ON TWO HIERARCHIES ORDERING THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF A SENTENCE (O dwu hierarchiach porzadkujacych strukture semantyczna zdania)

The author speaks about two hierarchies defining the scope of the semantic (and morpho-syntactic) variation of a sentence. The first hierarchy operates in the framework of the constitutive proposition. It is the hierarchy of arguments of the given predicate imposed by the selected exponent of that predicate. It is labelled diathetical hierarchy. Diathesis is understood as a semantic category (with partially grammaticalised exponents) responsible for the selection of the morphosyntactic and/or lexical exponent of the predicate and eo ipso for the hierarchy of its arguments as presented in the sentence. Diathetical hierarchy is correlated with the hierarchy of case relationships. Diathetically unmarked sentence is a sentence with the agens / initiator of the action as a referent of the first, nominative, argument. The second hierarchy operates on the sentence as a whole. It is the hierarchy responsible for the topicalization of the sentence. It is pragmatically motivated and is labelled as communicative hierarchy. Its exponents are the intonational line (variations in pitch) of the utterance (in the written text signalized by the punctuation marks) and/or the linear ordering of the semantic components.