20-10-2020, 06:59 PM
Actually Marco, the reason that I did not explain every detail of the Old Polish / Silesian syntax and morphology is that I assumed that either (a) readers were already familiar with Slavic syntax and morphology, so they did not need me to be condescending to them and explain things they already know and can see and figure out for themselves, or (b) other readers do not know anything about Slavic languages, so it would be too much to try to teach them everything they need to know about Slavic syntax and morphology in order to be able to understand the grammar of a passage in a language and language family that they do not know. For them, I simply provided the English translation.
[Please note: There is a big difference between a Polish scholar saying that the totality of the output I produced does not make complete sense to him, which is understandable, and the claim that the output has no Polish or Slavic syntax or morphology whatsoever, which is a quite different claim made by Marco and not by the Polish scholar.]
But ok, you want the details of the syntax and morphology? I'll give you the details of the syntax and morphology. I'll give you lots of them. Please sit down and settle in and get comfortable, this is going to take a while.
You claim that "the output of Step2 has no syntax." I will now demonstrate methodically that this claim is quite incorrect. Here is my output of Step2 which you quote and claim has no syntax or morphology:
"VCI: <Pdzo rzcal #Pical cal #Pic# Mz cal terzw cicas izál#>
<#pw iz rzc#pdz# mic# brz jér al égo w alas astá(s)>
becomes:
pizdą rzucał, pizgał cal pięć, mąż cał trzeźwy chcicą-s jeżdżał
po zrzucił pizdę miecz, bryż dzierżał jego wała-s astą-s"
First, let's establish some basics. I did not realize that the purpose of this thread was for me to teach a class in basic morphology and syntax of Slavic languages, but that seems to be what Marco wants and in fact demands, so everybody sharpen your pencils and get a big notebook, you're going to have to take a lot of notes. Now I must caution in advance that in general, I do not recommend that one attempt to learn the grammar of a Slavic language for the very first time by studying a provisional interpretation of a few lines of a possible obscure late medieval Slavic verse written in an obscure enigmatic script. This process will proceed more smoothly and comprehensibly for you if you take a few semesters of a university course in a Slavic language first; it will be even better if you also take a university course in Old Church Slavonic as I have. But we are where we are: Marco demands an explanation of the syntax and morphology of these lines directly, even for readers who have never studied any Slavic language before. This will be difficult for such readers to follow and understand, but I will do my best to explain every detail as clearly as possible.
1. The Polish past tense 3rd person singular masculine verb ending is "-ł". For those who have studied Russian, this is cognate with the past tense masculine singular verb ending "-l". Thus the words "rzucał", "pizgał", "jeżdżał", "zrzucił", and "dzierżał" are the verbs in the clauses in these lines.
2. As in many inflected languages, a subject pronoun does not need to be explicitly stated if the person, number, and gender of the subject are already clear from the verb form. That is the case with the verb forms in these lines, such as "rzucał" and "pizgał" in the first part of the first line: If no subject is explicitly stated, the subject is understood to be "he" here due to the 3rd person singular masculine verb forms.
3. In the second part of the first line, and in both parts of the second line, the subjects are explicitly stated: "mąż" ('man'), "miecz" ('sword'), and "bryż" ('gorget'). They are all masculine singular nouns in Polish, so they are in correct grammatical agreement with the verbs in their clauses in person, number, and gender. They are all nominative case forms, and in Slavic languages typically the nominative case of masculine singular nouns is just the root form ending in a consonant, without any additional grammatical suffix.
4. In the last part of the second line, "wała" is the direct object of the verb. This is indeed the accusative singular form of this masculine noun, with the ending "-a". The interested reader may confirm the correctness of the syntax and morphology of this form You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Please note the distinction and difference between the "animate" noun declension of the word in this usage, and the "inanimate" noun declension (the first table on the same page) of the word in its neutral meaning of 'shaft'. In both my VCI reading and in my Old Polish interpretation, this word appears in the correct form for the accusative case of the "animate" usage that is appropriate to the intended meaning here as I interpret it.
