Osobiście w zdaniu i w strukturze tematyczno-rematycznej wypowiedzenia

The author of this article claims that in Polish there are three independent language units containing the form osobiście. They differ both functionally and formally. Only one of these units (osobiście1 ‘in a personal manner’) is an ordinary adverb operating on the syntactic level, that is, entering into syntactic and semantic relations with other components of a given sentence. The other two units are operators of the thematic-rhematic structure. They organize the content of utterances they participate in and comment on it. Osobiście2 (‘personally’) is inherently thematic; it can function as the main theme of a given utterance or stands next to the theme making this element easier to identify. The unit osobiście3 (‘in person’) is, in turn, primarily rhematic or precedes the rheme as its thematized exponent. Osobiście2 and osobiście3 are two types of dictum, on the one hand – thematic comment and on the other – rhematic. These expressions have much in common with the units of the form sam. Besides osobiście1, osobiście2 and osobiście3, there is also in Polish the idiom znać / poznać [kogoś] osobiście ‘know / get to know someone personally’.