Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

15.1.2026 [hybrid]

Iga Kościołek (Berlin): How Impersonal Constructions Shape Narratives: The Dual Role of the Polish -no/-to Construction in Discourse

This talk addresses the interaction between the microstructure of the Polish -no/-to construction—specifically its core semantic properties—and its behavior in larger discourse units. I examine how the basic semantic components of the construction, namely the implicit subject and the event, shape its function in texts. To motivate predictions about its discourse behavior, the -no/-to construction is compared semantically and syntactically with other Polish human impersonal constructions, primarily the reflexive impersonal, as well as with passive voice constructions at the sentence level. I then present results from a corpus study, focusing on anaphoric expressions occurring in the discourse context of -no/-to clauses, which provide further insight into the construction’s discourse profile.

I argue that the Polish -no/-to construction displays a dual discourse role. On the one hand, it can operate in the background of discourse, contributing to text coherence by maintaining the current discourse topic. On the other hand, the -no/-to construction itself can become a discourse topic, moving into the foreground as a prominent discourse entity. This foregrounding effect arises when the implicit agent is strongly individuated and impersonal events are integrated into a narrative sequence.