A PARAMETRIC DESCRIPTION OF DEONTIC MODALITY IN THE POLISH AND SPANISH CIVIL CODES

The article presents a parameter-based method of description of deontic modality in the Polish and Spanish civil codes. The described units are clauses conveying deontic meanings: obligativity, prohibitivity, permissivity and immunitivity. The clauses are excerpted from the corpus on the basis of criteria proposed for this purpose. Clauses conveying deontic meanings are characterized by various properties. Homogeneous properties are classified into parameters (dimensions). As a theoretical framework for a consistent description of the clauses, eight parameters have been proposed on the basis of an analysis of all clauses conveying deontic meanings. The method proposed for describing clauses conveying deontic meanings makes it possible to characterize them systematically and compare them intraand interlingually. The comparison of the clauses also enables the entire texts of the Polish and Spanish civil codes to be compared. OPIS PARAMETRYCZNY MODALNOŚCI DEONTYCZNEJ W POLSKIM I HISZPAŃSKIM KODEKSIE CYWILNYM Abstrakt: Artykuł przedstawia parametryczny (bazuj ący na wymiarach) aparat teoretyczny służący do systematycznego opisu modalno ści deontycznej w polskim i hiszpa ńskim kodeksie cywilnym. Jednostkami opisu s ą zdania przenosz ące nast ępujące znaczenia deontyczne: obligatywność, prohibitywność, permisywność i immunitywność. Zdania te wyodrę bniono z kodeksu na podstawie zaproponowanych kryteriów. Zdania wykazuj ą cechy różnego rodzaju. Cechy, które s ą ze sobą porównywalne, czyli tego samego rodzaju, pogrupowane zostały w zbiory nazywane parametrami. Na podstawie analizy wszystkich zda ń przenosz ących znaczenia deontyczne zaproponowano osiem wymiarów. Zaproponowana metoda pozwala porównywa ć zdania przenosz ące znaczenia deontyczne ze sob ą zarówno w obrę bie jednego j ęzyka, jak i między oboma j ęzykami. To z kolei pozwala na systematyczne porównanie całych tekstów polskiego i hiszpa ńskiego kodeksu cywilnego. Comparative Legilinguistics 16/2013


Introduction
Deontic modality, that is modality related to such meanings as obligation, prohibition or permission, is a crucial concept in legal language.The aim of this study13 is to provide a systematic description and comparison of deontic modality in the texts of the Polish and Spanish civil codes, a subject which has not yet been studied sufficiently, especially in comparative perspective.In order to describe deontic modality in the Polish and Spanish civil codes systematically, a new parameter-based methodology will be proposed in this paper.The employed method is synchronic and descriptive.The study concerns two domains, law and language, however, the description of clauses conveying deontic meanings is carried out with the use of the theoretical apparatus of linguistics.The corpus of texts under investigation includes the Spanish and Polish civil codes.However, since the Spanish Civil Code also contains regulations concerning family law, which in Poland form a separate code (The Family and Guardianship Code), these parts of the Spanish Civil Code are excluded from the analysis.These are: titles (títulos) IV, V, VI, VII, X of Book I (Libro Primero) and title III of Book IV (Libro Cuarto).

General remarks about deontic modality
As a linguistic category, modality (modus) can be conceived of as one of the obligatory components of a clause, along with the propositional content (dictum).The modus expresses the attitude of a speaker toward the dictum, i.e. the content of the statement.The modus and the dictum always co-occur with one another (Karolak 1999, 121).The concept of modality in language is complex and has been defined and classified in various ways (e.g.Rytel 1982, Jędrzejko 1987, Lyons 1977, Palmer 1998, Portner 2009).Usually, alethic, epistemic, and deontic modalities are distinguished.Deontic modality has been defined in various ways.As Jędrzejko puts it, it "refers to the world of norms and judgements and concerns actions of human beings which are imposed on them or allowed to them by virtue of the will of an individual or collective actor"14 (Jędrzejko 1987, 19).According to Lyons, deontic modality refers to "the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents" (Lyons 1977, 823).As understood by Rytel, this modality "expresses an assessment of an event by means of specifying obligation, prohibition or permission thereof"15 (Rytel 1982, 83).In the opinion of many other scholars, it defines what is good or wrong according to a specific system of rules (e.g.Portner 2009, 15)."Deontic modality also implies an authority, or 'deontic source' -which may be a person, a set of rules, or something as vague as a social norm -responsible for imposing the necessity (obligation) or granting the possiblity (permission)" (Depraetere and Reed 2006, 274).In the case of legal language, this deontic source is always a legislator.
In order to describe deontic modality, concepts of "deontic necessity" and "deontic possibility" can be used, which can both be negated (Palmer 1998, 98-99).
Negated possibility results in the absence of possibility, i.e. prohibition, and negated obligation results in the absence of obligation.These are the four deontic meanings that can be conveyed by clauses.They will be referred here to as: (i) obligativity (deontic necessity, obligation), (ii) prohibitivity (absence of deontic possibility, prohibition), (iii) permissivity (deontic possibility, permission) and (iv) immunitivity (absence of deontic necessity, absence of obligation).

