Our aim is to tackle lexical units such as:

 

1. Zauważyli, że tekst ,,Cosi fan tutte'' zapisano po włosku.

(Noticed_3,pl,past that libretto_nom,sg “Cosi fan tutte”_gen,sg write_Impers in Italian.)

2. Czekamy jeszcze na jego królewską mość.

(Wait_1,pl,pres still for his royal highness).

 

i.e., a certain kind of multi-word units having the following properties:

 

a. They are composed of any number of strings of letters separated by spaces, their contents and setup being fixed, e.g.:

 

3. Grać na cztery ręce z waszą hrabiowską mością to sama rozkosz.

(Play_infinit four hand_acc,pl with your comtal majesty_instr,pl, be_3,sg,pl real pleasure.)

4. Nakupili ciastek do diabła i trochę.

(Buy_{3,pl,mhum,past} a hell lot of and some cookie_gen,pl.)

 

b. They are ,,pre-syntactic’’, i.e., ,,one-constituent’’ from the syntactic point of view; e.g.:

 

5. Po prostu//Zwyczajnie pianista fałszuje.

(Simply pianist_nom,sg play_3,sg,pres false.)

6. Orkiestra zgrała się do cna//doszczętnie w kasynie.

(Orchestra_fem,nom,sg lose_{3,sg,fem,past} all the money in casino_loc,sg.)

 

c. Consequently, they are – as a whole - unequivocally interpretable in morphological terms; e.g.:

 

PO PROSTU – particle,

GÓRNA WOLTA, BURKINA FASO, JEJ KRÓLEWSKA MOŚĆ – nouns (feminine)

DO DIABŁA I TROCHĘ, STO DWADZIEŚCIA SIEDEM –numerals

MIMO ŻE – conjunction

 

d. They are continuous; no other constituent can be inserted in-between.

 

We will call such structures BF-type lexical units, contrary to multi-word constructions given below:

 

 7. Niech dyrygent się tak bardzo nie dziwi, że nikt nie przyszedł.

(The conductor shouldn’t be surprised so much, that nobody came.)

 

BF-type units are not syntactic constructions; rather, they belong to lexicon. This means that each of the constituents of such a unit should be treated unilaterally, its morphosyntactic status being completely unimportant or, in other words, undecidable. This way we can avoid the problem of different internal and external agreements BF-type units are involved in.

The mechanism we use to generate BF-type lexical units can also help us account for some semi-morphological discontinuous structures, as well as for discontinuous syntactic constructions, e.g.:

 

8. Jaś pnie się w górę.

(Jaś climb_3,sg,pres up.)

9. Pierwsze skrzypce wciąż się kłócą z drugimi.

(First violin quarrel_3,pl,pres with the second.)

10. Może soprany wreszcie będą czytać nuty.

(Maybe soprano_nom,sg finally read_3,pl.fut score_acc.)

 

The repertory of classes of BF-type units covers almost all parts of speech. Some of those classes seem so highly regular that for implementational reasons we can keep lists of constituent word-forms shorter by supplying some rules  generating the whole “paradigm’’.

 

In our analysis, we also touch the issue of ,,natural’’ vs. ,,grammatical’’ interpretation of some features (i.e., sex and gender):

 

11. Kompozytor długo rozmawiał ze zmęczonym głową kościoła.

(Composer talk_3,sg,past with tired_{mhum,instr,sg} head_{(fem,instr,sg)} (of the) church_{mhum,instr,sg}.)

 

as well as some more sophisticated syntactic mechanism — haplology, shared (common) constituent and so forth:

 

12. ?Zwiedziłam Rio [Grande i de Janeiro] oraz Santa [Barbara i Fé].

(Visit_{1,sg,fem,past}) Rio [Grande and de Janeiro] as well as Santa [Barbara and Fé].

13. Ich [królewska i hrabiowska] mości grały na cztery ręce.

(Their [royal and comtal] majesty_pl play_{3,nonmaschum,pl,past} four hand_acc,pl)

 

We also provide some results of automatic syntactic analysis of BF-type units.