The AC-rzecz ujmując-construction in Polish: A corpus-driven study

This article uses frame semantics, the concept of a communicative frame, usage-based construction grammar theory, and a corpus-based quantitative methodology to examine the characteristics of constructions in Polish that contain adverbial complements (ACs), the noun rzecz ‘thing’, and the quasi-participle ujmując ‘expressing/putting’. The author analyzes examples of this construction found in the National Corpus of Polish (NKJP) to understand its structural, semantic, distributional, and discourse-related features. In addition, the study identifies ACs that are strongly and weakly associated with this construction, and those that are more or less dependent on it. The research shows that this construction is often combined with various categories of ACs, each corresponding to distinct semantic and communicative frames. Furthermore, it has been observed that this construction is motivated by a specific conceptual metaphor, appears in different language registers, takes various forms, and serves multiple functions in discourse.