Method of the analysis
The units described in this study are clauses conveying one of the four deontic meanings introduced above.They have been excerpted from the corpus as a result of an analysis of all clauses contained in the texts of the Polish and Spanish civil codes.
A clause is conceived of as a syntagm16 containing one predicate (Bańczerowski et al. 1982, 293) 17 .Only main clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses are taken into consideration in this study.The linguistic means of signifying various modal meanings, which are here referred to as significators18 , used in legal language differ from those occurring in general language.For example the imperative mood is not used in legal language.This is one of the reasons why it is interesting to investigate deontic modality in legal texts in detail.The deontic meanings can be signified by various significators: by the grammatical forms of words, by special words, special syntagms, or context alone.
In the present description, auxiliaries used in periphrastic forms are not considered to be words but interpreted as parts of them; for instance, Polish jest zobowiązany '(he/she) is obligated' is described as one word.Periphrastic passive forms of verbs are categorized as verbs; for instance, jest zobowiązany is described as a passive verb (its active form being zobowiązać 'to obligate').By contrast, the synonymous expression jest obowiązany is categorized as an adjective because there is no corresponding active verb (*obowiązać) in contemporary Polish.
Within a deontic clause, various semantic categories can be distinguished which will be used in the analysis: (i) the deontic action, i.e. the action to which the deontic modality applies, in other words: the action which is the object of obligation, prohibition, permission or lack of obligation; (ii) the agent of the deontic action, i.e. the entity which, according to law, has to/does not have to/may or may not perform the deontic action; (iii) the patient of the deontic action.
These categories are exemplified in the following clause: Example. 1.In the present study, only clauses in which the deontic action is explicitly expressed are taken into consideration.The dictum of such a clause always includes a deontic action and its agent (and, facultatively, other elements).As we are interested in the linguistic means of signifying deontic meanings, clauses from which the deontic action can only be deduced, without being explicitly expressed, have been excluded from the analysis.Therefore, for instance, the following clause is not taken into consideration:
[The debtor who, prior to becoming aware of the assignment, pays the creditor, shall be released from the obligation].
Only clauses which contain verbs denoting a volitional action are understood as conveying deontic meanings because one cannot force or allow someone to do something which is beyond control of his or her will.Consequently, the following clause is not considered deontic: Example 4: Art. 982.Para que en la sucesión testamentaria tenga lugar el derecho de acrecer, se requiere: (...) 2. Que uno de los llamados muera antes que el testador, o que renuncie la herencia, o sea incapaz de recibirla.
[The following is required for the right of accretion to occur in testamentary successions: (...) 2.One of the persons called must die before the testator, reject the inheritance, or be incapable of receiving it].

Proposed parameters for a description of clauses conveying deontic meanings
Clauses conveying deontic meanings show, or are characterized by, various properties.Homogeneous properties are classified into parameters (dimensions).As a theoretical framework for a consistent description of the clauses, eight parameters have been proposed based on an analysis of all clauses conveying deontic meanings that occur in the corpus.If a clause is uncharacterizable by any property from a particular parameter, it is described as showing the property 'INDEFINABILITY' (which, for the sake of brevity, is not repeated in the description of every parameter).
[A vendor who has received a price higher than the fixed price shall refund the difference to the buyer20 ].

Art. 1500. El comprador está obligado a pagar el precio de la cosa vendida en el tiempo y lugar fijados por el contrato.
[The purchaser is obliged to pay the price of the things sold in the time and place set forth in the contract].[Words which may have different meanings shall be understood in the meaning which is most in accordance with the nature and subject matter of the agreement].
With respect to parameter 1, the clause of example 13 shows the property PROHIBITIVITY and the clause of example 14 -OBLIGATIVITY.

Parameter 2. Semantic category of the subject
This parameter reflects the variety of semantic categories which can function as the subject of a deontic clause.The subject can be a word denoting the agent or the patient of the deontic action, the deontic action itself, or some other concept.There are also clauses that have no subject at all.This parameter contains the following properties: {AGENT AS THE SUBJECT, PATIENT AS THE SUBJECT, DEONTIC ACTION AS THE SUBJECT,

QUALIFICATUM OF THE SYNTAGM WHICH IS THE SIGNIFICATOR AS THE SUBJECT, MODAL CAUSER AS THE SUBJECT, AGENT OF THE MODAL CAUSER AS THE SUBJECT, SUBJECTLESS CLAUSE}
With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property SUBJECTLESS CLAUSE and the clause of example 14 -PATIENT AS THE SUBJECT (palabras 'words').

