”Zdawać się, zdać się” [to seem, to purport (imperf./perf.)] and ”wydawać się, wydać się” [to appear, to seem (imperf./perf.)] in “The Doll” by Bolesław Prus. A syntactic, semantic, and functional analysis

Abstract

The article is dedicated to mental verbs zdawać się, zdać się [to seem, to purport (imperf./perf.)] and wydawać się, wydać się [to appear, to seem (imperf./perf.)]. The material has been excerpted from the novel The Doll by Bolesław Prus. The examples have been identified in various text types. The author identified phrases in which the argument x was realized, corresponding with the mental state recipient or experiencer, separating them from phrases in which this argument was not disclosed. The novel characters corresponding with the phrase with the semantic experiencer role have been identified. For wydawać się, wydać się [to appear, to seem (imperf./perf.)], the mental state recipients in the often are most frequently Stanisław Wokulski, Izabela Łęcka, and Ignacy Rzecki; for zdawać się, zdać się [to seem, to purport (imperf./perf.)], the order is Wokulski, Rzecki, Miss Izabela. T he article identifies the phrases that realize the primary pattern P (x, q) for the analyzed verbs. Individual patterns were illustrated with the material. The article also presents the semantics of the propositional argument q, introduced by the verbs examined in the work. The role of the units studied for comparisons and metaphors was also mentioned.