Czy aby Maciej mi przytaknie? About the status of the aby in yes/no questions

Abstract

The subject-matter of this article is the status of the expression aby in the semantic structure of yes/no questions. Two possible solutions to the problem emerge from available lexicographic approaches: in some dictionaries the word aby is considered to be an inseparable part of an idiomatic interrogative form, while in others it is described as a bilateral, semantically independent unit of language. The author shows that in the past the word in question was a particle having a very wide range of use. In contemporary Polish its distribution is restricted to volitional contexts, but it still satisfies the condition of proportionality; therefore it should be interpreted as a lexical unit of Polish.