Co powiem, kiedy powiem "nie powiem"?

Abstract

What Am I Saying When I Am Saying I’m Not Saying? A Contribution to a Description of Metatextual Idiomatics The focus of the paper is a semantic characterization of lexical units which a) contain a negated verb powiedzieć/mówić ‘to say, to tell’; b) do not form separate utterances; c) constitute the sender’s commentary on the speech act which is being perfomed, e.g. _nie powiedziałbym, że_ ‘I wouldn’t say that’, _nie powiem_ ‘I won’t say’, _żeby nie powiedzieć_ ‘not to say that’, _nie mówiąc o_ ‘not mentioning’, nie powiem + pytajnik ‘I won’t say + question’, co/czego by nie powiedzieć,_ ‘say what you will’. All those phrases have a syncreto-egocentric character, and so their description must be carried out from the perspective of the receiver. The goal of this author was not only to reconstruct the individual meanings but also to capture the basic oppositions in this microsystem.

Keywords

• idiomatics
• semantics
• metatextual commentaries