5. Immediately before the word "wała" we find the word "jego", which is the Polish possessive pronoun meaning 'his'. Indeed, the identification of the sequence "verb form + jego + wała" was the very first observation that led me to consider the possibility of obscene content in these first two lines of this paragraph.
6. The final "-s" at the ends of the three words "wała-s", "astą-s", and "chcicą-s" is not a grammatical suffix but rather an expressive flourish. It can be found in the representation of colloquial speech not only in Slavic languages but also in the colloquial register of other languages in northern Europe such as Finnish. If you read some works of Pushkin in Russian you will find such speech in his rendering of certain characters' dialogue. It portrays an expressive effect, like the verbal equivalent of a distinctive mannerism. It seems quite suitable to the humorous content intended to be expressed in these lines as well.
7. The ending "-ą" in the words "pizdą", "chcicą", and "astą" is the Polish singular instrumental case ending of feminine nouns. You may observe that it is spelled in VCI as both "o" and "a", but I note that even in modern standard Polish spelling a trace of this ambiguity can still be seen, as the actual pronunciation is a nasalized "o" vowel sound, but the spelling still appears to represent a nasalized "a" vowel sound. Now the instrumental case in Slavic language is very widely used, in a very wide variety of contexts and senses that go far beyond its basic core instrumental meaning of "by", "with", or "by means of" the noun as an instrument. To cite just one simple example to illustrate the point, in Polish one even needs to use the instrumental case to express such a simple statement as "A lion is a cat": "Lew jest kotem", where "kotem" appears in the instrumental case. (This is a masculine noun rather than a feminine noun, hence the suffix is different than the feminine instrumental forms in the lines that I interpret.) Thus the very literal translation of the first part of the first line would be "He threw and (verb)-ed [her] by the (body part)." (One may perhaps compare the sense of the syntax to a phrase such as "catch a tiger by the tail".) Likewise the last part of the first line would be "the man...rode with lust," and the last part of the second line would be "[Her] gorget held his shaft as/like a branch." These are all extended meanings and senses of the instrumental case. It would rather be stranger if a text in a Slavic language did not have numerous instrumental case forms of nouns expressing a variety of meanings and senses in different contexts.
8. In the first part of the second line I interpret "pizdę" more simply as the direct object: "-ę" is the Polish accusative singular ending of feminine nouns. But I admit that it is difficult to be certain of the endings in this particular clause because they appear to be abbreviated with the notorious EVA [y] glyph. I cannot claim that this character is always merely a null; sometimes it seems to be a scribal abbreviation for some suffix. I fully recognize and admit that <rzc#pdz#> is a mess of a word, and it is only by reference to the more clearly expressed content and grammatical suffixes of the similar root words in the first part of the first line that I can hypothesize as to the possible interpretation of the much more abbreviated word forms written in the first part of the second line.
9. "po" is a very common Polish preposition and conjunction. Here it functions as a conjunction meaning "when".
10. "cal" is a traditional Polish unit of measurement, slightly smaller than an English inch. "pięć" is the number "five". When the unit is written before the number in this manner in a Slavic language, it may convey the sense of an approximate rather than an exact measurement. For example, when one says "пять минут" in Russian, it means exactly five minutes, but when one says "минут пять", it rather means "about five minutes". My interpretation is that this phrase provides the comic effect in the first line, mocking the protagonist's exploits described in this line with a presumable reference to the modest size of his body part. My interpretation of the content of the rest of the lines in this paragraph is also consistent with this mocking attitude toward the man whose actions are described.
