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Włodzimierz Gruszczyński,
Bartosz Broda,
Bartłomiej Nitoń,
Maciej Ogrodniczuk : In search of a method of automatic measurement of readability of informational texts
Numerous texts that are incomprehensible for some
of their intended recipients can be found in the Polish
public space. In many cases, the problem is related to the
structure of the text, which can be measured objectively.
Methods of determining the degree of readability of texts
have been developed for many languages. The importance
of this problem has also been noticed by certain Polish
institutions, publishing houses and offices in recent years.
In the Polish academia, the problem is being investigated
primarily by two centres: Pracownia Prostej Polszczyzny
(Plain Polish Laboratory) at the University of Wrocław
and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities
(SWPS) in Warsaw. This paper presents the state of
research on this problem within the project “Mierzenie
stopnia zrozumiałości polskich tekstów użytkowych
(pozaliterackich)” (“Measuring the degree of readability of
nonliterary Polish texts”) carried out at SWPS. The
problem and the state of research thereon in Poland and
abroad are described in the first place. A tool for
measuring readability of Polish texts called Jasnopis,
which is currently under construction and which uses
both known methods, such as Pisarek index, as well as
new ones, such as the automatic Taylor test, is presented
afterwards. This paper is finished with a presentation of
conclusions from the works performed so far and ideas for
further research.
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Marek Świdziński : Here you are: that’s the word oto – and that’s how to grasp it. That’s it!
In this paper, syntactic properties of the word oto
‘here; there; over hear; over there’ are examined. The
account proposed is purely distributional, not semantic.
The word, regarded traditionally as a particle by Polish
lexicographers, used to appear also in contexts that hardly
meet this interpretation. Following Inny słownik języka
polskiego (A different dictionary of Polish), Warsaw 2000,
by Mirosław Bańko, the newest Polish dictionary in which
the item is treated more carefully, it is argued that two
different lexical items should be distinguished.
Examination of the data of the IPI PAN Corpus made it
possible to confirm the account, as well as to strengthen
it. Except cases of freely omissible tokens that represent
the lexical unit OTO2 (particle), the word oto may precede
the Nominative NP or the indirect WH-question. On this
basis, a predicative OTO1 should be introduced. It has a
two dimensional (tense: present, mood: indicative) and
one-word paradigm. It subcategorises for the noun phrase
in Nominative, as in Oto on! ‘There he is!’, or for the
indirect question, as in A oto co powinien zrobić. ‘That’s
what he should do.’ Finally, the particle OTO2 often follows
the demonstrative pronouns TEN ‘this’, TAKI ‘such’, TAK
‘this way’, and TYLE ‘as much as’, and collocations such as
ten oto, takiego oto, tak oto, tylu oto are to be included in
the lexical entries for TEN, TAKI, TAK, and TYLE.
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Magdalena Danielewiczowa : Między niebem a ziemią or Między niebem i ziemią (Between heaven and earth)?
This paper discusses the semantic opposition
between the Polish expressions między _k a _l and między
_k i _l (between _k and _l). The author proposes a thesis that
the opposition is clear and yet very subtle and hence,
difficult to grasp and verbalise. First of all, one should
notice the lack of identity between the conjunction i and
a similar linguistic form, which alternates with a in the
meaning of the discussed expression, but which is not
semantically independent and autonomous, cf. rzucić
kamień między pokrzywy i osty (throw a stone among
nettles and thistles), włożyć gazetę między ścianę i szafę
(insert the newspaper between the wall and the wardrobe).
Although substitution of a by i does not result in a clear
anomaly in the analysed contexts, semantic regularities
are noticeable in their distribution. When establishing
a relation between objects that are strongly associated
with each other in terms of time or space (including
mental space), which constitute a certain whole from the
viewpoint of the speaker, i will occur. On the other hand,
a is used to outline a certain opposition, contrast, and
most of all autonomy of the respective items.
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Urszula Andrejewicz : Koń się śmieje (A horse is laughing), or are there idiomatic errors?
This paper touches upon the issue of correctness of
idiomatic expressions in the context of research based on
large text corpora. It asks which forms of idiomatic
expressions should be deemed correct: the ones recorded
in dictionaries, codified, or the ones with high frequency in
corpora. Ignoring the usage would result in the situation
where an assumed, rather than the actual, resource of
idiomatic expressions in the Polish language would be
described. On the other hand, a large number of the units
recorded in corpora cannot be described with the concept
of variant or rejected by deeming them incorrect. They
simply constitute a different method of using idiomatic
expressions.
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Magdalena Derwojedowa,
Dorota Kopcińska : On the so-called non-nominal subjects
The object of this paper is non-nominal phrases,
which are traditionally described as non-standard
realisations of the subject. This standpoint is assumed
also by M. Gębka-Wolak and M. Świdziński, who find
infinitive and sentence realisations non-standard
realisations of the subject-nominative understood in the
narrow sense, according to SWJP definition, as a
component accommodated mutually by the finite form. We
believe that the equivalence of the units regards the deep
structure. This is because syntactic analysis proves that
the observed surface structures are built around the
centre, which is an improper verb that not seldom has
homonymic forms with the proper verb. We allow not only
for syntactic relations (described in I.A. Mel'čuk’s relation
instrument) but also for morphological agreements
between components, as well as for tests of coordination
with the components the morphological and syntactic
properties of which are unambiguous.
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Janusz S. Bień : On concepts of a sign, word and fl exeme
This paper presents certain terminological
innovations (całostka (a whole), fleksem prosty and
złożony (simple and compound flexeme)) against other
terms in taxonomic morphology, which are described in
detail elsewhere. Problems caused by the strict definition
of a character are also demonstrated.
