Czasowniki polskie

The study contains a synthetic presentation of the semantic and grammatical problems of the Polish verb. In the light of a semantic characterization the following types of verbs are revealed: verbs of state, of process and of function; durative, serial and momentaneous; transitive and intransitive; causative; verbs of movement (unidirectional and multidirectional) as well as other detailed classes estimated with respect to the so called kind of indication, distinguished with respect to the way the action is performed, the speed of the course of the indication, the spatial relations occurring between the subjects and objects involved in the course of the indication, with respect to the particular stages the indication passes, etc. Especially important semantic and grammatical category of the verb is its aspect: perfectivity and imperfectivity. The semantic categories remain closely dependent on the morphological structure of the verb. By means of prefixes and suffixes used in word-formation the aspect of the verb is expressed (pisać − napisać, przepisać – przepisywać), oppositions between iterative and momentaneous verbs (pisać – pisywać), oppositions in cause-effect pairs (przywrzeć – przywierać), in frequency pairs (stukać – stuknąć). Perfective unprefixed verbs are a special group: momentous ones, like machnąć, strzelić and two-aspect ones like trącić, abdykować. The pronoun się may be a formative: in reflexive (myć się), active (śmiać się) and perfective verbs like napracować się. Conjugation of the verb first of all consists of tenses – there are five of them: 1. Present (praesens), 2. Past Imperfect (praeteritum imperfectum), 3. Past Perfect (praeteritum perfectum), 4. Future Imperfect (futurum imperfectum) and 5. Future Perfect (futurum perfectum). The forms of the imperfect tenses, that is of the Present, Past Imperfect and Future Imperfect may only be formed from imperfect verbs and forms of the perfect tenses, that is of the Past Perfect and Future Perfect – only from perfect verbs. Hence in order to present an indication in all the grammatical tenses two verbs are necessary with the same basic meaning but different aspects. Such two verbs constitute an aspect pair. In the conjugation of the Polish verb two flexion themes appear: those of the infinitive and of the present tense. With respect to the kind of endings verbs are divided into four conjugations: 1. -ę, -esz, 2. -ę, -i(-y)sz, 3. -am, -asz, and 4. -em, -esz. With respect to the form of the infinitive verbs in the first conjugation are divided into 15 groups, verbs in the second one into 3 groups, and the third and fourth conjugations are not divided into smaller groups.