Parameter 3. Means of signifying the deontic meaning
The deontic meaning can be signified, for instance, by the context alone, by special verbs, adjectives, substantives, or various syntagms (with or without negation).Since the particular significators of deontic modality are numerous, they are grouped into broader categories.Besides making the description more transparent, this solution makes it also possible to compare Polish and Spanish clauses with respect to this parameter.This parameter contains the following properties: {CONTEXT The property termed CONTEXT refers to those clauses which do not contain explicitly expressed deontic significators; it is only the context in which they occur -in this case it is the context of a normative text -that makes them interpretable as deontic.Outside the context of a normative text such clauses would not be deontic but only informative (their modality would be assertoric).Admittedly, the context of a normative text applies to every clause occurring in the civil code; however, in some clauses there are also other, special significators of deontic modality.
In order to illustrate how diversified and numerous the significators of deontic modality are, the significators of two deontic meanings, OBLIGATIVITY and IMMUNITIVITY, used in clauses in which the subject is the agent of the deontic action are presented in the tables below 23 .Symbols used in the tables: P -present tense F -future tense * -rare significators As showed in the tables, the diversity of significators is considerably wider in Spanish than in Polish.One of the causes of this phenomenon is that in Spanish the same significators occur in the present and in the future tense.In Polish the present tense prevails and the future is used (interchangeably with the present) only in the clauses in which the only significator is CONTEXT.

Parameter 4. Tense of the predicate
The predicate of a clause conveying a deontic meaning can be either in the present or in the future tense.The future tense is more often used in Spanish Civil Code and the present tense in the Polish.The choice between the present or future tense does not bear on the deontic modality of Spanish clauses.Parameter 4 contains the two following properties: {PRESENT TENSE, FUTURE TENSE} With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property PRESENT TENSE and the clause of example 14 -FUTURE TENSE.

Parameter 5. Means of denoting the deontic action
The deontic action can be denoted by means of words belonging to various parts of speech, which may be negated or not.If the word is a verb, it can be in the active or in the passive voice.The deontic action may also be denoted by a subordinate clause.With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property ACTIVE INFINITIVE WITHOUT NEGATION (używać 'to use') and the clause of example 14 -PROPER PASSIVE VERB (serán entendidas 'shall be understood').

Parameter 6. Syntactic category of the word denoting the deontic action
This parameter reflects the fact that the deontic action can be denoted by means of words belonging to various syntactic categories.It contains the following properties: {PREDICATE, OBJECT, SUBJECT, ATTRIBUTE} With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property OBJECT (używać 'to use' is the object of the verb nie wolno 'it is not allowed to') and the clause of example 14 -PREDICATE (serán entendidas 'shall be understood').With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property SUBSTANTIVE (przechowawca 'the keeper') and the clause of example 14 -INDEFINABILITY (because it contains no word denoting the agent of the deontic action).

Parameter 8. Syntactic category of the word denoting the agent of the deontic action.
This parameter reflects the fact that the agent of the deontic action may be denoted by means of words belonging to various syntactic categories.It contains the following properties: {SUBJECT, GENITIVAL ATTRIBUTE, DIRECT OBJECT, INDIRECT OBJECT} With respect to this parameter the clause of example 13 shows the property INDIRECT OBJECT (przechowawcy 'for the keeper') and the clause of example 14 -INDEFINABILITY (because this clause contains no word denoting the agent of the deontic action).
24 I.e. the pronoun with the meaning 'everybody'.

