'Wydarzyć się': from a sentence’s syntax to a language unit

Abstract

The aim of the paper is the reconstruction of the language unit which is formed by the verb wydarzyć się. The research method consists in the observation of the contexts in which the verb occurs, and the analysis of the relationship between the grammatical construction of such sentences, their prosodic contour and changes within the meaning of the verb. In the process of research it was established that wydarzyć się opens one syntactic position for its complement: wydarzyło się [coś]. It may have different formalizations in texts. The expressions [coś] wydarzyło się [komuś] and wydarzyło się coś [jakiego] were viewed as the language products which consist not only of the language unit wydarzyło się [coś], but also other elements. Locative and temporal phrases (coś wydarzyło się gdzieś kiedyś) were not included into the reconstructed language unit, because at the current stage of research there is not enough strong evidence to consider them as required.