The problematics of describing periphrastic predication : between word and image

Abstract

The article discusses selected problems connected with description of complex predicates (CPred), i.a., the still controversial issue of criteria applied to diff erentiate and classify elements of this category, their status in lexical-grammatical system and their relationship with synthetic entities belonging to the class of VERBUM. What makes CPreds interesting is the fact that they have been encountered in various languages (e.g. ispytywat’’voschiščenije (Russian) = mieć // odczuć podziw // zachwyt (Polish) = to feel admiration (for) (English); polučat’ pomošč (Russian) = otrzymać // dostać pomoc (Polish) = to receive help (from sb) (English); zaviazywat’ družbu (Russian) = nawiązać przyjaźń // zaprzyjaźnić się (Polish) = to strike up a friendship // to become friends (English), etc.). This situation calls for a search for complex solutions, also with the aid of new linguistic theories. Especially the cognitivist thesis about the prototypical character of lexical-grammatical categories allows to classify Cpreds as a typologically diversifi ed group of complex entities (characterised by varied degrees of fi xedness) functioning within the class of VERBUM understood as a gradated and polycentric category. Such an approach allows for diff erentiation of several types (structural models) of Cpreds, i.e. entities representing a peripheral group of verbs and diff ering with respect to structure, lexical composition and degree of ‘fi xedness’ of their meanings, and, as a result, with respect to their global content: 1) [VCOP + NKONKR // Nabstr // Adj // Adv] (standard nominal predicates); 2) [VMOD+ VINF] + ... (modal predicates); 3) [VFAZ +V // NA] + ... (phase-aspectual predicates); 4) [VGENER + NA // NE // Nabstr] + ... (verbo-nominal analytisms); 5) [VMETAF // METAPRED + Nabstr // NA // NE ] + ... (periphrastic predicates as part of verbal phraseology).