Staropolski imiesłów czynny jako predykatywny atrybut

Authors:

• Olga Ziółkowska

Abstract

The author of the article shows that Old Polish (present) participles are transitional categories – they combine the syntactic features of an attribute and a predicate. She also tries to answer the question of how to recognize their nature. Is one of the functions dominant or are they equal? It is also important to reflect on how the choice of terminology used for syntactic description affects the way of perceiving and interpreting linguistic phenomena. The author considers the functionality of terms which already exist in the research tradition and are designed to name the double function of a participle. She also proposes the term: “predicative attribute” (in Polish: “predykatywny atrybut”) referring to the functional syntax of Stanisław Karolak. She shows that an entire separation, in a syntactic description, of the two syntactic functions performed by a participle, is ahistorical and incorrect as it suggests the existence of something which was unclear and only emerging.