Differential subject marking in Polish: The case of Genitive vs ...

Differential subject marking in Polish:
The case of Genitive vs. Nominative subjects in “X was not at Y”-constructions
0. The issue
Joanna Blaszczak
It is by now a well-known fact that the interpretation of a nominal phrase (henceforth NP 1 ) in a
sentence might be determined or influenced by various factors. Often a specific interpretation of a
given NP correlates with a specific case marking. For example, object NPs which are interpreted
as specific might be marked in a special way, cf., e.g., the -(y)i- or ko-marking for specific objects
in Turkish or Hindi, 2 respectively (Enç 1991, Kornfilt, this volume, de Hoop and Narasimhan,
this volume). In a similar vein, animate (or definite) objects might require another case marking
than inanimate (or indefinite) ones, e.g., the a-marking for animate objects in Spanish. 3 From a
crosslinguistic point of view, the correlation between some specific properties of an NP (e.g.,
animacy, specificity, definiteness, etc.) and its case marking is not a rigid dependency, but rather
a kind of scalar dependency with fluid borderlines (cf. Silverstein’s 1976 “NP Hierarchy”; see
Dixon 1994 for discussion; see also von Heusinger and Kaiser 2004).
Another interesting crosslinguistic observation is that a particular case marking not only
tells us how a given NP is going to be interpreted, but also might bear on the aspectual
interpretation of a verbal phrase (VP); in other words, a special case marking might have both
NP- and VP-related (aspectual) functions. 4 A case in point is the Partitive case in Finnish. The
1 I will use throughout the paper the general term ‘nominal phrase’ (NP) to refer to any nominal phrase to avoid
the discussion about the NP- vs. DP-distinction, which is especially problematic in languages such as Polish
which do not have the category article.
2 In Hindi, the ko-marking is actually used for an animate or specific object; see de Hoop and Narasimhan (this
volume).
3 The distribution of differential object marking in Spanish is not determined by specificity but rather by
animacy or at least by a mixed scale of these features (cf., e.g., von Heusinger and Kaiser 2003, Leonetti
2003).
4 Since aspect plays an important role in the argumentation presented in this paper, some notes of clarification
are in order. It is not easy to define exactly what aspect means as this term has been used very differently in
the literature and almost every scholar working on aspect comes up with his or her own definition or
understanding of aspect. Usually, a distinction is made between semantic/lexical aspect (also referred to as
‘situational aspect’ or ‘situation type’, ‘eventuality type’, ‘Vendlerian aspect’, ‘inner aspect’), on the one
hand, and grammatical/morphological aspect (also referred to as ‘viewpoint aspect’ or ‘outer aspect’), on the
other hand (see, among others, Comrie 1976 and Smith 1997; see Borik 2002, Richardson 2003 and
Mlynarczyk 2004 for recent overviews of different types of aspect as well different approaches to aspect).
While “situation type is conveyed by the verb constellation, which [Smith] define[s] as a main verb and its

NP-related function is illustrated in (1) below (Kiparsky 1998:268). An intrinsically telic
(bounded) verb such as saan ‘get’ takes a Partitive marked object when the object is
quantitatively indeterminate (an indefinite bare plural or mass noun), otherwise the object is
marked for ACC(usative). In other words, the Partitive tells us something about the specific
interpretation of the NP in such cases. In contrast, with an aspectually unmarked verb (i.e., a verb
arguments, including subject”, “viewpoint is conveyed by a grammatical morpheme, usually verbal” (Smith
1997:2). The first type of aspect, i.e., semantic aspect, refers to the atemporal contours of an eventuality
(Richardson 2003:24, referring to Filip 1994), to internal temporal features of situations (Smith 1997:17),
such as whether they are static or durative, whether they are telic (have a natural final endpoint: a goal,
outcome, or other change of state, i.e., are in some sense “bounded”) or atelic, whether they are durative or
instantaneous. [Eventuality is a term borrowed from Bach (1981), which is used to refer to any kind of
situation type.] On the basis of the temporal properties of dynamism, durativity and telicity, Smith (1997:3,
20) distinguishes five different situation types (see also Comrie 1976:41-51 for discussion):
(i) Situation types (Smith 1997:3)
a. state: stative, durative (know the answer, love mary)
b. activity: dynamic, durative, atelic (laugh, stroll in the park)
c. accomplishment: dynamic, durative, telic, consisting of process and outcome (build a house, walk to
school, learn Greek)
d. semelfactive: dynamic, atelic, instantaneous (tap, knock)
e. achievement: dynamic, telic, instantaneous (win a race, reach the top)
In contrast, grammatical aspect (‘viewpoint aspect’) focuses on the temporal perspective of an eventuality.
Smith (1997:3) distinguishes three main viewpoint types:
(ii) Viewpoint types:
a. Perfective viewpoints focus a situation in its entirety, including both initial and final endpoint.
b. Imperfective viewpoints focus part of a situation, including neither initial or final endpoints.
c. Neutral viewpoints are flexible, including the initial endpoint of a situation and at least one internal stage
(where applicable).
Richardson (2003:28), following Klein (1994), defines grammatical aspect as the relation between the Topic
Time (a time for which the speaker wishes to make an assertion) and the Situation Time, i.e., “it signals the
way, or ways, in which an eventuality is linked to the Topic Time” (ibid.). If an eventuality is contained
within the Topic Time, i.e., it is bounded in time, a perfective viewpoint is taken. If an eventuality holds
throughout and potentially extends beyond the Topic Time, i.e., it is unbounded, an imperfective viewpoint is
taken (Richardson 2003:28-29; see also Borik 2002 for a somewhat different formalization of the notion of
viewpoint aspect, her “Reference time aspect”).
These two types of aspectual information, i.e., semantic aspect and grammatical aspect, are independent,
though they interact with each other (see, among others, Smith 1997, Borik 2002, Richardson 2003 and the
references cited there for discussion of this controversial issue). Smith (1997:1) gives the examples in (iii) to
demonstrate that the same situation may be presented from different perspectives: (iii-a) has a perfective
viewpoint, whereas (iii-b) has an imperfective viewpoint.
(iii) a. John and Mary built a rock garden last summer.
b. John and Mary were building a rock garden last summer.
Richardson (2003:25) further points out that “imperfective sentences […] can be applied to the same
situations to which a perfective verb applies, i.e., the imperfective aspect can be used to convey the infamous
konstatacija fakta ‘statement of fact’ interpretation of a verb phrase. That is, the imperfective aspect is used
felicitously in Russian even when it is understood by the interlocutors that the eventuality was completed;” cf.
(iv).
(iv) a. Ja citala “Vojnu i mir”. b. Ja procitala “Vojnu i mir”.
I readIMPERF war and peace I readPERF war and peace
‘I read “War and Peace”.’ ‘I read “War and Peace”.’
2

that is neither intrinsically telic/bounded nor intrinsically atelic/unbounded), the alternation
between the ACC and Partitive marking of the object gives rise to an aspectual distinction. This
is the VP-related function of the Partitive. Compare (2a) with (2b) (Kiparsky 1998:267; see also
Vainikka and Maling 1996). In the aspectually irresultative, unbounded version in (2a), the verb
has a Partitive object and denotes an activity ‘to shoot at’. In the aspectually resultative, bounded
version (2b), the verb has an ACC object and denotes an accomplishment ‘to shoot dead’ (see
footnote 4). 5
(1) a. Saa-n #karhu-a / karhu-j-a.
get-1.SG bear-PART / bear-PL-PART
‘I’ll get the (a) bear / bears.’
b. Saa-n karhu-n / karhu-t.
get-1.SG bear-ACC / bear-PL.ACC
‘I’ll get the (a) bear / the bears.’
(2) a. Ammu-i-n karhu-a / karhu-j-a.
shoot-PAST-1.SG bear-PART / bear-PL-PART
‘I shot at the (a) bear / at (the) bears.’
b. Ammu-i-n karhu-n / karhu-t.
shoot-PAST-1.SG bear-ACC / bear-PL.ACC
‘I shot the (a) bear / the bears.’
The examples in (2) thus illustrate a dependency between case and aspect which concerns the
direct object (position) of transitive verbs. 6 In this paper I will discuss another case of
5 The role of direct object for aspectual composition is at the heart of so-called compositional approaches to
(telicity) aspect, which take aspect to be a sentential property composed from relevant information encoded in
the verb and its argument (cf. Verkuyl 1972, 1993, 1999). For other aspectual theories which deal with the
interaction between the verbal and nominal domain, see Krifka (1989) and Kiparsky (1998). For the
discussion of compositional telicity in Slavic, see Filip (1993), Schoorlemmer (1995), and Schmitt (1996) as
well as Borik (2002), Richardson (2003) and Mlynarczyk (2004) for critical evaluation.
6 But notice that subjects of intransitive verbs (unaccusative or presentational/existential verbs) might also be
marked for Partitive in Finnish. The Partitive has in such cases only the NP-rela ted function, never the
aspectual function; cf. (i) (Kiparsky 1998:297f.):
(i) a. Karhu-t kuol-i-vat. b. Karhu-j-a kuol-i.
bear-PL.NOM die-PAST-3.PL bear-PL-PART die-PAST.3.SG
‘The bears died.’ ‘Bears died.’
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dependency between the aspectual properties of the predicate and the case marking of its nominal
argument. The case to be discussed below is interesting and rather unusual since, unlike the cases
of Partitive marking mentioned above, which are not restricted to just one particular verb, but, on
the contrary, show quite a broad (but by no means unrestricted) distribution, the Polish case
concerns exclusively negated (existential)-locative constructions. Depending on the aspectual
properties of the verb byc ‘to be’, the “subject-NP” 7 is marked either for NOM(inative) or
GEN(itive). Whereas the nominal argument of a negated (existential)-locative sentence is
normally marked for GEN in Polish, on the habitual (or iterative) reading it is marked for NOM,
as the contrast between (3a) and (3b) shows. 8 In the affirmative variants the nominal is marked
for NOM in both cases; cf. (4a) and (4b), respectively (see section 3.1 for more details).
(3) a. Jana nie bylo na przyjeciu.
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST at party
‘John was not at the party.’
(Lit.: ‘There was no John at the party.’)
b. Jan nie bywal na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties
‘John didn’t use to come to parties.’
(Lit.: ‘John was not (from time to time) at parties.’)
(4) a. Jan byl na przyjeciu. .
JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PAST at party
‘John was at the party.’
b. Jan bywal na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties
7 The term “subject” is used here in a purely descriptive, pre-theoretical sense. It will be made more precise in
the course of the argumentation; see especially section 3.2 and section 5.
8 It should be noted that whereas in cases like (3a) (i.e., with definite, animate subjects) a NOM marking is also
possible (resulting in a different interpretation), the GEN marking is totally excluded in (3b); cf. (i-a) and (ib),
respectively. I will return to these issues in more detail in section 3.1.3.
(i) a. Jan nie byl na przyjeciu.
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST at party
‘John was not at the party.’
b. * Jana nie bywalo na przyjeciach.
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST.HABIT at parties
4

‘John used to come to parties.’
(Lit.: ‘John was from time to time at parties.’)
That the aspectual marking of the predicate in (3) seems to matter for the case marking of its
nominal argument is somewhat surprising given the Polish facts. Even though – as we will see
below in section 1 – Polish has both GEN marked “subjects” and the phenomenon called
Genitive of Negation, which is a GEN marking of the internal argument triggered by negation,
neither of them seem to be affected by the aspectual properties of the predicate. On the other
hand, Polish also has Partitive objects which in fact show some affinity for perfective aspect.
However, as we will see below, such Partitive NPs have a special interpretation which seems to
be lacking in the case of the GEN marked NP in (3a).
While examples like (3) above might be somewhat unexpected from a strictly Polish
point of view, there is in fact nothing strange about them once a broader crosslinguistic
perspective is taken into account. That the subject might be differently marked depending on the
aspectual properties of the predicate is found in so-called split-ergative languages like, e.g.,
Hindi. In this language the “special” case marking (here: the ERG(ative)) is triggered by
perfective aspect as opposed to the unmarked (NOM/ABS(olutive)) marking in imperfective
aspect; cf. (5) (Mahajan 1994:318, 323). 9
9 More precisely, the subjects in transitive sentences in Hindi are ERG if the verb is in the simple past tense (cf.
(i)), or in perfective aspect (cf. (ii) and (iii)). Otherwise, they are NOM (cf. (iv) and (v)) (Mohanan 1994:70).
Notice that the marking -aa in (ii) and (iii) indicates perfective aspect (-taa in (iv) is the marking of the
imperfective aspect); tense information is borne by the auxiliary ho ‘be’. Notice also that the perfective
marking, when not accompanied by a tense bearing auxiliary (as in (i)), signals past tense. Observe that verbs
might have different morphological shapes since they agree in number, gender and person with their
nominative subjects (or in the case the subject is not nominative the verb agrees with the nominative object, as
in example (5b) below). See Mohanan (1994) for details. Given the above observations, Mohanan (1994:70)
states the following condition on ERG marking in Hindi: “Assuming that the inflection -aa bears the
morphological feature PERF, the surface condition for ERG case may be identified as PERF on the main
verb.”
(i) raam-ne ravii-ko piiTaa.
Ram-ERG Ravi-ACC beatPERF
‘Ram beat Ravi.’
(ii) raam-ne ravii-ko piiTaa hai.
Ram-ERG Ravi-ACC beatPERF bePRES
‘Ram has beaten Ravi.’
(iii) raam-ne ravii-ko piiTaa hogaa.
Ram-ERG Ravi-ACC beatPERF beFUT
‘Ram must have beaten Ravi.’
(iv) raam ravii-ko piiTataa hai.
RamNOM Ravi-ACC beatIMPERF bePRES
5

