Lingwistyczna kategoria czasu w narracji epickiej i lirycznej

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to work out a definition of the linguistic category of time against the background of the existing theories (Laskowski, Grzegorczykowa, Ampelowa and others). 'The author sees two basic types of relations whose segments form up subcategories within the general linguistic category of time, i. e. the relation ''deixis: anaphora” and the relation "immeasurable time: measurable time”. These are two opposite and intersecting arrangements. As to deixis and anaphora they correspond with what was used to be called absolute and relative time relations with respect to the time of speaking or the correlations of times (in temporal clauses and. other cases). A delimitation of some types and subtypes of such oppositions in a literary text affects to' a large extent the time horizon of the work. It pertains to both the plane of narration and that of” the presented time. Such a horizon can be understood as a fragment of the temporal reality, confined within the workable model of Petri's lattice. The lattice's frame is drawn arbitrarily by the: writer. Also, the time distance between the semantic plane of narration and the presented world! seems to undergo various artistic modulations. 'T'hus, the coexistence of those two planes of time can either be emphasized (through stressing the dichotomy of the present and the past) or obscured (through continuous actualization of the present in the described events and situations). 'T'his actualization of the present is one of the functions of deixis. Anaphora also brings forth accomodating processes of the system's time functions in the text. The author of the paper shows several models of relative time correlations in epic poetry as well as in narrative fiction.