7.2 Features distributions and basic correlation
7.2.7 Lexical temporal expressions
Temporal localising
Polish temporal localising phrases appeared 89 times in corpus2(40 times ring to an absolute unit and 49 deictically) and in Finnish 94 times (50 times refer-ring to an absolute unit and 49 deictically). PFVis more often used with absolute expressions than in relation to deictic expressions (Figure 7.15). The distribution varies more in accordance with tense, as the Polish Past tense occurs mostly with absolute temporal expressions.
In Finnish, the Simple Past also tends to be more frequent with lexical ex-pressions relating to absolute temporal units (Figure 7.16) than to deictic lexical expressions. A similar trend applies to the Pluperfect. Additionally, the Perfect has a considerable share of deictic lexical expressions. Thus, the difference dis-tinguished with grammatical tenses is visible also in their co-occurrence patterns with temporal lexical expressions.
Finally, the differences between the three text types are worth mentioning. Ab-solute temporal units are most present in the informative texts, and least apparent in the literary texts; in Polish the positive relationship is visible also forTBS. One factor responsible for those correlations is the significant difference in temporal structures of text types (see Section 5.6). Literary texts often have a clear narra-tive line, where situations follow chronological order. This reduces the need for naming the temporal setting with lexical expressions.
In informative texts, where discourse is organised thematically, but not tempo-rally, the changes in temporal setting are more frequent, which results in a higher density of temporal localising expressions and more mixed use of temporal forms (see Section 5.6.3).
Figure 7.15: Polish temporal localising expressions according to PVA(left) and tense (right)
Figure 7.16: Finnish temporal localising expressions according to tense The increased relevance of specifying the relation between theTRandTSITis also visible inTBS. Here deictic expressions are more present than in the other two types. On the one hand, the TU is genuine for the time of speaking, and
since most clauses use non-past tenses, there is more need for disambiguation between universal versus existential quantification and past versus future temporal reference than in cases when past tenses are used, in particular in Polish, where the Non-pastPFVappears in the function of future tense.
Durative temporalisation
Durative temporalisation (see Section 2.3) was expressed lexically in Polish 25 times and in Finnish 19 times. Durative expressions appeared mostly in the con-text ofIPFV. The few PFVoccurrences were related to marking the left or right border of the temporal interval, which characterises how long a situation lasts. The left-bound marker (‘since, from’) was the most frequent type. Durative temporal-isation was expressed lexically mainly in informative texts (Finnish texts n=11, Polish texts n=15), followed by literary (Finnish texts n=5, Polish texts n=7) and very rarely in TBStexts (both in Finnish and in Polish n=3). OSMAs were used only 3 times in the Finnish sample. This suggests that the role of this type of adverbials in expressingIPFVis neglectable.
Type of frequency
Lexical expressions specifying the type of frequency (n=31 in Polish, n=30 in Finnish) are more frequent than those of durative temporalisation, but less fre-quent than those of temporal localising. Expressions of frequency are distributed in a balanced way across different text types and tenses. The dominating type is the expression of unspecific cycle (n=15 in Finnish original texts and their Pol-ish translations, and n=5 in PolPol-ish original texts and 6 in translations). In line with theories outlined in Section 3.8.4), lexical expressions of unspecific cycle appeared in clauses containing IPFV, and in Finnish clauses aligned with Polish clauses containing IPFV. PFVappeared four times, only in the context of sum-maric expressions or singular occurrence of situation (as also implied in Section 3.8.4). The expressions of unspecific cycles are typical of patterns.
Summing up, in both languages, lexical temporal expressions have similarly low frequency. Since the total number of observations is relatively low, it is hard to make any strong statements. However, based on the differences in their dis-tributions across text types, it can be hypothesised that in both languages, lexical temporal expression plays a similar role in underlying the temporal elements rel-evant for the particular type of discourse.
7.2.8 Taxis
In corpus2, I identified 130 Polish and 132 Finnish taxical relations of clauses within sentences. Figure 7.17 presents the result for Polish clauses in the context ofPVAand tense marking.
Figure 7.17: Taxis in the Polish clauses according toPVA(left) and tense (right)
In line with previous observations presented in Section 3.8.2, TSIT1of situa-tion posterior or anterior to some certainTSIT2appears more frequently withPFV, whileTSIT1simultaneous with some certainTSIT2appears withIPFV. The Polish Past tense dominates in all three types of relation, but the share of the Non-past in simultaneity is higher than in the non-simultaneous relations.
Taxical relations in Finnish clauses are presented in Figure 7.18. Also here, the Simple Past is used in the context of all three relations, but only in posterior it clearly dominates. Unlike Polish, Finnish has a separate tense for marking anteriority in the past – the Pluperfect. The Perfect is used more frequently in the context of simultaneity of twoTSITs than in the context of non-simultaneity. The Non-past tense is also more frequent in the case of simultaneity.
Figure 7.18: Taxis in the Finnish clauses according to tense