(5) a. raam vah kitaabe parhtaa thaa.
RamNOM.M those booksPL.F readIMPERF.SG.M bePAST.SG.M
‘Ram used to read those books.’
b. raam-ne vah kitaabe parii thii.
Ram-ERG.M those booksPL.F readPERF.PL.F bePAST.PL.F
‘Ram had read those books.’
The main goal of the paper is to investigate in more detail the conditions responsible for the GEN
vs. NOM split observed in (3). The main questions to be answered are the following:
Q1: What factors determine the case marking of the nominal arguments in (3)?
Q2: Why does the nominal argument in (3a) occur in GEN and why is such a marking not
possible in cases like (3b)?
Q3: Where does the GEN marking come from?
Q4: Do the sentences in (3a) and (3b) have the same or rather different syntactic structures?
Q5: Is there any deeper connection between the Polish facts in (3) and the facts found in split-
ergative languages (as in (5))?
The paper is organized as follows. I start in section 1 with the question of the origin and nature of
the GEN marking in (3a). The result of this investigation is that the GEN marking in (3a) must be
regarded as resulting from the specific structural properties of the construction in question and
cannot be reduced to some general mechanism of GEN or Partitive marking of nominal
arguments in Polish.
Since, as already pointed out above, the GEN/NOM split in (3) at first sight seems to be
triggered by different aspectual properties of the respective predicates, in section 2, I will look in
more detail at the aspectual differences between byc in (3a) and bywac in (3b). Then, in section 3
I will investigate the question of whether there are some other factors responsible for the
GEN/NOM split in (3) apart from aspect. It will be shown that the GEN vs. NOM marking of the
nominal argument in negated (existential)-locative clauses as in (3) in fact correlates with further
differences concerning the interpretation and structural properties of the nominal argument. In
‘Ram beats Ravi.’
(v) raam ravii-ko piiTegaa.
RamNOM Ravi-ACC beatFUT
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section 4, I will try to answer the question of why there should be a correlation between aspect
and syntactic structure. It will be shown that there is in fact a deeper connection between the
split-ergative structures like the one in (5) and the Polish sentences in (3). Based on these
insights, I will propose in section 5 what the underlying syntactic structures for (3a) and (3b)
should be like. Finally section 6 will conclude the paper.
The main result of the paper is that in Polish negated (existential)-locative constructions,
bywac ‘to beHABIT’ with its NOM NP is an unergative verb, whereas byc ‘to be’ can be both an
unergative (when it has an agentive NOM NP) and an unaccusative (when it has a nonagentive
GEN NP). Thus, unergative and unaccusative frames depend on two crucial factors equally (i.e.,
both of these factors must be present): (i) the aspectual properties of the predicate, and (ii) the
agentive interpretation of the nominal argument. Crucially, for byc ‘to be’ to be an unaccusative,
it must be a perfective and its NP must have a nonagentive interpretation. It should be stressed
that the claim about the link between the perfective aspect and unaccusativity is made only for
BE in Polish. No claim is made in this paper about the unaccusative/unergative status of
(im)perfective intransitive verbs in general. This is a matter for future research.
Given the observation that byc ‘to be’ can be an unaccusative or unergative verb,
depending on the interpretation of the NP, this essentially amounts to the claim that Polish has at
least two verbs for BE (three if one includes bywac ‘to beHABIT ’). 10 In this sense the present paper
can also be seen as a contribution to the discussion of a rather controversial issue, namely the
question of how many different BEs should be distinguished in general and in Slavic languages
in particular. 11
1. On the origin and nature of the GEN marking in negated existential-locative clauses
Given that subjects are normally marked for NOM in Polish, the question that we need to answer
first is where the GEN marking for the nominal argument in negated existential-locative
sentences, as in (3a), comes from. Potentially, the GEN in such cases could be (i) an instance of
‘Ram will beat Ravi.’
10 The present paper does not discuss the canonical copular constructions with BE and an AP or NP predicate
(as, e.g., ‘John is nice’ or ‘John is a student’) in Polish. This is also a question for future research whether the
BE in such constructions is a different BE from the one used in the (existential)-locative constructions
discussed in this paper. But see Blaszczak (2004) and Blaszczak (to appear) for some suggestions.
11 The opinions vary here from the view that there is no lexical verb BE (BE is rather just the spell-out of
various functional heads in the syntax) (cf. Freeze 1992, Kayne 1993, den Dikken 1995, Kondrashova 1996)
to the opinion that there are actually two or more different verbs BE (cf., e.g., Chvany 1975, Franks 1995,
Geist 1999, Pereltsvaig 2001); see Harves (2002:169ff.) for a detailed discussion.
7

Genitive of Negation, (ii) an instance of a GEN marked subject or (iii) an instance of an optional
Genitive Partitive in Polish. I will discuss these alternatives in turn below.
As far as option (i) is concerned, this seems in fact the most plausible one. Why? The
nominal argument is marked for GEN in negated, but not in affirmative existential-locative
sentences (recall (4a)), hence the GEN marking obviously has something to do with the presence
of negation. Given this observation, it would be plausible to assume that the GEN marking in (3a)
is an instance of the case alternation triggered by negation, the well-known “Genitive of
Negation” (GoN). But note that in making such an assumption we would immediately encounter
a problem. GoN in Polish is restricted to just one configuration, namely to the direct object
position of transitive verbs; cf. (6). More importantly, GoN does not apply in Polish to internal
arguments of unaccusative verbs; cf. (7). 12 Note that even the default, nonagreeing form of the
verb does not improve the acceptability of the GEN marked NP; cf. (7b).
(6) a. Ewa czyta �gazety /*gazet.
Ewa reads �newspapersACC /*newspapersGEN
‘Ewa reads/is reading newspapers.’
b. Ewa nie czyta �gazet /*gazety.
Ewa NEG reads �newspapersGEN /*newspapersACC
‘Ewa does not read/ is not reading newspapers.’
(7) a. (W tym szpitalu) �[zaden pacjent] /* [zadnego pacjenta] nie umarl.
(in this hospital) �[no patient]NOM.M.SG /* [no patient]GEN.M.SG NEG died3.SG.M
12 That verbs like umrzec ‘to die’ are indeed unaccusative in Polish can be proved by using the
unaccusativity/unergativity diagnostics employed by Cetnarowska (2000b) for Polish (see also section 3.3. for
more discussion on this point). Firstly, one can form a resultative adjective terminating in -ly from umrzec ‘to
die’, which is a deep unaccusativity diagnostic; cf. (i). Secondly, umrzec is infelicitous in the impersonal -no/to
construction, which is an unergativity diagnostic in Polish (but see section 3.3.); cf. (ii). Thirdly, umrzec
allows for a distributive po-subject (cf. (iii)), which is one of the unaccusativity diagnostics proposed by
Pesetsky (1982) for Russian and used by Cetnarowska (2000b) as a diagnostic for surface unaccusativity in
Polish. See also footnote 48.
(i) umarly ‘dead’ (from umrzec ‘to die’) Cetnarowska (2000b:37)
(ii) * Umarto z glodu. Cetnarowska (2000b:39)
to-diedPERF from hunger
‘They died of hunger.’
(iii) [U]marlo po dziecku z kazdego przedszkola. Cetnarowska (2000b:41)
died3.SG.N.PERF po childLOC from each kindergarten
‘A child died from each kindergarten.’
8

‘(In this hospital) no patient died.’
b. * (W tym szpitalu) [zadnego pacjenta] nie umarlo.
(in this hospital) [no patient]GEN.M.SG NEG died3.SG.N
Now, given that the GEN marked NP in (3a) is most likely the internal argument of the
unaccusative verb BE, and, more importantly, given the fact that internal arguments of
unaccusative verbs (“unaccusative subjects”) cannot be marked for GEN under negation in
Polish, this would mean that the GEN-marking in (3a) cannot be taken to be an instance of the
regular GoN in Polish (but see the discussion in section 5). 13 This leads us directly to option (ii).
In Polish there are verbs (verbs of addition, loss, lack, sufficiency) that mark their internal
arguments with GEN. Such a GEN NP is traditionally called “logical subject” (Polish: podmiot
13 The GEN marking in (3a) also differs from the GoN of the Russian sort. In Russian the GoN has a broader
distribution, i.e., it also applies to internal arguments of unaccusative verbs; cf. (i) (see Harves 2002 for an
overview; but see Babby 2000 for a different view). The choice of a GEN NP versus an ACC or NOM NP in
Russian is often claimed to be determined by the semantics of the given NP (cf. (i-a) vs. (i-b)): “[…] the GNmarked
arguments tend to receive an existential interpretation, while those marked either NOM or ACC
receive either an existential interpretation or a presuppositional/generic reading” (Brown 1996:48; cf. also
Harves 2002 and references cited there; see also Partee and Borschev (in press) for a very interesting recent
discussion on this topic). Other factors determining the use of GoN in Russian are discussed in Timberlake
(1975). One of them is aspect: “Other things being equal, imperfective verbs are more likely to occur with the
genitive of negation than perfective verbs” (ibid., 128). Pereltsvaig (1999) argues that there is no direct
connection between the aspect of the verb and the case of its object. Rather, she observes that there is a
connection between the uses of the aspect and the referentiality of the object NP, which determines the case in
accordance with her Referentiality Constraint (roughly stating that the GEN can only be assigned to
nonreferential NPs). More precisely, she argues, using the examples in (ii-a) and (ii-b), that the GoN is
possible only with the generic/habitual use but not with the progressive use of an imperfective verb. If
Pereltsvaig’s observation is correct, then the GEN in (3a) in Polish cannot possibly be taken to be an instance
of the Russian GoN since in such a case we would actually expect the habitual aspect to trigger the GEN
marking of the subject, contrary to fact. Note, however, that the facts in Russian seem to be more complex.
An anonymous reviewer has pointed out to me the following example in (iii), which seems to directly falsify
Pereltsvaig’s claim: the verb in (iii) has a progressive reading, yet the NP is in the GEN case.
(i) a. Otveta ne prišlo. b. Otvet ne prišel.
answerGEN.M NEG come 3.SG.N.PAST answerNOM.M NEG come3.SG.M.PAST
‘No answer came.’ ‘The answer didn’t come.’
(ii) a. Do svad’by on ne kuril sigaret. (habitual)
before wedding he NEG smokedIMPERF cigarettesGEN
‘Before he got married, he used not to smoke cigarettes.’
b. Kogda ona zašla v komnatu, (progressive)
when she entered into room
on ne kuril sigaretu/*sigarety.
he NEG smokedIMPERF cigaretteACC/*GEN
‘When she entered the room, he was not smoking a cigarette.’
(iii) On ne cital zhurnalov, kogda ona zašla v komnatu.
he NEG readIMPERF magazinesGEN when she entered in room
9

