Zatłuczenie się kota: Aspectual range of Polish verbal nouns

Abstract

This article analyzes Polish categorical verbal nouns, substantivum verbale, which refer to the same types of situations as the corresponding verbs – actions, processes or states. The material of the study is continuous sampling of Polish verbal nouns, derived from the delimitative and inchoative verbs. These units have been analyzed for presence / frequency in corpora taking into account their realized spectrum of aspectual functions. Based on dictionary and corpus data, as well as the results of a linguistic survey of native Polish speakers, it is shown that the verbal aspectual meaning of the external quantitative-temporal limit of an action is weakened or, in some cases, disappears in verbal nouns. We assume that the nominal form of the verb to one degree or another prevents the explicit presentation of the aspectual meaning of the external quantitative or temporal limit of an action. The study also takes into account data on Russian and Ukrainian verbal nouns.