The paper analyzes the central verbal categories: tense and aspect in Polish Penal Code of 1997 against the background of other codes in Polish, the current Russian, Czech and other Slavic penal codes as well as the codes of Austrian and German Empires in its Slavic translations. The Polish legal order has not developed any binding instruction on how to interpret grammatical categories, so the question of its correct interpretation constitutes a challenge in the application of law. Verbal aspect, as well as grammatical gender or number, belongs to the most dangerous grammatical categories in the legal use because of the difference between the common sense and its legal meaning.
The paper presents factors influencing the choice of verbal aspects in Polish legal texts. Imperfective verbs in the present tense are usually used in the Polish legal norm. The first part of the text features a theoretical analysis against the linguistic and legal background. In the second part of the paper, the authors present the results of a survey conducted with the use of a fictional statute where respondents had to select an appropriate verbal aspect. Such a method makes it possible to assess the significance of different factors influencing the choice of the verbal aspect described in the first part of the text and other factors covered by the survey.
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