logiczny), as opposed to grammatical subject (see Przepiórkowski 1999:129-30 and the
references cited there). 14 However, in such cases – unlike in the case of existential-locative byc –
the GEN marking is not affected by negation; compare (8a) to (8b).
(8) a. Ubylo wody w rzece.
decrease3.SG.N.PAST waterGEN in river
‘There was less water in the river.’
b. Nie ubylo wody w rzece.
NEG decrease3.SG.N.PAST waterGEN in river
‘There was not less water in the river.’
In addition, unlike what we observe in cases like (3) above, the GEN marking of the nominal
argument in (8) does not seem to be affected by the aspectual properties of the predicate; cf. (9).
Note that the same is true for GoN (cf. (10)): independently of the aspectual properties of the
predicate, and, more importantly, even of the habitual reading in (10c), the direct object of a
negated transitive verb is marked for GEN in Polish. 15, 16
(9) Wody ubylo / ubywalo w rzece.
‘He wasn’t reading magazines when she entered the room.’
14 According to Witkos (1998:252), verbs of appearance, referring to gradual appearance or disappearance of
their arguments, “check the Partitive GEN on their solitary arguments, which from the perspective of the
thematic relations seem to be ‘affected’ Patients.” He calls such verbs “partitive unaccusatives”. Partitive
unaccusatives are – according to Witkos (1998:253) – endowed with the (Partitive) GEN feature in their
lexical specifications. Following Lasnik (1995), he further assumes that the Partitive (GEN) case is assigned
structurally. In other words, the Partitive GEN is treated by Witkos (1998) as a lexically determined case
“which is stru ctural in the sense that it is assigned in some functional projection rather than within the lexical
projection of the verb” (ibid., 257). See also Przepiórkowski (1999:129-131) for discussion on this point and
some evidence in favor of the Partitive GEN being a structural case in Polish.
15 As expected, the grammaticality status of sentences like (7b) does not depend on the aspectual properties of
the predicate. A GEN-marked NP is not accepted in such cases independently of whether the unaccusative
verb is perfective or imperfective; cf. (i).
(i) * (W tym szpitalu) [zadnego pacjenta] nie umarlo / nie umieralo.
(in this hospital) [no patient]GEN.M.SG NEG died3.SG.N.PERF / NEG died3.SG.N.IMPERF
16 Aspect in Polish (like in other Slavic languages) is a morphological category of the verb, i.e., most verbs are
morphologically marked either for being perfective or imperfective (see footnote 4). It should be noted,
however, that the aspectual marking in Polish (Slavic) is a very complex issue. As Franks (1995:282, fn. 16)
points out, “there is no unique marker of perfective or imperfective, nor are the various morphological
indicators of Russian [Polish] aspect uniquely prefixal or suffixal, and some verbs are biaspectual, while
others may lack either one or the other aspectual form.” See Borik (2002) and Mlynarczyk (2004) for a more
recent discussion of these issues in Russian and Polish, respectively.
10

waterGEN decrease3.SG.N.PAST.PERF / decrease3.SG.N.PAST.IMPERF in river
‘There was less water in the river.’ / ‘There was less and less water in the river.’
(10) a. Nie czytalam tej gazety.
NEG read1.SG.F.PAST.IMPERF [this newspaper]GEN
‘I didn’t read this newspaper.’
b. Nie przeczytalam tej gazety.
NEG read1.SG.F.PAST.PERF [this newspaper]GEN
‘I didn’t read (completely) this newspaper.’
c. W mlodosci nie czytywalam gazet.
in youth NEG read1.SG.F.PAST.HABIT newspapersGEN
‘In my youth I didn’t use to read newspapers.’
Thus, given the independence of the GEN marking in cases like (8) or (9) both from negation and
aspect, also option (ii) as an explanation of the origin of the GEN in (3a) does not seem very
convincing. What about the last option?
Unlike the cases of obligatory GEN marking, which are independent of the aspectual
properties of the predicate, as in (9) and (10), there are cases in Polish where the internal
argument of a verb can optionally be marked for Partitive (GEN) instead of ACC. In such cases,
unlike in the case of (3), the Partitive marking in fact seems to be affected by the aspectual
properties of the predicate. 17 In other words, the perfective aspect seems to facilitate the Partitive
(GEN) marking; cf. (11) (cited from Rozwadowska and Willim 2004:133). 18 However, unlike the
GEN marked NP in (3a), the Partitive argument in cases like (11a) might not be accepted by
17 It should be pointed out that Polish, unlike, e.g., Finnish, does not have distinct Partitive morphology. In other
words, what some scholars refer to as a Partitive (GEN) in Polish is morphologically nondistinct from the
“standard” GEN case in Polish. In Russian, in contrast, in the case of inanimate masculine nouns (mass
nouns, but not countable nouns), bes ides the Genitive form the Partitive (Genitive II) form can be used; cf. (i).
(Note that the Partitive form is identical with the Dative form of a given word.)
(i) sáxar-NOM sáxar-u – PARTITIVE sáchar-a-GEN ‘sugar’
18 This also holds for Russian (cf. (i) and (ii)); see Brown and Franks (1995:250). More precisely, Brown and
Franks (1995) assume that the Partitive case is assigned by a null quantifier Q (cf. also Pesetsky 1982). Verbs
which allow for a Partitive complement must have a feature [+Qu] to identify the phonologically null
quantifier of the Partitive phrase. The [+Qu] feature itself must be activated by virtue of being “in the scope of
some kind of quantificational operator, and both negation and perfective aspect can serve this purpose”
(Brown and Franks 1995:251).
(i) On pil caj / *caju. (ii) On vypil caj / caju.
he drankIMPERF teaACC / * teaPART he drankPERF teaACC / teaPART
11

everyone and for those who accept it, it has a special interpretation (i.e., the Partitive argument is
interpreted quantitatively in the sense of “part of” or “a little”, cf., e.g., Saloni and Swidzinski
1985:145-6, Swan 2002:333, or is “quantitatively indeterminate”, cf. Rozwadowska and Willim
2004:141). Such a partitive/quantificational interpretation seems to be absent in the case of (3a).
(11) a. On kupil chleb / chleba.
he buy3.SG.M.PAST.PERF breadACC / breadGEN
‘He (has) bought a/the loaf of bread/the bread. / ‘He (has) bought (some) bread.’
b. On kupowal chleb /* chleba.
he buy3.SG.M.PAST.IMPERF breadACC /* breadGEN
‘He was buying bread/a/the loaf of bread/the bread.’
To sum up the discussion so far, the GEN in negated existential-locative byc sentences seems to
have what might be called “a hermaphroditic nature”. In other words, the GEN in such sentences
appears to be a cross between the regular GoN in Polish and the optional Partitive marking of the
internal argument. 19 Like the former it is triggered by negation (i.e., it is restricted to negated
sentences) and like the latter it is affected by the aspectual properties of the predicate. However,
unlike the regular GoN in Polish, the GEN marking in negated (existential)-locative byc
sentences does not seem to obey the configurational condition on GoN assignment in Polish.
Recall that the rule of GoN in Polish only applies to internal direct arguments of transitive verbs.
Thus, it seems that for an internal argument to be GEN marked under negation in Polish, there
must be another (external) argument present in the structure. 20 The similarity between the
optional Partitive marking, as in (11), and GEN marking in negated (existential)-locative byc
sentences, as in (3a), is also far from being perfect. It has been pointed out that the Partitive
marked arguments have a special quantificational interpretation which seems to be missing in the
case of the GEN marked argument in negated existential-locative byc sentences. What is,
however, common to both cases is the fact that aspect seems to matter for the question of the case
marking of the nominal argument. Given that the optional Partitive marking, as in (11), seems to
‘He was drinking/drunk (the) tea.’ ‘He drank the tea/some tea.’
19 See also Witkos (1998:274-5, fn. 38) for some discussion on the nature of GEN in negated (existential)locative
sentences in Polish. Unlike in the analysis proposed in this paper, Witkos does not make a connection
between the GEN marking of the “subject” NP and the aspectual properties of the predicate in the cases under
discussion.
12

e dependent on the perfective aspect, the question arises as to whether the GEN marking in
negated (existential)-locative byc sentences could also be viewed as dependent on some
perfective properties of the predicate. In order to answer this question, let us look more closely at
what aspectual value the verb BE has in Polish (Slavic).
2. The GEN vs. NOM split and aspectual differences between byc and bywac
Usually, native speakers of a Slavic language do not have problems with establishing the
aspectual value of a given verbal form. Given this, it is very surprising that determining the
aspectual value of the verb BE in Slavic turns out to be nontrivial. In fact, there is no agreement
in the literature on this point: while some authors, as, e.g., Schoorlemmer (1995), take byt’ ‘to be’
in Russian to be clearly imperfective, other researchers, as, e.g., Franks (1995), Junghanns
(1997) 21 or Eriksen (2000), take just the opposite view and claim byt’ to be perfective. There is
also a middle position, which takes byt’ to be either aspectually unspecified or compatible with
both the perfective and imperfective viewpoints; cf., among others, Matushansky (2001) and
Borik (2002). 22
Why is it so difficult to establish the aspectual value of BE in Russian or Polish? The
reason for this could be the fact that this verb seems to have both imperfective and perfective
properties.
On the one hand, like imperfective verbs, it is compatible with durative adverbials like
for an hour 23, 24 (cf. (12)), and can appear in the complement position of phase verbs like begin,
20 This point will play an important role in the analysis proposed in section 5.
21 Actually, Junghanns (1997) speaks only about the future auxiliary budet in Russian as a perfective verb. He
does not, however, refer to byt’ as perfective in general. It should be noted that the idea that the future budet
in Russian is a perfective verb goes back at least as far as Mazon (1914). It is also found in Jakobson (1957),
Pettersson (1972), and Chvany (1975). I thank an anonymous reviewer for having pointed this out to me.
Chvany (1975:87) (see also Pettersson 1972) assumes that bud- is a lexical verb whose syntax resembles that
of the “aspectual” verbs like stat’ ‘to become’ or nacat’ ‘to begin’ in that it takes like the “aspectual” verbs an
imperfective complement (see below). She suggests further (p. 90) that bud- behaves like a perfective verb, its
acquired future meaning being compatible with contexts of perfectives, i.e., perfective verbs in the nonpast
tense are generally interpreted as referring to the future tense. See the discussion below.
22 See also Chvany (1975:88). She points out that “existential byt’ is a verb which is not inherently specified for
aspect and thus may be either perfective or imperfective in a given sentence.”
23 The “adverbial modification” test is, in fact, the most extensively used diagnostic for distinguishing telic
versus atelic predicates. Telic predicates allow for modification by so-called ‘frame’ adverbials (as, e.g., in an
hour), while atelic predicates take duration adverbials (as, e.g., for an hour); cf. (i) (Borik 2002:14). In the
existing literature on aspect, one often encounters the view that the perfectivity/imperfectivity distinction can
more or less be equated with that of telicity/atelicity, respectively. See, however, Borik (2002) (cf. also
Schoorlemmer 1995, Richardson 2003) for a critical discussion of this view. More precisely, Borik
13

cease or continue that otherwise only precede imperfective infinitives; cf. (13) (see Borik
2002:153 for Russian data). Moreover, BE patterns with imperfective verbs in yet another
respect, namely as far as the participle formation is concerned (see Borik 2002:39ff., Piñón
1994:349ff. for detailed discussion). Polish has two types of adverbial participles: the ‘present
participle’ (imieslów przyslówkowy wspólczesny) and the ‘perfect participle’ (imieslów
przyslówkowy uprzedni). Of these two participles, imperfective verbs have only present
participles (-ac forms) (cf. (14a)), while perfective verbs have only perfect participles (-(w/l)szy
forms) (cf. (14b)) (Piñón 1994:350f.). Example (15) shows that only a present participle (cf.
(15a)), but not a perfect participle (cf. (15b)) can be formed from byc, hence byc behaves like an
imperfective verb (see Borik 2002:153 for the corresponding Russian data).
(12) Jan byl w domu przez dwie godziny. .
John was3.SG.M at home for two hours
‘John was at home for two hours.’
(13) a. Jan przestal byc nauczycielem.
JohnNOM stopped BEINF teacherINSTR
‘John stopped being a teacher.’ 25
b. Jan przestal
OK czytac /*przeczytac ksiazki.
JohnNOM stopped OK readINF.IMPERF /*readINF.PERF bookACC.PL
‘John stopped reading books.’
(2002:39ff.) argues that “telicity is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for perfectivity.” See also
footnote 4.
(i) a. Mary drove the car for an hour/*in an hour.
b. Mary ran a mile *for an hour/in an hour.
24 But see Junghanns (1997:253, fn. 2). According to him “perfective verbs are good in sentences that contain
iterative or durative adverbials or in contexts that give rise to a corresponding interpretation;” cf. (i). See also
Borik (2002:141).
(i) Takuju zadacu vsegda rešiš’.
suchACC taskACC always solve2.SG.PRES.PERF
‘Such a task is no problem.’
25 One should be careful with the application and interpretation of such tests. Notice that, unlike in the case of
the predicative byc, as in (13a) above, this test does not work with (existential)-locative byc; cf. (i). See
Blaszczak (2004) and Blaszczak (to appear) for more discussion on this point.
(i) # Jan przestal byc w domu.
John stopped BEINF at home
14