11. "cał trzeźwy" are adjectives describing and grammatically modifying the noun "mąż". As such they are the masculine nominative singular forms of the adjectives. It is true that in modern Polish one would expect this form of the first adjective to be "cały", and further in my VCI reading <cal terzw>the final letter "-y" does not appear in the second adjective either. But in fact "cał" is actually an attested Old Polish form of "cały", as the reader may confirm You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (Note: in this entry the Polish abbreviation "st.pol." stands for "staropolski", meaning "Old Polish". Please note that the abbreviation and absence of grammatical suffixes here does not inhibit the Polish reader from understanding the meaning.) I further note that in many Slavic languages it is normal to have "short forms" of such nominative case adjectives, which indeed entail dropping the "-y" suffix. Modern Polish may have lost such forms, but apparently such a form still existed in Old Polish, as the entry cited above confirms. My VCI reading of this phrase appears to reflect such "short forms" of these adjectives.
Ok, I believe that these 11 detailed grammatical points about Polish / Old Polish / Slavic syntax and morphology have covered every form of every word that appears in the first two lines of my "output of Step2", as Marco calls it. I hope now at least that neither Marco nor anyone else here can ever again claim that in my method "the output of Step2 has no syntax", that my method ignores syntax and morphology, or that I have no knowledge of or interest in the syntax and morphology of my readings and interpretations of the text.
Now it is a separate matter to debate and discuss how sharply and precisely idiomatic the Old Polish / Silesian expressions, phrases, and clauses in my interpretation may appear to be. That is a deeper and more difficult level of discussion. There are big differences between such claims as "This passage has no grammatical structure, syntax, or morphology" vs. "This passage has grammatical structure, syntax, and morphology, but the phrasing and expressions do not strike one as familiar or idiomatic in modern Polish" vs. "The phrasing and expressions do not seem to closely resemble those found in surviving Old Polish texts". Beyond that level there is a further discussion to be had about the extent to which the text may reflect a dialect that may be different from any dialect attested in any known Old Polish texts, and further about the nature of the subject matter of the text reflecting a dramatically different style than that which would be found in any known Old Polish texts. These are fair and important and deep and difficult questions to raise and discuss and debate.
But I hope that with this post we can all put to rest the notion that my method, my readings, and my interpretations lack or ignore or neglect the syntax, morphology, and grammatical structure of the language that my theory hypothesizes to be the underlying language of the text of the manuscript.
Geoffrey
[Please note: There is a big difference between a Polish scholar saying that the totality of the output I produced does not make complete sense to him, which is understandable, and the claim that the output has no Polish or Slavic syntax or morphology whatsoever, which is a quite different claim made by Marco and not by the Polish scholar.]
But ok, you want the details of the syntax and morphology? I'll give you the details of the syntax and morphology. I'll give you lots of them. Please sit down and settle in and get comfortable, this is going to take a while.
You claim that "the output of Step2 has no syntax." I will now demonstrate methodically that this claim is quite incorrect. Here is my output of Step2 which you quote and claim has no syntax or morphology:
"VCI: <Pdzo rzcal #Pical cal #Pic# Mz cal terzw cicas izál#>
<#pw iz rzc#pdz# mic# brz jér al égo w alas astá(s)>
becomes:
pizdą rzucał, pizgał cal pięć, mąż cał trzeźwy chcicą-s jeżdżał
po zrzucił pizdę miecz, bryż dzierżał jego wała-s astą-s"
First, let's establish some basics. I did not realize that the purpose of this thread was for me to teach a class in basic morphology and syntax of Slavic languages, but that seems to be what Marco wants and in fact demands, so everybody sharpen your pencils and get a big notebook, you're going to have to take a lot of notes. Now I must caution in advance that in general, I do not recommend that one attempt to learn the grammar of a Slavic language for the very first time by studying a provisional interpretation of a few lines of a possible obscure late medieval Slavic verse written in an obscure enigmatic script. This process will proceed more smoothly and comprehensibly for you if you take a few semesters of a university course in a Slavic language first; it will be even better if you also take a university course in Old Church Slavonic as I have. But we are where we are: Marco demands an explanation of the syntax and morphology of these lines directly, even for readers who have never studied any Slavic language before. This will be difficult for such readers to follow and understand, but I will do my best to explain every detail as clearly as possible.
