Dichotomy between private and public experience: A case of Polish wierzyć ‘believe‘

1. Dichotomy between private and public experience: A case of Polish wierzyć ‘believe‘ Małgorzata Fabiszak Anna Hebda Barbara Konat Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

2. Private vs public experience 1) COGNITION AS BRAIN metaphor: individual autistic brain COGNITION AS ACTIVITY: body, context, other individuals and tools, accumulated knowledge [Bernardez 2007] 2) Intersubjectivity as the sharing of experiential content (e.g. feelings, perceptions, thoughts and linguistic meanings) among a plurality of subjects [Zlatev et al 2008]

3. Polish wierzyć ‘to believe’: dictionary senses • wierzyć • to consider sth true 2) to follow a religion 3) to consider what sb says true 4) to trust sb 5) to see sb’s potential and be convinced of their future success [SJP PWN online] Cx 1)+2) wierzyć w+ACC ‘to believe in...’; wierzyć, że ‘to believe that’ 3) wierzyć komuś, że ‘to believe sb that...’ 4) wierzyć komuś ‘to believe sb’ 5) wierzyć w kogoś ‘to believe in sb’

4. Prefixed forms: uwierzyć, dowierzać, zawierzyć/ać • u-in one of its image schemas the LM is construed as a collection of entities among which the selected TR is located; thus, the TR constitutes part of the LM (aspectual pair with senses 1) and 2)) • do- indicates an approximation to a goal or result; some effort; reaching the goal may involve encountering certain difficulties along the way, where the trajector (TR) makes every effort to achieve the goal despite any obstacles; (sense 3)) • za-can represent a construal of ‘excess’ with intransitive perfective verbs, being extended from the sense of ‘going beyond a boundary’ • (Dickey 2006, 2009, p.c.; Przybylska 2001, 2006; Piernikarski 1975; Śmiech 1986; Tabakowska 2003)

5. Hypotheses • Individual cognition co-occurs more frequently with 1st Person Sg Subjects • Social Cognition co-occurs more frequently with NP Objects • Individual Cognition co-occurs more frequently with that-Clausal Objects • Individual Cognition co-occurs more frequently with 1st Person Sg IObjects

6. Data • PWN Corpus • extracts from 386 books, 977 issues of 185 newspapers and magazines, 84 recorded conversations, 207 websites and several hundred promotional leaflets • 40 million words; demo online version of the corpus used – 7.5 million words • wierzyć: 384, uwierzyć: 466, dowierzać: 11, zawierzać: 7, zawierzyć: 6

7. Formal variables • Negation: Neg, Pos • V_Pers: V1, V2, V3 [impersonal forms disregarded] • V_Number: VSg, VPl • Obj_Form: ObjNP, ObjClause, ObjPRO (w siebie) [intransitive and other PRO disregarded] • Obj_Case: ACC, w+ACC • IObjForm: IObjNP, IObjPRO • IObjNum: IObjSg, IObjPl • IObjPerson: IObj1, IObj2, IObj3

8. Semantic variables • Obj_NP_Sem: ObjCONCR, ObjHUM, ObjABSTR • Obj_Clause_Sem: ObjACCOM, ObjACH, ObjACT, ObjST, ObjHYPO, e.g. Uwierzyłaś, że wszystko jest twoją winą [You believed that everything was your fault], Niech się pan stara aby uwierzyła że będzie zdrowa [Do whatever you can to make her believe she will get better] • IObjSem: IObjHUM, IObjABSTR, IObjCONCR • Obj_Cog: Indiv, Soc, e.g. A ja mu uwierzyłem, że go zrujnowałem [And I believed him that I ruined him], Zdaje mi się, że uwierzyłem w duchy [It seems to me I have started to believe in ghosts] • Disc_Function: Disc, Lex

9. Hypothesis 1

10. Hypothesis 1 • Indiv: dowierzać, uwierzyć, V2, VSg, e.g. Wydawało się, że ciągle nie dowierza własnemu szczęściu [It seemed he still couldn’t believe his luck] • Soc: zawierzać, zawierzyć, wierzyć, VPl, VSg, e.g. Wierzymy w dziennikarzy, ale w każdego z osobna [We believe in journalists, but in each of them separately]

11. Hypotheses 2 and 3

12. Hypothesis 2 and 3 • Soc cognition: ACC NP Objects • Indiv: Object that clauses

13. Hypothesis 4

14. Hypothesis 4 • Indiv: ObjHUM, IObj1 • Soc: IObjABSTR, e.g. Nie, wy już i Bogu nie wierzycie [No, even God-DAT you do not believe any longer], Zawierzyli partii, a przestali wierzyć mnie [They started to believe the (political – AH) party-DAT, and stopped believing me]

15. Individual vs Social Cognition: Logistic Regression Analysis

16. Results • Indiv (-): VSg, SemObjHUM, e.g., Od razu uwierzyłam w Felka i „nowy ustrój” [I believed in Felek and the „new political system” at once] • Soc: ObjClauseSemHYPO, ObjClauseSemST, IObj3 e.g., Dzięki panu uwierzyłam, że Rosjan można kochać [Thanks to you I believed that it’s possible to love Russians]; Chyba pierwszy raz uwierzyłem, że świat jest piękny [I guess for the first time I believed that the world was beutiful]; Mało kto mu wierzy [Hardly anyone believes him]

17. Summary • Only Hypothesis 1 has been partially confirmed with a statistically significant result: Individual cognition co-occurs more frequently with Sg Subjects • Hypotheses 2 and 3: there is a correspondence, but no statistically significant result • Unpredicted results: 5) HYPO and ST semantics of object clauses co-occur with Social Cognition 6) IObj3 co-occurs with Social Cognition

18. Further research • Grammaticalization of Dative IObj into discourse markers as a reflection of attempts to communicate one’s Individual Cognitive Experience to Other Minds and to change their Cognitive State • Uwierz, że; uwierz w, e.g., Uwierz, że może być pozytywnym doświadczeniem [It can be a positive experience, believe it], Uwierz w nieskończoność [Believe in eternity] • Uwierz mi, że, e.g. Uwierz mi, że kiedy ciebie nie ma, uwodzi twoich kumpli aż miło [Believe me (when I say) that when you are not here, she seduces your buddies all she wants] • Uwierz mi (Disc), e.g. Mariola, uwierz mi, ja naprawdę nie robię niczego złego [Mariola, believe me, I am not doing anything wrong] • Uwierz (Disc), e.g. Tak będzie lepiej, uwierz [It will be better that way, believe me] • ...pragmatic meanings come to be reanalyzed as semantic polysemies [Traugott – Dasher 2005: 1)