(14) a.
b.
(15) a.
OK czytajacIMPERF *przeczytajacPERF ‘reading’
OK przeczytawszyPERF *czytawszyIMPERF ‘having read’
OK bedac ‘being’
b. *bywszy (intended: ‘having been’)
However, there is also evidence pointing to exactly the opposite conclusion: BE in Polish and
Russian is perfective.
Notice first of all that just as there are contexts which are compatible only with
imperfective verbs (like, e.g., ‘phase’ verbs (recall (13b)) or the future auxiliary, which is
discussed below; cf. (20)), there are environments which are compatible only with perfective
verbs, e.g., the complex conjunction zanim nie ‘lit. before not’ (or poka ne in Russian; cf. Eriksen
2000:29, referring to Ferrell 1953); cf. (16a). As example (16b) shows, byc is compatible with
this context, thus it seems to pattern with perfective verbs in this respect. 26
(16) a. Nigdzie nie wyjde, zanim nie
nowhere NEG go1.SG.PRES.PERF before NEG
OK napisze /*pisze [tego listu].
OK write1.SG.PRES.PERF /*write1.SG.PRES.IMPERF [this letter]GEN
‘I won’t go out before I have written this letter.’
b. Nie zadzwonie do nikogo
NEG phone 1.SG.PRES.PERF to noone
zanim nie bede w domu.
before NEG be1.SG.PRES at home
‘I won’t call anyone before I get home.’
(intended: ‘John stopped being at home.’)
26 But note once again that there seems to be a difference between the (existential-)locative byc and the
predicative byc. Thus, for instance, the predicative byc seems odd in the context of zanim nie; cf. (i). See
Blaszczak (2004) and Blaszczak (to appear) for more discussion on this point.
(i) #Nie przyjme [tej pracy] zanim nie bede dyrektorem.
NEG accept1.SG.PRES.PERF [this job]GEN before NEG be1.SG.PRES directorINSTR
(intended: ‘I won’t accept this job, before I become/have become a director.’)
15

There is also other (in fact more solid) evidence that BE (in Polish and Russian) is perfective. It
has been noted in the literature (see, e.g., Eriksen 2000:3) that the agreement suffixes employed
by what are traditionally called future tense forms of byt’ (‘to be’) in Russian (i.e., the budet-
forms) are actually ordinary present tense suffixes of Russian verbs; cf. (17a). The same holds for
the Polish “future forms” of byc, the bedzie-forms; cf. (17b). 27
(17) a. bud-u (1.SG) piš-u (write-1.SG.PRES) (Russian)
bud-eš’ (2.SG) piš-eš’
bud-et (3.SG) piš-et
bud-em (1.PL) piš -em
bud-ete (2.PL) piš-ete
bud-ut (3.PL) piš-ut
b. bed-e (1.SG) pisz-e (write-1.SG.PRES) (Polish)
bedzi-esz (2.SG) pisz-esz
bedzi-e (3.SG) pisz-e
bedzi-emy (1.PL) pisz-emy
bedzi-ecie (2.PL) pisz-ecie
bed-a (3.PL) pisz-a
Nevertheless, the budet-forms, despite being, morphologically speaking, present tense forms,
have exclusively future time reference; cf. (18a). This is characteristic of perfective verbs in
Slavic; cf. (18b) (see also footnote 21).
(18) a. Ona budet vracom. (Russian)
she NOM be3.SG.PRES doctorINSTR
‘She will be a doctor.’
b. Ona pišet /napišet pis’mo.
she NOM write3.SG.PRES.IMPERF /write3.SG.PRES.PERF letterACC
‘She is writing/will write a letter.’
27 Although the discussion in the main text is based on Russian, the same observations can be made with respect
to Polish as well.
16

In fact, there is diachronic evidence that the budet-forms used to be perfective. In Old Church
Slavonic the verb byti used to have two separate present-tense paradigms: an imperfective
paradigm (→ est’-forms) and a perfective one (→ budet-forms) (see Junghanns 1997, van
Schooneveld 1951; see also Borik 2002:151f.); cf. Table 1.
Table 1: Present-tense paradigms of Old Church Slavonic byti
imperfective perfective
singular plural dual singular plural dual
1 st jesm? jesm? jesve bodo bodem? bodeve
2 nd jesi jeste jesta bodeši bodete bodeta
3 rd jest? sot? jeste bodet? bodot? bodete
Moreover, as pointed out by Franks (1995:233), this view of BE as formally perfective also
explains the structure of the periphrastic future in Russian (Polish); cf. (19): “The future meaning
is derived from the perfective character of the auxiliary, while the verb itself remains
imperfective in aspect” (ibid.).
(19) a. Ona budet pisat’/*napisat’ pis’mo. (Russian)
b.
she NOM be3.SG.PRES write3.SG.PRES.IMPERF/*PERF letterACC
‘She will write a letter.’
OK budet + INFINITIVEIMPERF *budet + INFINITIVEPERF
Another piece of evidence for the perfective status of BE, mentioned by Franks (1995:233), is the
impossibility of the periphrastic future form of BE; cf. (20a). This is due to the fact that byt’ is a
perfective infinitive (cf. (20b)) and – as already mentioned above – in the periphrastic future
forms the auxiliary is followed exclusively by imperfective verbs.
(20) a. *Ona budet byt’ vracom.
she NOM be3.SG.PRES BEINF doctorINSTR
b. *budet + byt’PERF (� cf. (19b) *budet + INFINITIVEPERF)
17

BE is unusual in yet another respect: unlike most other verbs, BE in Polish (also in Russian) has a
separate iterative/habitual paradigm; see Table 2. 28, 29
Table 2: Aspectual forms of BE
ASPECT
ITERATIVE bywac IMPERF?/PERF? byc
FUTURE bedzie bywac 30 bedzie
PRESENT bywa jest
PAST bywal/-a/-o byl/-a/-o
Judging from the diagnostics mentioned above, the iterative bywac is clearly imperfective. Like
imperfective verbs, (i) it can appear in the complement position of a phase verb like begin or
cease (recall (13)) (cf. (21a)), (ii) it allows for a present participle (the -ac form) but disallows a
perfect participle (the -wszy form) (recall (14)) (cf. (21b)), (iii) the present tense form of bywac,
unlike perfective verbs, does not have future time interpretation (recall (18)) (cf. (21c)), and (iv)
it can follow the auxiliary in the periphrastic future forms (cf. (21d)) (recall (19)). 31
(21) a. Jan przestal bywac na przyjeciach.
b.
JohnNOM stopped BEINF.HABIT at parties
‘John stopped coming to parties.’
OK bywajac ‘being from time to time’
*bywawszy (intended: ‘having been from time to time’)
c. Jan bywa na przyjeciach.
28 Normally, it is just an imperfective form that is used to express an iterative meaning of a given verb; cf. (i).
(i) Jan czesto chodzil na przyjecia
John often go3.SG.M.PAST.IMPERF to parties
‘John often went to parties.’
29 In more general studies of verbal aspect (e.g., Comrie 1976), “the habitual” is analyzed as a subcategory of
imperfective aspect. See, however, Brinton (1987) for the suggestion that for English at least, habitual aspect
seems more aligned with perfective aspect than with imperfective aspect. See also Smith (1997:33-35) for a
general discussion.
30 bedzie bywac is a periphrastic future form; see (21d).
31 As far as the first diagnostic is concerned, there seems to be some imcompatibility between the inherently
durative semantics of the adverb and the inherent iterativity/habituality of the predicate; cf. (i).
(i) ? Jan bywal na przyjeciach przez cale dnie.
JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties for whole days
18

JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PRES.HABIT at parties
‘John goes (from time to time) to parties.’
(*‘John will go (from time to time) to parties.’)
d. Jan bedzie bywac na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM be3.SG.PRES BEINF.HABIT at parties
‘John will go (from time to time) to parties.’
To sum up the discussion in this section, while bywac is clearly an imperfective verb, byc seems
to have both imperfective and perfective features and therefore it is difficult to establish its
aspectual value. This conflict could be resolved, as suggested by Franks (1995:283, fn. 24), “with
a proper understanding of the relationship between grammatical aspect and extensional aspect.
Roughly speaking, the imperfective extensional properties of byt’ [‘to be’] derive from its
intensional stativity, despite the fact that it is grammatically perfective.” Unfortunately, Franks is
not very clear on this point, but what this is intended to mean is (most probably) the following:
byt’ in Russian (and for that matter also byc in Polish) has the semantics of a stative verb. That is,
from the point of view of its semantic/lexical aspect (i.e., ‘situational aspect’ or ‘situation type’;
see footnote 4), it refers to situations which hold for a moment or an interval, i.e., which have the
temporal features [Static] and [Durative] (Smith 1997:32). States are types of situations which do
not evolve over time (states simply are). Unlike events, which are dynamic situations requiring a
constant input of energy to maintain them (since they occur in successive stages which are
located at different moments), “states consist of an undifferentiated period, and continue unless
something happens to change them” (Smith 1997:36). Or to phrase it in Comrie’s words:
dynamic situations but not states have to continually be “subject to a new input of energy” to
maintain them (Comrie 1976:49). Moreover, unlike events, which are discrete, bounded entities,
states are cumulative and unbounded: “They have a uniform part structure, as shown by the fact
that the sub-interval property holds of them,” which means that when a state holds for an interval
it holds for every sub-interval of that interval (Smith 1997:36, 32). This stative semantics is
naturally compatible with the imperfective viewpoint since the imperfective viewpoint presents
part of a situation, with no information about its endpoint. 32 In other words, when an
Lit: ‘John used to be at parties for days.’
32 Smith (1997:36) states that “the global class of stative sentences includes all sentences with the imperfective
viewpoint.”
19

imperfective viewpoint is taken, the situation (or eventuality, to use Bach’s 1981 terminology) is
understood to hold throughout and potentially to extend beyond the Topic Time (i.e., a time for
which the speaker wishes to make an assertion; recall footnote 4), that is, the situation is
presented as unbounded. Now, given that byt’ in Russian and byc in Polish are stative verbs and
given that the stative semantics is naturally compatible with the imperfective viewpoint, it
follows that byt’ and byc can naturally occur in “imperfective environments”, which gives rise to
the impression that they are imperfective verbs. This impression notwithstanding, they are – as
far as their grammatical/morphological aspect is concerned – perfective verbs. It is this
“perfective status” that determines their morphosyntactic behavior (recall the discussion above
about the structure of the periphrastic future in Russian/Polish). Later, in section 5, it will be
argued that it is precisely this “grammatical perfective aspect” which is relevant to the GEN-
marking in negated (existential)-locative sentences.
Assuming that the above observations are correct, the aspectual difference between byc
and bywac can be described as follows: bywac has properties of an imperfective verb as far as
both its lexical semantic properties (situation type aspect 33 ) and grammatical behavior
(grammatical/morphological aspect) are concerned. In contrast, byc has semantic properties
characteristic of an imperfective verb, but from the grammatical/morphological point of view it
behaves as a perfective verb. 34
3. Further factors responsible for the GEN/NOM split in (3)
In the previous section, the first factor responsible for the GEN/NOM split in (3) has been
identified, namely, the aspectual properties of the predicate: the GEN marking of the “subject”
appears to be dependent on the perfective aspect of the predicate (in the strictly
grammatical/morphological sense), while the NOM marking of the subject correlates with the
clearly imperfective aspect (in terms of habituality/iterativity; cf. also footnote 29). The question
33 Recall that bywac is habitual (or iterative) (Comrie 1976:27, fn. 1 remarks that “in Slavonic linguistics,
habitual forms are often referred to by the term ‘iterative’ (Russian mnogokratnyj), e.g. Russian pivat’,
znavat’, the habitual counterparts of pit’ ‘drink’, znat’ ‘know’”). Habitual sentences are semantically stative.
To see this, one should consider their truth conditions. As Smith (1997:34) points out, when “investigating the
truth of a habitual, one asks whether there is a pattern which holds over an interval, not whether a particular
situation occurred. The temporal schema holds for the interval, as is typical of statives.”
34 If this conclusion is correct, the situation in Polish described above would, in fact, in some sense resemble the
situation found with stative verbs in Finnish. Kiparsky (1998:283) points out that verbs like omistaa ‘to own’
in Finnish behave – as far as their morphosyntactic properties (especially their case syntax) are concerned – as
telic verbs, even though semantically they remain atelic verbs.
20

