• Polish and English reflexive pronouns differ significantly in their semantic content, which results in different distribution and usage.

Schematicity

• To account for this difference, we shall use the notion of schematicity.
• Langacker (1987:492) defines schematicity as ‘relative precision or specification along one or more parameters’.
• Taylor (1996:91-92) employs this notion to account for the difference between functional morphemes and content/lexical words.
• The level of schematicity is understood to correspond with the level of conceptual substance or semantic content that a linguistic unit displays.
• The difference between functional morphemes and content/lexical words is held to reside, then, in the degree of schematicity.
• As for the study on reflexive pronouns, there is no doubt that pronouns are more schematic than full noun phrases. Pronouns themselves may vary in their degree of schematicity.

English Reflexive Pronouns

• English reflexive pronouns, due to their complex morphological structure (possessive + SELF) will be claimed to be less schematic than Polish reflexives.
• The former profile corresponds with these speech act participants which are evoked by the possessive part of the reflexive.
• The reflexive myself, for instance, shall profile a correspondence with the conception of the speaker, in contrast to Polish reflexives which are unmarked for person, gender and number . What Polish reflexives profile corresponds with unspecified participants of the speech acts. This semantic property of Polish reflexives has far-reaching consequences for their syntactic behaviour.

Polish Reflexives

• The most striking difference between English and Polish is the fact that in Polish the prototype is most often realised by a reflexive verb, which consists of a verb and the reflexive clitic (a word that is treated in pronunciation as forming a part of a neighboring word and that is often unaccented or contracted) się, and not a reflexive pronoun. This is the most natural option for a native speaker to code a situation perceived as reflexive.
  • a. Janek podrapał się.
  • John scratched himself.
  • b. Ogoliłem się.
  • I shaved (myself).
• Sometimes the clitic się can be replaced by a reflexive pronoun, but the resulting meaning is not the same.
  • a. Janek podrapał się.
  • b. Janek podrapał siebie.
  • The use of the reflexive is more contrasting - it was John himself that was scratched, not anybody else. However, się is used only when the reflexive is a verbal object. When it is a prepositional object, a reflexive pronoun is used:
    • a. Janek powiedział do siebie.
    • John said to himself.
    • b. Janek popatrzył przed siebie.
    • John looked ahead.
• Often the antecedent functions as a reference point in space and time:
  • a. Popatrzył przed siebie. / He looked ahead.
  • b. Rzucił kamień za siebie. / He threw a stone behind (himself).
  • c. Dom zapadł się w sobie. / The house collapsed.
  • d. Patrzę za siebie w przeszłość. / I look back into the past.
  • e. Nie bierz tego do siebie. / Don’t take it personally.
  • f. Doszedł do siebie. / (lit. He came to himself) / He came round.

Polish Equivalents of English Constructions

• Let us have a look at Polish counterparts of English constructions:
  • 1. I talked to Bill about himself. / Rozmawiałem z Billem o nim.
  • 2. I talked to Bill about myself. / (Ja) Rozmawiałem z Billem o sobie.
  • 3. John put the book under himself. / John położył książkę pod sobą.
  • 4. This in itself is not a big deal. / Samo w sobie nie jest to wielkim problemem.
  • 5. John recently read a book about himself. / John ostatnio przeczytał książkę o sobie.
  • 6. Ringo fell on himself. / Ringo wpadł na siebie. (What does this context mean?)
  • 7. Carmen understood. Between her first lover and herself it was no longer tennis, it …..war. / Carmen zrozumiała – pomiędzy nią i jej pierwszym kochankiem to nie był tenis, tylko wojna.
  • 8. Someone like yourself. / Ktoś taki jak ty.
  • 9. Mary said that this book was written by Jim and herself. / Mary powiedziała, że ta książka została napisana przez nią i Jima.
• It becomes apparent that some constructions which are reflexive in English are not so in Polish.

