The aim of this article is a description of linguistic and grammatical ways of expressing inchoativity in contemporary French. Resigning from the traditional division into grammatical aspect and type of action (Aktionsart), the author treats the inchoative aspect as a complex structure consisting of a temporary concept and a constant one. The temporary concept holds a dominant position and is able to determine whether a given structure assumes a perfective aspect. In French the inchoative aspect may be expressed through many different forms like: inchoative verbal stems (x s’evanouit, x naquit, x rougit), derived reflexive forms of resultative verbal stems (x s'inquieta, x s’ouvrit), continuous verbal stems connected with a passe simple grammatical morpheme (x marcha, x chanta), constructions composed of a verb in passe simple and an adjective (x tomba malade, x devint rouge), constructions composed of a verb and an infinitive (x commenca a palir) as well as through various constructions composed of verbal forms in passe simple and nominal elements (x se mit a l’arrosage, prit peur, x eclata en sanglots, le soleil se teinta de rouge, le silence ecrasant regna d’un seul coup).

In this article the author discusses a method of lexicographic description which uses G. Gross’s concept of object classes, ontological classification in the WordNet style, B. Boguraev and J. Pustejovsky’s qualia structure, computer lexicography and automatic translation. The author focuses herself on the “object-oriented” approach to the proposed descriptions and adopts this approach to her analysis of the chosen names of body parts in French. The category of body parts, established on the basis of the ontological features of its elements, can be treated as an object class. This conclusion is justified by the fact that two operators: avoir mal and soigner, which characterize every object of the category under analysis, allow us to treat this category as an object class in the object-oriented approach.

In this work, the authors examine the issue of lexicographic description. They base their considerations on linguistic structures in which one of the elements performs the function of the modifier of the other element, which is thus fulfilling the role of the modified. The main principles of the modifier-modified lexicographic method by W. Banyś were confronted with other two-element concepts: the predicate-argument one and the theme-rheme one. The authors placed considerable emphasis on pointing out the differences and similarities of the compared concepts.

The article discusses connections between concepts of foreign language teaching and the development of linguistic models of textual units bigger than one phrase. It contains a synthesis of the 20,h c. models of text and discourse with some special attention paid to the issue of coherence. Still, the main part of the article is devoted to a description of the evolution of contemporary methods used in foreign language teaching, which occurred under the influence of cognitive linguistics.

The present paper deals with morphological, semantic and syntagmatic properties of French verbs with prefix co-. The methodological frame deemed most adequate for their description is “lexical decomposition”. Among these verbs, there is a considerable number of those which designate symmetric relations (they follow the pattern x Ry -> y R x). It is further argued that another common feature of these predicates is a compulsory presence of comitative phrase in their syntactic neighbourhood. After a short glimpse over word-formation problems arising within this class of verbs, the historical mechanisms responsible for the formal discrepancy between co- and the corresponding preposition avec (other Romance languages are more conservative; cf. it. La data del tuo arrivo coincide con quella della mia partenza) are carefully scrutinized. Another step is a semantic description of French verbs with prefixe co-. The solution reached at suggests that the meaning of almost all of them incorporates a semantic constant WITH.

The subject matter of this article covers considerations on semantic differences in the use of Spanish periphrastic constructions with the verbs VOLVERSE, HACERSE and QUEDARSE. The analysis was conducted in accordance with the rules of semantic-based grammar. The author comes to the conclusion that those verbs-which appear in periphrastic constructions-are not “simple” syntactic operators but the so-called aspectual verbs. These verbs express the dominant aspect in compound aspectual constructions, represented by analyzed paraphrases, and indicate the place of perfectiveness in a given configuration. The verbs in question fulfill also some additional functions. VOLVERSE and QUEDARSE represent concepts fundamentally perfective. VOLVERSE appears exclusively in the constructions with phrases representing a specific type of imperfective predicates, where the use of VOLVERSE makes the whole phrase assume an inchoative aspect. On the other hand, constructions with the verb QUEDARSE, which also appears with perfective predicates, are achievement-type constructions. The basic imperfective aspect of the verb HACERSE is responsible mainly for the procedural character of constructions, which are formed by HACERSE and exponents of features resulting from long-term processes. The main function of HACERSE in periphrastic constructions in past perfective tenses is indicating the moment when the process ends.

In the first part of the article the author focuses her attention on the presentation of the object-oriented method of lexicographic description proposed by W. Banyś. She also refers to G. Gross’ concept based on the notion of “objectivity”. She carefully considers the problem of the hierarchy of semantic concepts in the object-oriented approach and analyses the ontological semantic categories proposed by the WordNet lexical database. In the final part of the article the author presents an analysis of lexical hierarchy in the object-oriented approach. The author based her analysis on a few French verbs.

This article lays down the basis of an automatic system of interpretation and disambiguation of adjectives (in those noun groups made up of a noun and an adjective), in order to create a machine translation system from French into Polish. It concerns in particular the semantics of adjectives according to their relation with the nouns they describe. Our intention is in fact to describe and predict the semantic compatibility between a noun and an adjective, and more exactly, to formulate the conditions which allow a correct interpretation of the meaning of an adjective in a noun group. This approach results in an algorithm for the semantic interpretation of the meaning of an adjective in a noun group, and, with regards to the machine translation system, in the construction of a language-independent relational intermediary representation.

The subject matter of this article concerns objectivity of lexicographic description. Here objectivity is being associated with the names of “functional” places, in D. Le Pesant’s understanding of the term. The author presents principles of the object-oriented description of lexicosemantic data, according to the concept by W. Banyś. Later on, she distinguishes a couple of basic classes of appropries predicates, which are typical for the locative nouns suggested by D. Le Pesant. The elements of the object-oriented approach are confronted with their counterparts in such lexicographic theories as: I. Melczuk and A.K. Zholkovsky’s frames, J. Pustejovsky’s qualia structure system, G. Gross’s object classes and unique beginners from the WordNet lexical database. In the suggested descriptive scheme of entries the author places results of her own analyses concerning descriptions of names of functional places, in this case-buildings.

A future tense future anterieur can be used to describe probability or an event (moment) prior to some other event (moment) in the future, but it may also appear in literary or press texts as a summary of past events. The author focuses her attention on the last usage and analyses the context in order to distinguish these elements which allow the reader to locate a given event on the axis of time. At such occasions future anterieur appears in specific constructions (// aura fallu X temps pour...), and is used with various adverbials of time, with phrases indicating opposition or conclusion as well as with adverbs jamais and rarement.

The aim of the article is to discuss some issues concerning the problem of interlinguistic equivalence of phraseologisms. The article presents the assumptions and objectives of comparative phraseology. The author shows different aspects of equivalence.