| The dissertation presents analyses of several interrelated topics in Polish syntax: dative-subject clauses, reflexive impersonals, the pseudo-participial -no/-to construction, numeral/quantified constructions, and infinitival sentences. The common thread linking the discussions of these constructions is the central role played by the subject relation in the analysis of each one and in the grammar of Polish in general.;The importance of the subject relation in Polish manifests itself in the abundance of morphosyntactic phenomena which reference subjects exclusively and in the number and frequency of relation-changing constructions which affect subjects. Also, it is argued, establishing which element is the subject of a construction is essential to understanding its structure.;This truly striking prevalence of constructions involving subjects and phenomena referencing subjects is made apparent in the present study due to the framework of Relational Grammar, which treats grammatical relations as the primitives of linguistic theory. Various concepts of subject available in Relational Grammar and several tests of subjecthood developed here make it possible to make explicit both the similarities and the differences among the constructions under consideration, and to reduce the majority of Polish clause types to four basic underlying constructions: canonical, passive, inversion, and clause reduction.;It is argued that the grammar of Polish must recognize three different concepts of subject: (i) nominals heading a 1-arc (which antecede reflexives, control the fixed expression po pijanemu, and control gerundive adjunct clauses), (ii) final 1s (which control verb agreement, undergo non-emphatic pronoun drop, disallow resumptive pronouns in co relative clauses, can be omitted in coordinated constructions, and can be controlled in infinitival and participial control constructions), and (iii) working 1s (which control participial and adversative adjunct clauses).;On the basis of these and other tests it is argued that dative-subject clauses and reflexive impersonals are instances of the inversion construction, that the pseudoparticipial construction has a canonical (no-revaluation) structure, and that infinitival sentences represent the clause reduction construction.;The overall picture of Polish grammar which emerges as the result of this study includes a small number of basic constructions and relationally-based conditions, with the subject relation as the focal point. |