of why there should be a correlation between the case marking of the nominal argument and the
aspectual properties of the predicate is the subject of the discussion in section 4. Before we go to
this issue, let us first further examine the properties of the constructions with bywac (3b) and
those with byc (3a) in order to identify further factors (in addition to the already identified
aspectual differences) responsible for the GEN/NOM split.
3.1 The interpretation of the “subject”
3.1.1 Unmarked word orders
One obvious difference between the construction with bywac (3b) and that with byc (3a) is the
fact that their nominal arguments are differently case marked. As will be shown below, this
difference in the case marking is by no means just a purely formal distinction but has clear
interpretive effects.
The subject of bywac is always marked for NOM regardless of the presence of negation
in the clause; cf. (22a/b) vs. (22c). Moreover, the unmarked word order in clauses with bywac is
S-V-PP(AP/NP). In other words, the subject tends to be preverbal in both affirmative and
negative variants; cf. (22a) and (22b). 35
(22) a. Jan bywal na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties
‘John used to come to parties.’
(Lit.: ‘John was from time to time at parties.’)
S NOM V PP
b. Jan nie bywal na przyjeciach. (= (3b))
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties
‘John didn’t use to come to parties.’
(Lit.: ‘John was not at parties.’)
S NOM NEG V PP
35 Other word orders, though not ungrammatical, are certainly marked and need special discourse contexts to
make them felicitous; cf. (i).
(i) Na przyjeciach bywal Jan (a nie Piotr).
at parties BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT JohnNOM (and not PeterNOM)
Lit.: ‘At the parties John used to be and not Peter.’ (‘It was John who used to come to the parties and not
Peter.’)
21

c. * Jana nie bywalo na przyjeciach.
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST.HABIT at parties
Unlike the subject of bywac, the “subject” in existential-locative clauses with byc has a different
case marking depending on the presence of negation. In an affirmative clause it is marked for
NOM, and in the negated variant thereof it is marked for GEN; cf. (23a) versus (23b). Moreover,
the subject in an affirmative existential-locative clause tends to occupy a postverbal position (cf.
(23a)), whereas the subject in a negated existential-locative clause usually shows more freedom
of word order, i.e., it does not necessarily need to occupy a postverbal position (cf. (23b) vs.
(23c)); see Borschev and Partee (2001), Harves (2002), among others, for a similar observation
regarding the Russian facts.
(23) a. Na stole byla ksiazka.
on table BE3.SG.F.PAST bookNOM.SG.F
‘There was a book on the table.’
PP V S NOM
b. Na stole nie bylo ksiazki.
on table NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST bookGEN.SG.F
‘There was no book on the table.’
PP NEG V S GEN
c. Ksiazki nie bylo na stole.
3.1.2 (Non)Agentivity
bookGEN .SG.F NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST on table
Lit. ‘There was not the/a book on the table.’
(‘The book was not on the table.’)
S GEN NEG V PP
Not only does the position of the nominal argument differ but there is also a clear difference in
the interpretation of the NOM vs. the GEN NP. The first thing to observe is that the subject of
22

ywac has to be [+animate] (preferably [+human]), both in the affirmative and negative variants;
cf. the well-formed cases in (22) versus the unacceptable examples in (24). 36
(24) a. * Na stole (nie) bywa banan.
on table (NEG) BE3.SG.PRES.HABIT bananaNOM.SG
b. * Banan (nie) bywa na stole.
bananaNOM.SG (NEG) BE3.SG.PRES.HABIT on table
For byc sentences the situation is more complicated. In an affirmative clause both [+animate] and
[-animate] “subjects” are possible; cf. (25). The same holds of the negated variants with a GEN
“subject”; cf. (26).
(25) a. W ogrodzie jest dziecko.
in garden BE3.SG.PRES child NOM.SG
Lit.: ‘In the garden there is a child.’ (‘There is a child in the garden.’)
b. Na stole jest banan.
on table BE3.SG.PRES bananaNOM.SG
Lit.: ‘On the table there is a banana.’ (‘There is a banana on the table.’)
(26) a. W ogrodzie nie ma [zadnego dziecka]. 37
in garden NEG have3.SG.PRES [no child]GEN.SG
Lit.: ‘In the garden there is no child.’ (‘There is no child in the garden.’)
36 To express the intended meaning another construction has to be used, as shown in (i). bywac is used here in
the meaning of ‘to happen, to occur’ and is subcategorized for a sentential (situational) complement in the
form of a ze (that)-clause. Note that the acceptability of examples with bywac with inanimate subjects seems
to improve as long as such subjects can be interpreted “situationally”; e.g., in (ii) klótnie ‘quarrels’ can be
used to refer to ‘quarrelling’ situations, i.e., situations in which the neighbors were having quarrels. This issue
has to await further research.
(i) Bywa, ze na stole jest banan.
happens that on table BE3.SG.PRES bananaNOM.SG
‘It happens that there is a banana on the table.’
(ii) ? U sasiadów bywaja klótnie.
at neighbors BE3.PL.PRES.HABIT quarrelNOM.PL
Lit.: ‘There are from time to time quarrels at the neighbors’ place.’ (‘It happens that the neighbors have
quarrels.’)
37 Note that the negated form of the existential-locative byc in the present tense is actually nie ma, lit.: ‘not has’.
The importance of this fact will become clear in the discussion in section 5.
23

. Na stole nie ma (zadnego) banana.
on table NEG have3.SG.PRES [(no) banana]GEN.SG
Lit.: ‘On the table there is no banana.’ (‘There is no banana on the table.’)
Apart from the clear preference for animate (or [+human]) subjects in the case of bywac as
opposed to the absence of similar preferences in the case of (existential)-locative byc, there is a
clear difference in the interpretation of NOM vs. GEN nominal arguments. Whereas a NOM
subject can be understood as an agent, having control over a given situation, a GEN “subject” can
be characterized by the absence of agentivity or volition/controllability (see Borschev and Partee
2001 and Harves 2002, referring to Paduceva 1992, for a suggestion along similar lines).
Evidence for this comes from the observation that only a NOM subject is compatible with agent-
oriented intentional adverbs (cf. Grimshaw 1990:51, who uses a similar test to detect the presence
of a “true agent subject” in event nominals). Compare examples (27a/a’) and (28a) versus (27b).
An agent-oriented intentional adverb like chetnie ‘willingly’ is perfectly fine with the NOM
marked subject in bywac sentences (both in the affirmative and negated variants); cf. (27a/a’).
The same holds for the NOM subject in byc sentences (again in both the affirmative and negated
variants; see section 3.1.3 for more discussion on this point); cf. (28a/a’). In contrast, the use of
an agent-oriented intentional adverb with a GEN “subject” leads to ungrammaticality; cf. (28b). 38
It is interesting to note that the interpretation of a NOM marked subject in an affirmative
(existential)-locative sentence depends on its position in the clause: in postverbal position, the
subject is interpreted (under normal circumstances) “nonagentively”; 39 in preverbal position, on
the other hand, as already pointed out above, the subject might acquire properties of a
38 It should be stressed that in negated (existential)-locative sentences, the interpretation of the GEN “subject”
does not depend on its position in the clause. In other words, both in preverbal and postverbal position, the
interpretation of the subject is the same (in terms of nonagentivity, nonvolitionality, noncontrollability); what,
however, presumably changes (in relation to word order) is the interpretation of the subject in terms of
definiteness or discourse (information structural) related properties; see Borschev and Partee (2001) for a
recent discussion of these issues.
39 Observe that this finding squares nicely with the observation by Kirsner (1973), as reported by Levin and
Rappaport Hovav (1995:152), that the postverbal position of the subject correlates with the lack of an
agentive interpretation, more precisely, “there-insertion sentences never receive an agentive interpretation.
[....] There remained three men in the room does not permit the agentive interpretation available in Three men
remained in the room – that is, the interpretation in which the men deliberately chose to stay in the room”
(ibid., p. 152).
24

prototypical subject (agentivity, volition, controllability). Compare the contrast between (29a)
and (29b). 40
(27) subject(agent)-oriented intentional adverbs
a. Jan chetnie bywal na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM willingly wasHABIT at parties
Lit.: ‘John was willingly at parties.’ (‘John willingly went from time to time to
parties.’)
a.’ Jan nie bywal chetnie na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM NEG wasHABIT willingly at parties
Lit.: ‘John was not willingly at parties.’ (‘John did not go willingly to parties.’)
b. * Jana nie bylo chetnie w pracy.
JohnGEN NEG was willingly at work
(28) a. Jan chetnie byl w domu.
JohnNOM willingly was at home
‘John was willingly at home.’
a.’ Jan nie byl chetnie w domu.
JohnNOM NEG was willingly at home
‘John wasn’t willingly at home.’
b. ?? W domu chetnie byl Jan.
at home willingly was JohnNOM
The contrast detected in this section in the interpretation between GEN and NOM “subjects” in
terms of agentivity is further supported by facts discussed below.
3.1.3 The choice between a NOM vs. GEN “subject” in negated locative byc clauses
40 In order to make example (28b) grammatical, a contrastive context has to be used; cf. (i).
(i) W domu chetnie byl Jan, a nie Piotr.
at home willingly was JohnNOM and not PeterNOM
Lit.: ‘At home willingly John was and not Peter.’ (‘It was John who was willingly at home and not Peter.’)
25

In the beginning of the paper (recall footnote 8), while discussing the puzzling facts about the
Polish examples in (3), I pointed out that while the subject of bywac cannot be marked for GEN,
the subject of byc may sometimes (but not always, see below) appear in NOM; cf. (29) vs. (30):
(29) a. Jan nie bywal na przyjeciach.
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST.HABIT at parties
‘John didn’t use to come to parties.’
(Lit.: ‘John was not from time to time at parties.’)
b. * Jana nie bywalo na przyjeciach.
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST.HABIT at parties
(30) a. Jan nie byl na przyjeciu.
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST at party
‘John was not at the party.’
b. Jana nie bylo na przyjeciu.
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST at party
‘John was not at the party.’ (Lit.: ‘There was no John at the party.’)
Not every subject may appear in NOM in negated locative byc-clauses. On the contrary, the
NOM-marked subjects in negated locative byc-clauses are subject to the following restriction:
they must obligatorily be definite, preferably [+human]; in the case of indefinite, [-human]
“subjects” only GEN is possible, as the following contrast in (31) vs. (32) shows (Dziwirek
1994:152; see also Klebanowska 1974).
(31) a. Jana nie bylo w sklepie. (Dziwirek 1994:152)
JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST in store
‘John wasn’t in the store.’
(Lit.: ‘There was not John in the store.’)
b. Jan nie byl w sklepie.
JohnNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST in store
‘John wasn’t in the store.’
26

(32) a. Sera nie bylo w sklepie. (Dziwirek 1994:152)
cheeseGEN NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST in store
‘There was no cheese in the store.’
b. * Ser nie byl w sklepie.
cheeseNOM NEG BE3.SG.M.PAST in store
Given that [+definite]/[+human] NPs might in fact appear in GEN or in NOM in negated
(existential-)locative byc-clauses, the question arises as to what determines the use of the GEN or
the NOM case for such nominal arguments. According to Dziwirek (1994:173-4), “the choice
between nominative and genitive […] is related to volitionality, as shown in [(33a)] and [(33b)].
In [(33b)] the genitive nominal is incompatible with the adverb celowo ‘on purpose’. The
nominative implies willfull absence (hence is impossible with non-humans), while genitive does
not.”
(33) a. Celowo nie bylem na przyjeciu u Ewy.
on purpose NEG BE1.SG.M.PAST at party at Eve
‘I wasn’t at Eve’s party on purpose.’
b. * Celowo nie bylo mnie na przyjeciu u Ewy.
on purpose NEG BE3.SG.N.PAST meGEN at party at Eve
Thus, the NOM subject is quasi-agentive, having control over the situation; the GEN “subject” is
nonagentive, implying the absence of control. This is further confirmed by the “polite” (GEN) vs.
“less polite” (NOM) use of the “subject” (see Borschev and Partee 2001:37, referring to Chvany
1975:158); cf. (34). Example (34a) has the interpretation that the reason for the speaker’s absence
at the concert is beyond his or her control (some external force is responsible for it); this
somehow implies that if it was not for this “external force”, the speaker might perfectly well
come to the concert. (34b), in contrast, implies that the speaker’s absence at the concert is
somehow intended by him or her; in other words, he or she could in principle come to the
concert, but has decided not to.
(34) a. Nie bedzie mnie na twoim koncercie. (nonagentive)
NEG BE3.SG.N.FUT meGEN at your concert
27

