This dissertation describes and examines the function of the Polish impersonal ‑no/‑to construction in discourse. In particular, it focuses on the interaction between the core semantic features of the construction and its behavior in larger discourse units. Specifically, it demonstrates how the semantic properties of the ‑no/‑to construction, namely the implicit human agent and the restriction to past-tense event reference, determine its use in texts. Deriving its discourse function from these semantic components, the dissertation argues that the impersonal ‑no/‑to construction functions as a device of agentive narration, i.e., as a means of highlighting events involving human agency without overtly expressing the agent. Although the construction lacks an overt subject, its implicit agent remains conceptually accessible and exhibits properties similar to grammatical subjects. Under certain discourse conditions, this allows the impersonal event itself to become a prominent discourse element. More precisely, the corpus analysis shows that the ‑no/‑to construction can occur both in the background and the foreground of narrative discourse. In background contexts, it contributes to textual coherence by maintaining the current discourse topic, whereas in foreground contexts it can itself become a discourse topic when the implicit agent is strongly individuated through its effect on a patient and when impersonal events are integrated into a narrative sequence. In addition, experimental evidence demonstrates that speakers can identify the implicit agent of the ‑no/‑to construction with previously mentioned referents in discourse and generally accept interpretations in which the implicit subject behaves similarly to an anaphoric pronoun.
Iga Kościołek (Thu,) studied this question.