1. The Polish past tense 3rd person singular masculine verb ending is "-ł". For those who have studied Russian, this is cognate with the past tense masculine singular verb ending "-l". Thus the words "rzucał", "pizgał", "jeżdżał", "zrzucił", and "dzierżał" are the verbs in the clauses in these lines.
2. As in many inflected languages, a subject pronoun does not need to be explicitly stated if the person, number, and gender of the subject are already clear from the verb form. That is the case with the verb forms in these lines, such as "rzucał" and "pizgał" in the first part of the first line: If no subject is explicitly stated, the subject is understood to be "he" here due to the 3rd person singular masculine verb forms.
3. In the second part of the first line, and in both parts of the second line, the subjects are explicitly stated: "mąż" ('man'), "miecz" ('sword'), and "bryż" ('gorget'). They are all masculine singular nouns in Polish, so they are in correct grammatical agreement with the verbs in their clauses in person, number, and gender. They are all nominative case forms, and in Slavic languages typically the nominative case of masculine singular nouns is just the root form ending in a consonant, without any additional grammatical suffix.
4. In the last part of the second line, "wała" is the direct object of the verb. This is indeed the accusative singular form of this masculine noun, with the ending "-a". The interested reader may confirm the correctness of the syntax and morphology of this form You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Please note the distinction and difference between the "animate" noun declension of the word in this usage, and the "inanimate" noun declension (the first table on the same page) of the word in its neutral meaning of 'shaft'. In both my VCI reading and in my Old Polish interpretation, this word appears in the correct form for the accusative case of the "animate" usage that is appropriate to the intended meaning here as I interpret it.
5. Immediately before the word "wała" we find the word "jego", which is the Polish possessive pronoun meaning 'his'. Indeed, the identification of the sequence "verb form + jego + wała" was the very first observation that led me to consider the possibility of obscene content in these first two lines of this paragraph.
6. The final "-s" at the ends of the three words "wała-s", "astą-s", and "chcicą-s" is not a grammatical suffix but rather an expressive flourish. It can be found in the representation of colloquial speech not only in Slavic languages but also in the colloquial register of other languages in northern Europe such as Finnish. If you read some works of Pushkin in Russian you will find such speech in his rendering of certain characters' dialogue. It portrays an expressive effect, like the verbal equivalent of a distinctive mannerism. It seems quite suitable to the humorous content intended to be expressed in these lines as well.
7. The ending "-ą" in the words "pizdą", "chcicą", and "astą" is the Polish singular instrumental case ending of feminine nouns. You may observe that it is spelled in VCI as both "o" and "a", but I note that even in modern standard Polish spelling a trace of this ambiguity can still be seen, as the actual pronunciation is a nasalized "o" vowel sound, but the spelling still appears to represent a nasalized "a" vowel sound. Now the instrumental case in Slavic language is very widely used, in a very wide variety of contexts and senses that go far beyond its basic core instrumental meaning of "by", "with", or "by means of" the noun as an instrument. To cite just one simple example to illustrate the point, in Polish one even needs to use the instrumental case to express such a simple statement as "A lion is a cat": "Lew jest kotem", where "kotem" appears in the instrumental case. (This is a masculine noun rather than a feminine noun, hence the suffix is different than the feminine instrumental forms in the lines that I interpret.) Thus the very literal translation of the first part of the first line would be "He threw and (verb)-ed [her] by the (body part)." (One may perhaps compare the sense of the syntax to a phrase such as "catch a tiger by the tail".) Likewise the last part of the first line would be "the man...rode with lust," and the last part of the second line would be "[Her] gorget held his shaft as/like a branch." These are all extended meanings and senses of the instrumental case. It would rather be stranger if a text in a Slavic language did not have numerous instrumental case forms of nouns expressing a variety of meanings and senses in different contexts.