‘I will not be at your concert.’
b. (Ja) nie bede na twoim koncercie. (agentive)
INOM NEG BE1.SG.FUT at your concert
‘I will not be at your concert.’
3.1.4 Further evidence for (non)agentivity
The discussion in the previous sections has shown that while GEN “subjects” cannot be
interpreted as agents, NOM subject allows for such an interpretation. This claim is additionally
supported by two other tests, which are discussed below, namely (i) occurrence as imperatives
and (ii) occurrence as ‘pofectives’.
The first test is illustrated in (35) below. 41 It shows that it is possible, though not very
common, to use bywac and byc in imperative forms as long as the subject is understood as an
agent, i.e., as someone who is able to perform what is required of him or her. Thus, for instance,
one cannot use a sentence like Badz na stole ‘Be on the table’, if the addressee of the imperative
is an inanimate object, e.g., a newspaper (unless, of course, the newspaper is
anthropomorphized). Particularly interesting are the examples (35d) and (35e). The regular
imperative form in (35d), in which the unexpressed subject would correspond to the NOM form
(cf. TyNOM nie badz ‘lit.: You2.SG.NOM not be’ (‘Don’t be’)) has an agentive interpretation: the
addressee has control over his being or not being at home, or, to put it differently, he or she can
volitionally cause the required state (of being or not being at home). In contrast, (35e), where the
hortatory particle niech is used (cf. Swan 2002:242), cannot be understood agentively. Rather,
(35e) is understood as a (somewhat funny) wish that it might so happen (‘let it be so’) that the
addressee will not be at home. Notice that if the “addressee” is a third person, as in (35f), this is a
perfectly licit sentence.
(35) a. Bywaj czesciej u nas!
BE2.SG.IMP.HABIT more often at us
Lit.: ‘Be more often at our house!’ (≈ ‘Come to visit us more often!’)
b. Nie bywaj tak czesto w nocnych lokalach!
41 Actually, this test has been cited by Lakoff (1966) as one of the tests for isolating stative verbs. Levin and
Rappaport Hovav (1995:170f.) point out, however, that the tests cited by Lakoff, rather than isolating stative
verbs, “turn out to isolate agentive from nonagentive verbs.”
28

NEG BE2.SG.IMP.HABIT as often in nightspots
Lit.: ‘Don’t be so often at nightspots!’ (≈ Don’t spend so much time at
nightspots!’)
c. Badz jutro koniecznie w domu
BE2.SG.IMP tomorrow necessarily at home
(mamy waznych gosci)!
have1.PL.PRES [important guests]ACC
‘Whatever happens tomorrow be at home (we are having important guests)!’
d. Prosze cie, wieczorem nie badz w domu,
beg1.SG.PRES youACC eveningINSTR NEG BE2.SG.IMP at home
bo oczekuje waznego goscia!
because expect1.SG.PRES [important guest]GEN
‘I beg you, don’t be at home tomorrow in the evening because I am expecting an
important guest!’
e. ? Niech nie bedzie cie jutro w domu!
let NEG BE3.SG.FUT youGEN tomorrow at home
‘Let it be so/let is so happen that you won’t be at home tomorrow!’
f. Niech Jana nie bedzie jutro w domu!
let JohnGEN NEG BE3.SG.FUT tomorrow at home
‘Let it be so that John won’t be at home tomorrow!’
The second test, i.e., the occurrence in ‘pofective’ forms, is based on the analysis proposed by
Piñón (1994). 42 According to Piñón (1994), pofective po- attaches to imperfective verbs denoting
42 The term ‘pofective’ refers to (perfective) forms derived from corresponding imperfective predicates with the
prefix po-, which is a marker of temporal delimination (the intuition being that pofective verbs describe
situations that last only a relatively short time (Piñón 1994:341f.; see also Schoorlemmer 1995); cf. (i), where
the imperfective form in (i-a) and the perfective form in (i-b) are traditionally considered to constitute an
aspectual pair, and (i-c) is the pofective form based on the imperfective.
(i) a. Jan czytal wczoraj ksiazke.
John readIMPERF yesterday bookACC
‘John read (was reading) the book yesterday.’
b. Jan przeczytal wczoraj ksiazke.
John readPERF yesterday bookACC
‘John read the book yesterday.’
c. Jan poczytal wczoraj ksiazke.
John readPOFEC yesterday bookACC
29

processes and entailing an agent participant. However, there are cases in which pofective forms
are derived from imperfective verbs denoting only states, as, e.g., siedziec ‘sit’ → posiedziec ‘sit
for a while’; lezec ‘lie’ → polezec ‘lie for a while’; byc ‘be’ → pobyc ‘be for a while’. 43 To
account for this fact, Piñón (1994:347) assumes that some stative verbs like siedziec, lezec or byc
are thus ambiguous between process and stative readings, depending on whether the subject
argument is animate or not; cf. (36). 44 On their process reading such verbs entail an agent
participant that controls the initiation and termination of a process denoted by the given verb,
thus complying with the condition on pofective formation in (37) (Piñón 1994:348).
(36) a. # Moja ksiazka pobyla wczoraj u Irenki.
my bookNOM was yesterday at Irenka
‘My book was at Irenka’s place for a while yesterday.’
b. Bozenka pobyla wczoraj u Irenki.
BozenkaNOM was yesterday at Irenka
‘Bozenka was at Irenka’s place for a while yesterday.
(37) Pofective po- applies to any imperfective verb that
a. denotes a property of processes
b. entails an agent participant
Now, given that it is possible to form a pofective form from byc, we have evidence that byc can
in fact have an agentively interpreted nominal argument. Importantly, though, such an agentive
interpretation is totally incompatible with a GEN marked nominal argument (cf. (38)), which
shows once again that the GEN is in a sense a marker of nonagentivity (see the discussion
above).
‘John read the book (for a while) yesterday.’
43 This does not mean, however, that pofective forms can be derived from any stative verb (stative verbs like,
e.g., miec ‘have’, lubic ‘like’ or znac ‘know’ do not have pofective forms; cf. Piñón 1994:347).
44 See also Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995:126ff.), who distinguish three different meanings for verbs of
spatial configuration, such as sit, stand, lie: (i) the maintain position sense, which is an agentive noncausative
meaning that describes the maintenance of a particular spatial configuration by an animate being, as in Yvonne
stood alone (in the hallway) for six hours; (ii) the assume position sense, which is an agentive noncausative
meaning that describes an animate being coming to be in a particular position under his or her own control, as
in Yvonne stood (up); and (iii) the simple position meaning, which is a nonagentive noncausative meaning in
30

(38) a. Bozenki nie bylo wczoraj u Irenki.
BozenkaGEN NEG was3.N yesterday at Irenka
‘Bozenka was not at Irenka’s place yesterday.’
b. * Bozenki nie pobylo wczoraj u Irenki.
3.2 Subject properties
BozenkaGEN NEG was3.N yesterday at Irenka
(intended: ‘Bozenka was not at Irenka’s place for a while yesterday.’)
The conclusion we arrived at in the last section was that NOM and GEN “subjects” differ in
terms of agentivity: while the GEN “subjects” in negated existential-locative byc sentences never
show agentive properties, the NOM subjects in (negated and affirmative) bywac and byc
sentences may very well have such properties. We also noticed that the postverbal NOM subject
NP in affirmative existential-locative byc sentences patterns with the GEN subjects in the respect
that it also seems to be devoid of an agentive interpretation (recall example (28b)). In this section
I investigate the question of whether the presence or absence of agentive properties correlates
with the presence or absence of other typical subject properties. In other words, the question is
whether there is a correlation between (non)agentivity and (non)subjecthood of a given nominal
argument in the examples under discussion.
Dziwirek (1994) argues that the grammar of Polish must recognize (three) different
concepts of subject, which can be tested by using different diagnostics. 45 The broadest notion of
subject is that of a nominal heading a 1-arc. This construct does not make reference to a
particular stratum and includes all nominals which head a 1-arc (i.e., bear the grammatical
relation of subject in some stratum). Nominals heading a 1-arc can, among other things (see
Dziwirek 1994:31ff for details), (i) antecede reflexives and (ii) control the fixed expression po
pijanemu ‘while drunk’.
The application of these tests to the nominal arguments of byc and bywac is illustrated in
(39) and (40) below.
which the verb is typically predicated of inanimates (or animates “viewed” as inanimates) and describes the
location of the entity it is predicated of, as in The papers lay on the desk.
45 Dziwirek works in the framework of Relational Grammar, which treats grammatical relations as the
primitives of lexical theory. A clause is represented as a relational network composed of arcs headed by
elements which bear grammatical relations to the clause in a sequence of one or more strata.
31

(i) Antecedents for reflexives
(39) a. Jani bywal u swoichi / *jego i rodziców.
JohnNOM was3.SG.M.HABIT at REFL / *his parents
‘John was from time to time at his parents home.’
b. Jani byl w swoimi / *jegoi pokoju.
JohnNOM was3.SG.M in REFL / *his room
‘John was in his room.’
c. ? W swoim i pokoju byl Jani.
in REFL room was3.SG.M JohnNOM
Lit.: ‘In his room (there) was John.’
but: c.’ * W jegoi pokoju byl Jani.
in his room was3.SG.M JohnNOM
d. Janai nie bylo w jego i / *swoimi pokoju.
JohnGEN NEG was3.SG.N in his / *REFL room
‘John wasn’t in his room.’
(ii) Control of po pijanemu
(40) a. Jan (nie) bywal w domu [po pijanemu].
JohnNOM was3.SG.M.HABIT at home [while drunk]
‘Johni used (didn’t use) to be at home while he i was drunk.’
b. Jan (nie) byl w domu [po pijanemu].
JohnNOM was3.SG.M at home [while drunk]
‘Johni was (was not) at home while hei was drunk.’
c. ? W domu byl Jan [po pijanemu].
at home was3.SG.M JohnNOM [while drunk]
d. * Jana nie bylo w domu [po pijanemu].
JohnGEN NEG was3.SG.N at home [while drunk]
‘Johni wasn’t at home while he i was drunk.’
The two tests show that GEN NPs do not bear the grammatical relation of subject (cf. (39d) and
(40d)). Rather, given their case marking and “thematic properties” (lack of agentivity, see the
32

discussion above; a “theme-like” interpretation), these NPs seem to behave as (direct) objects
(see Dziwirek 1994:154 for a suggestion along these lines). Thus, just like (direct) objects, they
cannot serve as the antecedent of a reflexive pronoun (cf. (41a) and (39d)), nor can they control
the fixed expression po pijanemu ‘while drunk’ (cf. (41b) and (40d)).
(41) a. Zapytalam Ewei o jeji / *swojai mame.
asked1.SG.F EveACC about her / *REFL mother
‘I asked Eve about her mother.’ (Dziwirek 1994:33)
b. Jan pobil Ewe [po pijanemu].
JohnNOM beat-up3.SG.M EveACC [while drunk]
OK ‘John beat up Eve while he was drunk.’
*‘John beat up Eve while she was drunk.’ (Dziwirek 1994:36)
In contrast, the preverbal NOM NPs clearly have subject properties; cf. (39a/b) and (40a/b). As
far as the postverbal NOM NP is concerned, the tested sentences in (39c) and (40c) are – in
comparison with the perfectly well-formed examples with the preverbal NP subject in (39a/b) and
(40a/b) – rather marked. This latter fact could be taken to mean that the postverbal NOM
nominals in the cases at hand – despite their NOM marking and agreement with the finite verb,
which are classified by Dziwirek as tests for final 1-hood 46 – are too low in the surface structure
to serve as antecedent or controller for certain elements. In other words, in order to establish the
right binding or control configuration some additional “repair” strategy is required, hence the
markedness of (39c) and (40c).
In sum, there seems in fact to be a correlation between agentivity and subjecthood. Those
nominals that allow for an agentive interpretation (i.e., first of all, nominal arguments of bywac,
and also, in certain cases – restricted to [+human] referents and preverbal position – nominal
arguments of byc) clearly show subject properties. In contrast, those nominal arguments that do
not allow for an agentive interpretation either have no subject properties at all (as in the case of
GEN marked NPs in negated existential-locative byc clauses) or have a marked subject status (as
in the case of postverbal NOM NPs in affirmative existential-locative byc clauses). Given these
correlations, we would expect existential-locative constructions to display an
ergative/unaccusative syntax, and constructions with bywac (and also with locative byc with a
33