A More Detailed Comparison

• 10. I talked to Bill about himself.
  • 
    P* (Ja) rozmawiałem z Billem o sobie.
  • (Ja) rozmawiałem z Billem o nim.
  • (Ja) rozmawiałem z Billem o sobie.
  • To be analysed.
• Interpretation This construction does not take a reflexive in Polish. Any attempt to use a reflexive in the position of the indirect object is immediately interpreted as referring to the sentence subject and not to the direct object. If the primary landmark is to be selected as the antecedent for an anaphor, then a personal pronoun must be used.

Other Instances

• 10. (repeated) I talked to Bill about myself.
  • (Ja) rozmawiałem z Billem o sobie.
• 11. Mary bought a book for herself.
  • Mary kupiła książkę dla siebie.
  • Mary kupiła sobie książkę.
• 12. (Oni) oświetlali sobie drogę latarkami.
  • They lighted their way with torches.
• 13. (On) włożył sobie pistolet do kieszeni.
  • He put the gun into his pocket.
• 14. Biorę sobie ciebie za żonę.
  • I take you for my wedded wife.

Subsequent Differences

• In English we have the option - a reflexive or a personal pronoun with the consequences to the meaning. Both variants maintain the coreference between the subject and an anaphor (the use of a word referring back to a word used earlier in a text or conversation, to avoid repetition).

• Polish, however, does not allow for a personal pronoun coreferential with the antecedent in this construction.

• 15a. Janek naciągnął koc na siebie.

• 15b. *Janek naciągnął koc na niego.

• What about the English translation of these contexts?

Preliminary Reasons

• The difference in the semantic content of Polish reflexives.

• Polish reflexives are more schematic in their semantic content as compared to English reflexives.

• However, Polish personal pronouns, on account of being marked for person, gender and number, are less schematic and can take a less accessible referent for their antecedent.

• When two potential antecedents occur, the reflexive takes the more salient and hence more accessible noun phrase for its antecedent, that is the subject.

• Choosing the other noun phrase as an antecedent demands more cognitive effort and more information, hence a more specific personal pronoun qualifies.

• 16. The situation in itself is difficult. / Sytuacja sama w sobie jest trudna.

• The Polish construction, however, requires the combination of the reflexive with sam in its inflectional form. Sam is emphatic.

Correspondence

• Both languages can have corresponding emphatic sentences, e.g.
  • 17.The situation in itself is difficult.
  • 18. The situation itself is difficult.
  • 17. (Pol) Sytuacja sama w sobie jest trudna.
  • 17. (Pol) Już sama sytuacja jest trudna.

Other Instances

• 18. Janek ostatnio przeczytał książkę o sobie. / John read a book about himself.
• 19. Ralf posłał Sally książkę o sobie. / Ralf sent Sally a book about himself.
• 20. John usłyszał plotki o sobie. / John heard gossip about himself.
• 21. Ralph posłał Sally książkę o niej/*sobie. / Ralph sent Sally a book about herself.
• 22. Zabawne historyjki o nim/ *sobie nie przywrócą Tomowi dobrego humoru. / Funny stories about himself won’t restore Tom to good humour.
• 23. Zapytano Johna o plotki o nim/ *sobie. / John was asked about all gossip about himself.
• 24. Nixon listened to himself singing to Mao. ( What does this context mean?)

• If the characteristic feature of such a construction is the fact that the viewing relation takes place between a representation, an image of the antecedent and not the antecedent himself , than even less sophisticated sentences could serve as examples:

  • 25. I saw myself in the mirror (= my refection) / Zobaczyłem/- am w lustrze siebie.
  • 26. I saw myself in the painting. (= my image) / Zobaczyłem/-am siebie na obrazie.
  • 27. I heard myself. (= my voice on the tape) / Usłyszałem/-am siebie.
• 28. And that was exactly it, he thought. He didn’t care too much what happened to himself.
• 28. I о to właśnie chodzi, pomyślał. Nie zastanawiał się zbytnio, co się z nim stanie.

• Polish allows for a considerable distance between an antecedent (nominal or pronominal) and a reflexive, which might resemble cataphoric use of the reflexive:

• 29. Wszedł Jim. Rozejrzał się ciekawie. Podszedł do biurka, otworzył je i zaczął przerzucać papiery. Chyba coś go zaciekawiło, bo pochylił się nad gęsto zapisaną kartką. “Coś podobnego” - powiedział do siebie.