8. In the first part of the second line I interpret "pizdę" more simply as the direct object: "-ę" is the Polish accusative singular ending of feminine nouns. But I admit that it is difficult to be certain of the endings in this particular clause because they appear to be abbreviated with the notorious EVA [y] glyph. I cannot claim that this character is always merely a null; sometimes it seems to be a scribal abbreviation for some suffix. I fully recognize and admit that <rzc#pdz#> is a mess of a word, and it is only by reference to the more clearly expressed content and grammatical suffixes of the similar root words in the first part of the first line that I can hypothesize as to the possible interpretation of the much more abbreviated word forms written in the first part of the second line.
9. "po" is a very common Polish preposition and conjunction. Here it functions as a conjunction meaning "when".
10. "cal" is a traditional Polish unit of measurement, slightly smaller than an English inch. "pięć" is the number "five". When the unit is written before the number in this manner in a Slavic language, it may convey the sense of an approximate rather than an exact measurement. For example, when one says "пять минут" in Russian, it means exactly five minutes, but when one says "минут пять", it rather means "about five minutes". My interpretation is that this phrase provides the comic effect in the first line, mocking the protagonist's exploits described in this line with a presumable reference to the modest size of his body part. My interpretation of the content of the rest of the lines in this paragraph is also consistent with this mocking attitude toward the man whose actions are described.
11. "cał trzeźwy" are adjectives describing and grammatically modifying the noun "mąż". As such they are the masculine nominative singular forms of the adjectives. It is true that in modern Polish one would expect this form of the first adjective to be "cały", and further in my VCI reading <cal terzw>the final letter "-y" does not appear in the second adjective either. But in fact "cał" is actually an attested Old Polish form of "cały", as the reader may confirm You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. (Note: in this entry the Polish abbreviation "st.pol." stands for "staropolski", meaning "Old Polish". Please note that the abbreviation and absence of grammatical suffixes here does not inhibit the Polish reader from understanding the meaning.) I further note that in many Slavic languages it is normal to have "short forms" of such nominative case adjectives, which indeed entail dropping the "-y" suffix. Modern Polish may have lost such forms, but apparently such a form still existed in Old Polish, as the entry cited above confirms. My VCI reading of this phrase appears to reflect such "short forms" of these adjectives.
Ok, I believe that these 11 detailed grammatical points about Polish / Old Polish / Slavic syntax and morphology have covered every form of every word that appears in the first two lines of my "output of Step2", as Marco calls it. I hope now at least that neither Marco nor anyone else here can ever again claim that in my method "the output of Step2 has no syntax", that my method ignores syntax and morphology, or that I have no knowledge of or interest in the syntax and morphology of my readings and interpretations of the text.
Now it is a separate matter to debate and discuss how sharply and precisely idiomatic the Old Polish / Silesian expressions, phrases, and clauses in my interpretation may appear to be. That is a deeper and more difficult level of discussion. There are big differences between such claims as "This passage has no grammatical structure, syntax, or morphology" vs. "This passage has grammatical structure, syntax, and morphology, but the phrasing and expressions do not strike one as familiar or idiomatic in modern Polish" vs. "The phrasing and expressions do not seem to closely resemble those found in surviving Old Polish texts". Beyond that level there is a further discussion to be had about the extent to which the text may reflect a dialect that may be different from any dialect attested in any known Old Polish texts, and further about the nature of the subject matter of the text reflecting a dramatically different style than that which would be found in any known Old Polish texts. These are fair and important and deep and difficult questions to raise and discuss and debate.
But I hope that with this post we can all put to rest the notion that my method, my readings, and my interpretations lack or ignore or neglect the syntax, morphology, and grammatical structure of the language that my theory hypothesizes to be the underlying language of the text of the manuscript.
Geoffrey