preverbal NOM subject, for that matter) to have an unergative syntax 47 (cf. also Pereltsvaig 2001,
Harves 2002; see also Borschev and Partee 2001 for discussion). In the next section I will
provide some evidence showing that the above expectation might in fact be correct.
3.3 (Un)Ergativity: Some diagnostics
Usually BE is taken to be an unaccusative verb par excellence (cf. Babyonyshev 1996, Brown
1996; see also Moro 1997). Cetnarowska (2000a,b) argues that there is a convenient deep
unaccusativity diagnostic in Polish, namely the existence of resultative adjectives terminating in
-ly. 48 She notices furthermore that there is a correlation between the occurrence of resultative
adjectives terminating in -ly and the nonoccurrence of related verbs in the impersonal -no/-to
constructions. 49 These latter constructions are taken to be a diagnostic for unergativity.
Resultative adjectives can be derived from telic verbs only; some examples are given in (42). The
only exceptions, which are related to stative verbs, are to a large extent lexicalized; cf. (43)
(Cetnarowska 2000a:87).
(42) resultative adjectives
46 This concept includes only those nominals that bear the grammatical relation of subject in a final stratum.
47 The systematic distinction between two classes of intransitive verbs, the unaccusative verbs and the
unergative verbs, each associated with a different syntactic configuration, goes back to Perlmutter’s (1978)
famous “Unaccusative Hypothesis,” which was formulated within the context of Relational Grammar and
later adopted by Burzio (1981, 1986) within the framework of Government and Binding (GB) Theory, though
it was probably Hall (1965) who first made a similar suggestion (see Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995:289,
fn. 1). The standard GB assumption was that an unergative verb takes a theta-marked deep-structure subject
and no object, and an unaccusative (or in Burzio’s terms: an ergative) verb takes a theta-marked deepstructure
object and no subject. Or alternatively, formulated in argument structure terms, an unergative verb
has an external argument but no direct internal argument, whereas an unaccusative verb has a direct internal
argument but no external argument. See, among others, Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) and Alexiadou,
Anagnostopoulou, and Everaert (2004) for an overview and general discussion of unaccusativity.
48 For the distinction between surface and deep unaccusativity, see Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995). In a
nutshell, diagnostics of deep unaccusativity (e.g., auxiliary selection in Dutch or Italian, resultative
constructions in English) depend on semantic properties of predicates, i.e., apply regardless of the surface
position of the argument of an intransitive verb. In contrast, surface unaccusativity is sensitive to the surface
position of the argument, i.e., the diagnostics of surface unaccusativity (e.g., locative inversion or thereinsertion
in English) apply only if the single argument of an intransitive verb remains in the postverbal
position. Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) regard only phenomena involving deep unaccusativity as true
unaccusativity diagnostics.
49 Which suffix (i.e., -no or -to) is chosen depends on the phonological shape of a given verb stem (see, e.g.,
Grzegorczykowa 1998). -no/-to forms are referred to by Dziwirek (1994:221) as “pseudo-participial verbal
forms”. Though historically they used to be the nominal neuter forms of the passive participle, they cannot be
regarded as the impersonal passive synchronically, as evidenced, e.g., by the fact that they do not allow
modification by the agentive adjunct by-phrase; cf. (44a/b) (see Dziwirek 1994:221ff., Cetnarowska
2000a:83; see also Lavine 2000 for an extensive discussion).
34

a. przybyly ‘arrived’
b. upadly ‘fallen’
c. zmarly ‘dead’
(43) a. rosly ‘tall’ (cf. rosnac ‘to grow’)
b. byly ‘former’ (from byc ‘to exist’)
c. bywaly (w swiecie) ‘experienced, knowledgeable’ (cf. bywac ‘to frequent’)
Since the forms in (44) have idiomatic meanings, this test cannot be used to decide on the
difference between byc and bywac. The second test, i.e., the -no/-to test, offers a better result. As
already pointed out, -no/-to constructions are taken to be a diagnostic for unergativity. They can
be built from transitive verbs (44a) and from unergative verbs (44b), but not from unaccusative
verbs (44c). 50 Applying this test to byc and bywac, we observe that it works in the case of bywac
(cf. (45b)), but not in the case of byc (cf. (45a)).
(44) impersonal -no/-to constructions (Cetnarowska 2000a:83, 90)
a. transitive
Zbudowano szpital (*przez zolnierzy).
no-built hospitalACC (*by soldiers)
‘They built a hospital.’
b. unergative
Zatanczono (*przez Jana).
no-danced (*by John)
‘They danced.’
c. unaccusative
* Umarto z glodu.
to-diedPERF from hunger
‘They died of hunger.’
50 Rozwadowska (1992) independently argues that the -no/-to construction selects predicates with sentient and
volitional subjects, i.e., with prototypical agentive arguments. This restriction is in fact similar to that imposed
on the impersonal passives in Dutch/German; see Wurmbrandt (2004:994, fn. 2) for an interesting discussion.
35

(45) a. * Byto na przyjeciu.
to-was at party
b. � Bywano na przyjeciach.
no-wasHABIT at parties
‘They were at parties./They used to be at parties.’
This would mean that bywac indeed has properties of an unergative verb. Note, however, that
there is something special about the iterative/habitual interpretation; cf. (46) vs. (44c). Example
(46) actually shows that if an unaccusative verb has an iterative or a habitual reading, it is in fact
possible to build a -no/-to form from it. This seems to indicate that on the habitual/iterative
interpretation, an unaccusative verb no longer behaves as “unaccusative”. 51 Why this should be
the case is not clear to me at this point. More research is needed here to offer some insightful
explanation.
(46) Podczas wojny umierano z glodu. (Cetnarowska 2000a:90)
BUT:
during war no-diedIMPERF from hunger
‘People would die from hunger during the war.’
(44c) * Umarto z glodu.
to-diedPERF from hunger
‘They died of hunger.’
Before concluding this section, let me briefly mention another potential test for unaccusativity
which is based on Grimshaw’s (1990) theory of nominals. According to Grimshaw (1990),
nominalization – just like passivization – is an operation that affects an external argument. More
specifically, the external argument of the base verb is suppressed in both passivization and
nominalization. From this it follows that verbs with no external argument will neither passivize
nor nominalize (into complex event nominals). Thus unaccusative verbs are expected not to be
51 This observation corresponds to the conclusion reached by Aljovic (2000) in her paper on unaccusativity and
aspect in Serbo-Croatian that “imperfectivized unaccusatives do not behave any longer as typical
unaccusative verbs” (p. 14).
36

able to nominalize into complex event nominals (cf. Grimshaw 1990:112). Having said this, let
us observe that one can perfectly well form a complex event nominal from bywac (cf. (47a)),
which could be taken as evidence that this verb cannot be unaccusative, i.e., it must be
unergative. 52 In contrast, one cannot form a complex event nominal from (existential)-locative
byc when it refers to an inanimate subject; cf. (47b). The example is crashingly bad. Interestingly,
the acceptability of such examples increases (though they remain quite bad 53 ) once an animate
(human) subject is used; cf. (47c). 54 Notice that in cases like the one illustrated in (48) with a
pronominal possessive subject the acceptability improves even more. If these observations are
correct, we would have evidence that (existential)-locative byc when constructed with inanimate
subjects is clearly unaccusative, though it is probably not unaccusative (unergative?) when
constructed with an animate [human] agentive subject; see the discussion below in section 5.
(47) a. Bywanie Jana w nocnych klubach (zaskoczylo wszystkich).
beingHABIT JohnGEN in night clubs (surprised all)
‘John’s frequent going to nightclubs surprised all.’
b. ** Bycie gazety na stole (zaskoczylo mnie).
being newspaperGEN on table (surprised meGEN)
intended: ‘newspaper’s being on the table surprised me’
c. * Bycie Jana w domu (zaskoczylo mnie).
being JohnGEN at home (surprised meGEN)
intended: ‘John’s being at home surprised me’
(48) (?) Twoje ciagle bycie w domu denerwuje mnie.
your constant being at home irritates meACC
52 For evidence that -nie/-cie nominals in Polish qualify as derived complex event nominals in Grimshaw’s
sense, see Rozwadowska (1995).
53 The grammaticality judgements of the examples in (47) are due to Bozena Rozwadowska (p.c.).
54 See Spencer and Zaretskaya (1998) for a similar observation related to nominalizations of stative verbs in
Russian. They point out that the verbs of body position like ležat’ ‘lie’, stojat’ ‘stand’ only give
nominalizations when they refer to human beings and can be interpreted as activities; cf. (i) vs. (ii).
(i) a. Sredi xolmov ležalo ozero. b. * ležanie ozera sredi xolmov
between hills lay lake lying of.lake between hills
‘Between the hills there lay a lake.’
(ii) a. On celymi dnjami ležal na divane. b. ego ležanie na divane
he whole days lay on sofa his lying on sofa
37

3.4 Partial conclusions
‘Your constant being at home irritates me/makes me nervous.’
We can now answer the first of the five questions posed in the beginning of the paper, namely:
Q1: What factors determine the case marking of the nominal arguments in (3)?
The discussion so far has shown that the difference in the case marking of the nominal
argument correlates with further important differences between (existential)-locative byc
sentences and bywac sentences. The first difference concerns the aspectual properties of the
involved predicate. While bywac is clearly an imperfective verb, byc has been argued to be
“grammatically perfective” (recall the discussion in section 2).
The second difference concerns the subject properties of the nominal argument: Whereas
the NOM marked nominal argument in bywac sentences passes all subjecthood diagnostics, the
GEN marked nominal argument in existential-locative byc sentences shows no subject properties.
The GEN marks – in some sense – the absence of the “syntactic” subject (or looking from
another perspective: the presence of a dummy subject in the construction at hand; see section 5
for more details); the whole construction has, then, an “impersonal” flavor.
The difference in the subjecthood properties is related to the third difference between the
constructions under discussion, namely the difference in the interpretation of the nominal
argument. While the NOM nominal in bywac sentences is normally [+human], [+sentient],
[+volitional], thus having typical properties of an agent argument, the GEN nominal in
existential-locative byc sentences does not need to be [+human]; on the contrary, even [+human]
GEN-marked nominals lack agentive properties such as control and volitionality, thus showing
typical properties of an internal (theme) argument. The agentive vs. nonagentive interpretation of
the nominal argument seems to correlate with the fourth and last difference between existential-
locative byc and bywac, namely (un)ergativity. More precisely, on the basis of, among others, the
deep unaccusativity diagnostic, the -no/-to test, bywac was classified as an unergative predicate
and byc as an unaccusative predicate. The factors determining the GEN versus the NOM marking
of the nominal argument in (3a) and (3b), respectively, are summarized in Table 3 below.
Table 3: Factors determining the case marking of the nominal arguments in (3)
‘He lay on the sofa for days on end.’ ‘his lying on the sofa’
38

GEN marked
nominal in (3a)
NOM marked
nominal in
(3b)
Aspectual properties
of the predicate
“grammatically
perfective”
Subjecthood
properties of the
nominal argument
imperfective clear subject
39
Interpretation of
the nominal
argument
no subject properties lack of agentive
properties
properties
presence of
agentive
properties
Underlying
syntactic
structure
unaccusative
unergative
Now that we know what factors determine the NOM/GEN split in (3), we can start answering the
remaining four questions. I will begin with the last question.
Q5: Is there any deeper correlation between the Polish facts in (3) and the facts found in split-
ergative languages (as in (5))?
4. The Correlation between aspect and syntactic structure: Some observations
In the beginning of the paper I pointed out that the GEN/NOM split in the Polish examples in (3)
resembles in some sense the ERG/ABS split found in split-ergative languages in that both kinds
of split seem to be conditioned by the aspectual properties of the predicate. As for split-ergative
languages, it has been observed that whenever a language shows a split conditioned by aspect, it
is always the perfective aspect which shows ERG(ative)/ABS(olutive) marking, whereas the
imperfective aspect goes together with NOM/ACC marking (see, e.g., Trask 1979, Dixon 1994).
Thus, there appears to be a close connection between perfectivity and ergativity. Why should
this be the case? In order to understand this, let us assume, following Grimshaw (1990), that the
argument structure “is a structured representation which represents prominence relations among
arguments. The prominence relations are jointly determined by the thematic properties of the
predicate (via the thematic hierarchy) and by the aspectual properties of the predicate” (ibid., p.
4). As for the latter, let us assume, again following Grimshaw, that the aspectual dimension “is a

projection of an abstract event structure (e), 55 which always includes two subparts, an activity
(act) and a state or change of state (s/cos)” (ibid., p. 40); cf. (49). 56
(49) e
act s/cos
Note that the template in (49) represents the structure of a complex situation type like
accomplishments, which consist of activity and resulting state (see footnote 4). In contrast,
simple situation types correspond to one of the subparts: activities always fit the first slot in the
template in (49), while states (or changes of state) always fit the second slot. Simplifying the
picture a little bit, let us further assume that the unergative and the unaccusative predicates
belong to particular aspectual classes: the former express activities while the latter express states
or changes of state; cf. (50) (cf. Grimshaw 1990:26ff., 39f. and the references cited there).
(50) e
act s/cos
activities states/changes of state
unergatives unaccusatives
external argument internal argument
AGENT THEME
40
accomplishments
Now, given Grimshaw’s assumption that an external argument is an argument that is maximally
prominent in both (thematic and aspectual) dimensions (p. 33), in conjunction with the
generalization that “an argument which participates in the first sub-event in an event structure is
55 Note that what Grimshaw refers to as “event structure” is sometimes used in the literature interchangeably
with the term “eventuality” or “situation”, just to refer to any situation type. Cf., e.g., Richardson (2003:6);
see also footnote 4.
56 Grimshaw assumes that there is an event-structure template “which is fixed for all predicates rather than being
projected from the lexical semantic representation of the individual predicate” (p. 40).

