ASPECTS OF CASE IN POLISH

Abstract

The key ideas centred on the category „case“ amount most generally to three posits: first – the significance of a given „case“ differs from that of all the other cases within the system; second – the category „case“ takes actively part in the syntactic organization of the whole sentence, and third – the construction of the scene the speaker chooses determines to a certain degree the case i.e. a constellation of semantic and pragmatic factors interfere. Tailoring the scene supposes a creative asymmetry between „deep“ and „superficial“ case. It turns out that several „superficial cases“ correspond to one „deep case“, while one and the same „superficial“ form implies several „deep“ equivalents. This disproportion is particularly fruitful as regards literature.