A comparison of the Polish and Spanish civil codes based on the proposed parameters
The proposed parameters make it possible to systematically characterize clauses conveying deontic meanings and to compare them, intra-and interlingually, in various respects.The parametric comparison of clauses can be used for a comparison of the texts from which they have been excerpted, i.e. the civil codes themselves.Such a comparison reveals that these texts differ most with respect to Parameter 3, i.e. 'Means of signifying the deontic meaning'.The examples in the tabular lists of the significators of particular deontic meanings been presented above show that the significators are highly diversified.Generally, the diversity of significators is stronger in Spanish than in Polish.One of the reasons for this is that in the Spanish Civil Code a significator may occur either in the present or in the future tense without this entailing any change in meaning.For example, the [If it has been stipulated in the contract that things must be manufactured from raw materials of a specified kind or origin, the supplier must notify the recipient when such materials are ready for use in the manufacturing process, and he must also allow the recipient to inspect their quality.] It should be stressed here that synonymy is a phenomenon that is undesirable in legal language as it may make the text less clear, especially to non-specialists.The texts of the two civil codes also differ considerably with respect to parameter 4, 'Tense of the predicate'.The majority of the clauses in the Polish Civil Code have the predicate in the present tense.By contrast, in the Spanish Civil Code the number of clauses with the predicate in the future tense is higer than those with the predicate in the present.Another important difference is that in the Spanish clauses in the future tense various significators are used: context, verbs, adjectives and sytagms, whereas in the Polish clauses in the future tense only one type of significator is used, viz.context.Additionally, in the Spanish code, a clause with the predicate in the future tense may convey any of the four deontic meanings whereas in the Polish they convey only obligativity.
Another difference is that in the Spanish text, the predicate of a clause is nearly always in the future tense if context, with or without negation, is the only significator whereas in the Polish the present tense is used in such clauses.
In neither of the texts does the choice of a particular tense bear on the deontic modality of a clause.In other words, the tense is not a significator of any deontic meaning.It may be observed that in conditional clauses in the Spanish Civil Code, the use of a particular tense in the main clause is in some way related to the mode and tense of the subordinate clause.
The differences with respect to the remaining parameters are not too significant.For example, with respect to parameter 2 'Semantic category of the subject', it can be observed that subjectless clauses are more frequent in the Polish Civil Code than in the Spanish, which is related to the fact that the former makes use of improper verbs such as: można ('one may'), nie można ('one may not'), wolno ('it is allowed'), nie wolno ('it is not allowed'), należy ('one should').In the Spanish Civil Code such impersonal forms are used less frequently.By contrast, the passive voice is used more frequently there than in the Polish text.
Obviously, there are also similarities between deontic clauses in the Polish and Spanish civil codes analyzed in the light of the proposed parameters, for example, with respect to parameter 3.In both texts, the following analogous significators of deontic modality are used with apparently similar frequency: Finally, it should be added that for both Polish and Spanish, significators of deontic meanings used in the legal texts differ from those used in general language.

Concluding remarks
The proposed parameter-based method for describing clauses conveying deontic meanings makes it possible to characterize them systematically and compare them intraand interlingually.The comparison of the clauses conveying deontic meanings enables us to compare the entire texts of the Polish and Spanish Civil Codes in respects that are of interest to us.In particular, the comparison of the significators of deontic meanings can be used in legal translation and facilitate determining possible translation equivalents.Since the method can also be applied to texts other than legal, it can also be employed to compare significators of deontic modality used in legal language with those occurring in everyday language, both in Polish and Spanish.

4. 6 .
Parameter 7. Part-of-speech category of the word denoting the agent of the deontic action The agent of the deontic action may be denoted by means of words belonging to different parts of the substantive or various types of pronouns.This parameter contains the following properties: {SUBSTANTIVE, PERSONAL PRONOUN, RELATIVE PRONOUN, INDEFINITE PRONOUN 24 , NEGATIVE PRONOUN}

Table 1 .
Significators of obligativity used in clauses in which the subject is the agent of the deontic action 23For detailed lists of all significators see (Nowak-Michalska 2012).

Table 2 .
Significators of immunitivity used in clauses in which the subject is the agent of the deontic action VERBO-SUBSTANTIVAL SYNTAGM WITHOUT NEGATION used as a significator of permissivity has only one realization in Polish: [When grandchildren inherit from their grandparents in representation of the parent, and are to inherit together with their uncles or cousins, they shall bring (literally: 'will bring') to collation everything that the parent ought to have collated if he/she had been alive, even if they have not inherited it].Art.1040.(...); pero, si hubieren sido hechas por el padre conjuntamente a los dos, el hijo estará obligado a colacionar la mitad de la cosa donada.[(...) however, if they have been made by the parent jointly to both of them, the child shall be (literally: 'will be') obliged to bring to collation half of the thing given].[Amountspaid by the parent to prevent his children from being drafted into the military, to pay their debts, obtain an honorific title and other similar expenses shall be subject to collation (literally: 'will be collatable')].Synonymy occurs in the Polish Civil Code as well.For instance, the verb powinien 'should' is synonymous with the adjective jest obowiązany 'is obligated'.Interestingly, these two siginificators have been used in the same article: Art. 608.§ 1. Jeżeli w umowie zastrzeżono, że wytworzenie zamówionych rzeczy ma nastąpić z surowców określonego gatunku lub pochodzenia, dostawca powinien zawiadomić odbiorcę o ich przygotowaniu do produkcji i jest obowiązany zezwolić odbiorcy na sprawdzenie ich jakości.