Characterizing the meanings of the Polish “tak naprawdę”, “na pewno” and “oczywiście”

Abstract

The following article characterizes the meanings of the Polish expressions ‘tak naprawdę’ (‘prawda’, eng. ‘truth’; truthfully, truly, really), ‘na pewno’ (‘pewność’, eng.‘certainty’; ‘surely’, ‘certainly’) and ‘oczywiście’ (‘oczywisty’, eng. ‘obvious’; ‘of course’, ‘obviously’). The findings of the study are based on a questionnaire which generated reactions via free association test completed by students of the filologia course at Adam Mickiewicz University’s Faculty of Modern Languages and Literatures. The aim of the article is to isolate the possible dimensions of meaning for the expressions in question, to investigate the functions they fulfil in colloquial usage as well as
to present the functioning and understanding of what is ‘true’, ‘certain’ and ‘obvious’.