• Please translate the text into English.

Translation

• 29. Jim came in. He looked around with curiosity. He approached the desk and started to shuffle the papers. Something must have attracted his attention, because he bent over a piece of paper densely covered with writing. “Well, well”, he said to himself.)

Interpretation

• There is no limit to the length of the text separating the antecedent and the reflexive as long as the topic remains unchanged, and no new character is introduced. This is so because in Polish, pronominal subjects typically remain unexpressed. The identity of the antecedent is maintained in the verbal form and the subject can be easily recovered. The resulting sentence will be a prototypical reflexive (or a close extension), e.g.

  • 30. (On) powiedział do siebie.

• The Polish reflexive is too schematic in that the range of possible antecedents it can select is too big, and there is virtually almost no limit as to the choice to the speaker and the listener.

• The reflexive in Polish can be used with an overt antecedent in subject position unless the nominative is needed, e.g.

  • 31. Oni nienawidzą wszystkich z wyjątkiem siebie. / They hate everybody but themselves.
  • 32. Ona nie kocha nikogo oprócz siebie. / She loves no one but herself.
  • 33. Ona nie zna nikogo lepszego od siebie. / She knows no one better than herself.

The Use of Pronoun

• But if a construction demands the nominative, then the pronoun is used:
  • 34. Ona podziwia ludzi takich jak ona (sama). / She admires people like herself.
  • 35. Skały były porośnięte porostami twardymi jak one (same). / The rocks bore lichens as hard as themselves.

Most Common Polish Reflexive Verbs

• 1. nazywać się – “to be named” - Nazywam się Jan Kowalski. (“My name is Jan Kowalski.”);
• 2. podobać się – “to like” (used with the dative; comparable to “appeal to sb” in English) - Jak ci się podoba Japonia? (“How do you like Japan?”);
• 3. dziać się – “to happen” - Co tu się dzieje? (“What is happening here?”);
• 4. wydawać się – “to seem” - Wydawał się być dobrym człowiekiem. (“He seemed to be a good person.”);
• 5. modlić się – “to pray” - Jak często się modlisz? (“How often do you pray?”);
• 6. stawać się – “to become” - Z wiekiem stał się słabszy. (“He has become weaker with age.”);
• 7. zgadzać się – “to agree” - Nie mogę się z Tobą zgodzić. (“I can’t agree with you.”);
• 8. spóźniać się – “to be late” - Tom rzadko się spóźnia. (“Tom is seldom late.”);
• 9. opiekować się – “to look after” - Opiekowała się pacjentem. (“She looked after the patient.”);
• 10. napić się – “to drink” / “to have a drink” - Chciałbyś się czegoś napić? (“Would you like to drink some/anything?”);
• 11. martwić się – “to worry” / “to be worried” - Bardzo się o ciebie martwimy. (“We’re very worried about you.”);
• 12. nudzić się – “to be bored” - Nasz syn znowu się nudzi. (“Our son is bored again.”);
• 13. budzić się – “to wake up” - O której zwykle się budzisz? (“What time do you usually wake up?”)
• 14. pojawiać się – “to appear” - Na horyzoncie pojawił się dym. (“Smoke appeared on the horizon.”)
• 15. wahać się – “to hesitate” - Przez chwilę się wahała . (“She hesitated for a moment.”)

Conclusions

• Although Polish system of reflexives displays the organisation around the prototype as it does in English, there are differences in the nature of the prototype and its extensions.
• Firstly, the prototype in Polish can be coded in two ways: either with the use of a reflexive verb or a reflexive pronoun. Whether it is legitimate to treat reflexive verbs on a par with the reflexive prototype is yet to be investigated.
• Secondly, not all constructions functioning as extensions from the prototype in English have their counterparts in Polish. This discrepancy shows an interesting regularity which has been attributed to a semantic factor: Polish reflexives rank higher on the scale of schematicity than English reflexives and Polish pronouns. This feature accounts for a number of phenomena including the fact that the Polish reflexives tend to be subject-oriented and blocked from long-distance anaphora.