Agentywność czy kauzatywność?
Agentivity versus causality

Summary/Abstract: The main idea of the article is to raise objections to 1) a conceptual (semantic¬ syntactic) differentiation of the agentive constructions based on the predicates represented in the surface structure by operational verbs and the causative constructions; 2) the postulated existence of a mechanism which enables the derivation of secondary constructions from primary ones, for instance, the derivation of secondary agentive constructions such as Jan obudził Marię from primary ones such as Silny wiatr obudził Marię. It is claimed that the agentive constructions can be reduced to the causative ones. The claim is proved by the fact, that the agentive predicates don’t permit the simple substitution of the verb zrobić coś, because the agentive constructions can contain a second agentive operational predicate equally substitutable by zrobić coś (Jan pocałunkiem obudził Marię vs Jan zrobił coś z Marią ¬= ‘Jan zrobił to: Jan pocałował Marię...’). There exists a relevant distinction between the agentive verbs of the type obudzić and of the type pocałować. The first denote causative action, the second non causative ones. Their identical substitutability is due to the ambiguity of the verb zrobić coś. Its substitution to an agentive verb of the first type (obudzić) signifies the introduction of a second operational non causative predicate which joined with its agent constitutes the first propositional argument of the causative constructions reali¬zing the logical form P(p, q). Therefore the agentive constructions of that type are identi¬fiable with the causatives ones, their internal propositional structure being the same. The difference between them concerns another level of the language.

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