Ilościowe ujmowanie zdarzeń w języku (na materiale powieści Wiesława Myśliwskiego „Traktat o łuskaniu fasoli”)

Abstract

Following the tenets of contemporary cognitive linguistics, it is assumed here that language contains a peculiar representation of the worldview entertained by conceptualizers. One of the aspects of that worldview is the quantitative one. The present study aims to (partially) reconstruct this aspect on the basis of a major novel by a distinguished contemporary author, in which contemporary colloquial Polish is exploited in a masterly fashion. The use of linguistic exponents of the quantification of events in the novel shows that their constual in this respect is analogous to the perception of objects. The perception is organized (on a higher level of generality) by three semantic oppositions: (1) “one vs. more than one” (the most entrenched opposition); (2) “whole vs. part”, criss-crossing opposition (1); and (3) “many/much vs. few/little”, the broadest opposition, connceted with the evaluation of quantity.