more prominent than an argument which participates in the second sub-event” (p. 26), it follows
that the single argument of an unaccusative will never count as maximally prominent and will
never qualify as external, while the single argument of an unergative will always count as
external.
With this background let us go back to the question of why there should be a connection
between perfectivity and ergativity. In somewhat simplistic terms, it seems that both perfectivity
and ergativity focus most naturally on what was identified in (49) above as the second subpart of
the event-structure template: state/change of state. 57 Given the scheme in (50), if the focus lies on
state/change of state, this would mean that it is also the internal argument/THEME that is focused
(or somehow gets into “the foreground”), while the external argument/AGENT somehow gets
into “the background”.
And finally, to bring the abovementioned split ergative languages into this picture,
observe that what we have just said about the connection between perfectivity and ergativity is
closely mirrored by what Trask (1979) writes about the origin of the Type B of ergative
languages (i.e., those with tense/aspect split):
“Now the key word is stative. In a stative formation there is no action and hence no agent. 58 The stative
of an intransitive verb (e.g. gone, fallen) naturally refers to the NP which would be the subject of the
corresponding active, while that of a transitive verb (e.g. broken, seen) equally naturally refers to the NP
57 Note that change of state would probably have to be understood to comprise both final state (outcome)
resulting from some preceding activity and begin ning of a state. In other words, the perfective aspect either
focuses on the final boundary, i.e., the fact that the change was (or will be) attained, as, e.g., in the case of
telic predicates entailing an inherent endpoint (an inherent change) that necessarily terminates the denoted
eventuality (cf. (i)), or on the initial boundary (the inchoative phase), as, e.g., in the case of stative verbs (cf.
(ii)). See Richardson (2003:24), referring to Filip (1994), and Rozwadowska (2003:865ff.) for more
discussion on this point.
(i) Jan napisal list. ‘final boundary’
JohnNOM write3.SG.M.PAST.PERF letterACC
‘John wrote a/the letter.’
(ii) Jan zrozumial zadanie. ‘initial boundary’
JohnNOM understand3.SG.M.PAST.PERF problemACC
‘John started/got to understand the problem.’
58 To understand what is meant by this, it is necessary to read the following passage about the origin of the Indo-
European perfect:
“Now the state of affairs attested by the historical languages is clearly this: the perfect and the (medio)passive
are genetically related. This is borne out by the similarity of endings, and by the old intransitive value of the
perfect and its strong association with the present mediopassive […] These formal and semantic facts
authorize us to consider the Indo-European perfect as a verbal form denoting a state (resulting from a
preceding action) and intimately related to the mediopassive. The semantic feature common to these two
categories was the intransitive value, the differentiating contrast being state (perfect) versus action (in the
mediopassive) […]” Trask (1979:396-7, quoting Kurylowicz 1964:72).
41

which would be the patient of the corresponding active transitive. The agent of the verb in this case
occupies a peripheral position, being only secondarily connected with the state as the performer of the
action resulting in the state. Thus in the stative aspect (in contrast with the situation in all finite forms of
the verb referring to activity) ergativity is unmarked. When the stative form is used to make a predication,
the NP most closely connected with the verbal adjective will be in the unmarked case; if and when an
agent phrase comes to be attached to the stative of a transitive verb, it will be in some oblique case and
carry an overt marking. I propose that this is the origin of Type B ergativity: the incorporation into the
inflectional paradigm of a nominalized deverbal form with stative force. […] Since the verbal adjective is
a nominalized form, it quite often happens that the agent phrase (or what is later interpreted as an agent
phrase) is attached by means of a possessive construction, as seems to have been the case in Old Persian
and Old Armenian […]; a consequence of this is that the ergative case is often identical to the genitive,
dative or locative, the cases most often used to express possession” (Trask 1979:397f.).
5. Analysis
Returning now to question Q5 above, I think that there is indeed a deeper connection between the
GEN/NOM split in Polish and the ERG/ABS split of the Hindi kind. The key to understanding
both kinds of splits is the idea mentioned above that ergative structures are “stative” and that the
agent is often understood here as a “possessor” of a state. Let us make this idea more precise.
The situation (eventuality) denoted by the predicate in the Polish example (3a) is clearly
stative: the predicate describes the existence of an entity at a particular location. The nominal
argument is generated as the internal argument of the verb, i.e., it occupies the underlying direct
object position. This is in accordance with Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s “Existence Linking
Rule,” cited in (51) below:
(51) Existence Linking Rule (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995:153)
The argument of a verb whose existence is asserted or denied is its direct internal
argument.
However, unlike Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995), who assume that verbs of existence or
verbs of spatial configuration in their simple position meaning (see footnote 44) have two internal
arguments, a nominal argument and a locative argument (p. 82) (or unlike Hoekstra and Mulder
1990, who propose a small clause analysis: the NP and PP form a small clause, which is itself an
internal argument of the verb), I would like to propose that the locative phrase is generated in
42

some sense “externally” to the verb. In this sense it is similar to the Ergative marked agent phrase
in perfective sentences in split-ergative languages. In the latter case, as has been pointed out
above, the Ergative marked agent phrase might be understood as a possessor of the state
described by the participial clause (or location at which this state occurs). In the Polish example
the locative phrase might also be understood as a possessor. In other words, the situation that
some entity exists/does not exist at some location can be understood in such a way that the
location contains/does not contain some entity (cf. Zamparelli 1995 for a similar analysis with
respect to existential sentences in English and Italian). 59
We can thus assume the following underlying structure of existential-locative byc
sentences in Polish:
(52) vP
PPloc v’
v VP
V NP
The nominal argument is generated VP-internally in the direct object position, and the locative
argument (understood as a possessor; see above) VP-externally in the specifier position of some
light verb. Importantly, this light verb does not have any causative/agentive semantics (unlike the
small v of canonical transitive verbs), i.e., the predicate is basically unaccusative. 60 In a sense, the
small v in (52) above resembles the stative small v assumed by Bennis (2004:86), following
Kratzer (1994), for cases like John knows the audience, where the external argument generated in
[Spec, v] is interpreted as Possessor, due to the fact that v is stative: “The thematic role Possessor
59 Notice that in many languages of the world the verb ‘to have’ is actually used in existential constructions; cf.,
e.g., the French il y a constructions. See Freeze (1992) for some general observations concerning the relation
between location, existence and possession.
60 Cf. also Radford (1997) and Adger (2003). These authors assume that “there is also a vP in unaccusatives, but
the head of this vP is non-causal, and so does not have an Agent in its specifier” (Adger 2003:140). See also
Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou, and Everaert (2004) for many examples of unaccusative structures involving a
vP projection.
43

indicates that the argument possesses the state denoted by the VP” (Bennis 2004:86, fn. 1); cf.
(53). The presence of v in such cases thus follows from the principle/implication in (54) (Bennis
2004:88).
(53) If v is stative: [Spec, v] is Possessor (John knows the audience)
(54) If an external argument is present, v has to be generated.
In affirmative sentences the locative phrase moves to Spec,TP to satisfy the Extended Projection
Principle (EPP). 61 The nominal argument remains in situ and undergoes long distance agreement
with Tense. This explains the unmarked word order of such sentences (cf. section 3.3.1) and the
“quasi”-subject behavior of the NP in such cases (understood in terms of agreement and NOM
case marking; recall Dziwirek’s tests for final 1-hood) (cf. section 3.2). 62
In negated existential-locative sentences, a NegP is inserted above vP and the verb moves
to Neg°, which is due to the clitic nature of the negative marker in Polish (see Blaszczak 2001 for
a discussion of the structure of negated clauses in Polish); cf. (55). The nominal argument which
is marked for GEN in this case (see below) cannot undergo a long distance agreement with
Tense. To implement this one could assume that only NPs with unchecked (or unvalued) case
features can undergo an Agree relation (see Chomsky 1998, 1999). Given that the case feature of
the NP has already been checked (or valued for GEN), the NP is no longer able to undergo a
checking relation with Tense. As a consequence, the unchecked (unvalued) phi-features of Tense
can only assume a default agreement (3.Sg.Neuter). In other words, the default agreement is a
form of nonagreement; see Harves (2002) for an assumption along similar lines. 63 As far as the
61 In this sense the structure is similar to that of locative inversion in English, for which it is also usually
assumed that the locative phrase moves to Spec,TP to satisfy the EPP.
62 The question that still needs to be clarified is what prevents the small “stative” v in (52) from having an ACC
case feature. Note that the stative v obviously has this feature in cases like (53) above. One reason could be
the actual “make-up” of the Possessor: a nominal Possessor correlates with an Accusative object while a
locative Possessor does not. One could also think of a solution along the lines formulated by Freeze (1992)
and the subsequent literature that a possessive verb HAVE (assigning the ACC case to its object) arises as the
result of a syntactic incorporation operation of an abstract locative Preposition into BE. Thus, in cases like
(52) one would have to assume that such an incorporation operation cannot take place (see, among others,
Mahajan 1994 for a related discussion). I leave this question for further research.
63 Alternatively, it could be assumed that the surface subject position, the Spec,IP (or Spec,TP), is filled by a
dummy (cf. Dziwirek 1994), or in Witkos’ (2000) terms, by an expletive pro of the it-type that is equipped
with the categorial [+D] feature, 3 rd person singular neuter agreement feature and the [+NOM] case feature,
checking thus the relevant features of T and yielding the default agreement. In the probe-goal system of
Chomsky (1998), it is also assumed that in the cases under discussion the expletive is merged in [Spec,T]
without movement. The [person] feature of the expletive is uninterpretable and acts as a probe, seeking a goal,
namely “matching” features that establish agreement, in its domain T’ (the domain of a probe P is the sister of
44

Spec,TP position is concerned, it can be assumed that – just as in the previous case – the locative
phrase can move there to satisfy the EPP. 64 In cases in which it is the GEN NP that appears in
preverbal position (recall (23c)) it could be assumed that this movement is driven by the relevant
discourse properties of the GEN NP, and as such this is a sort of A-bar movement. But more
research is certainly required on this point.
(55) NegP
Neg vP
PPloc v’
v VP
V NP
At this point we can answer the question Q3, namely the question of where the GEN marking of
the nominal argument comes from. It was pointed out in section 1 that the GEN marking in
negated existential-locative clauses is in some sense a cross between the usual GoN in Polish
(since it is triggered by negation) and the partitive (since it seems to be triggered by perfective
aspect). The proposed analysis provides an answer to the “hermaphroditic” nature of the GEN in
negated existential-locative clauses. Given that the existential-locative byc has two arguments: a
locative argument generated as an “external” argument (see the discussion above) and a nominal
argument generated in the direct object position, this creates a configuration characteristic of
canonical transitive verbs. Given this configuration, the rule of GoN can apply in this case. Recall
that GoN applies only to the direct object of negated transitive verbs; in our case to the internal
nominal argument of the “quasi-transitive” negated existential-locative byc. The importance of
P, more precisely the c-command domain of P). The probe (i.e., the uninterpretable [person] feature of the
expletive) locates the φ-set of T as the closest goal. The uninterpretable probe deletes, and the φ-set of T
deletes as well if the expletive has a full complement of φ-features (as is the case for it-type expletives). Given
that an expletive of the it-type has a 3 rd person singular neuter agreement feature, the verb will manifest a
default (3.SG.N) agreement.
64 Alternatively, if the Spec,TP is occupied by an expletive pro (see the previous footnote), the locative PP can
move to some TP (IP)-adjoined position.
45

(grammatical) perfectivity comes into play in the present tense. Recall from section 3.1.2 (ex.
(25) and (26)) that in the present tense instead of the regular negated form of the present tense
form of byc, the negated form of the verb miec ‘to have’ is used (i.e., nie ma ‘not has’ and not the
expected nie jest ‘not is’ form). I would like to suggest that this is so because the present form
jest is not perfective in any obvious sense. Recall from section 2 that the actual present ‘jest’-
forms derive from the Old Church Slavonic imperfective subparadigm of the present tense
paradigm of the verb byti (see Table 1). I would like to suggest that this is precisely why the
defective byc paradigm is supplemented by the verb (nie) ma, which due to its (inherent)
transitive nature – just like any other negated transitive verb in Polish (cf. section 1) – has the
property of assigning the GEN case under negation. 65 Note that due to its (inherent) transitive
nature the GEN-assigning capacity of (nie) ma does not depend on its aspectual properties – just
as is the case for any other negated transitive verb in Polish (recall the discussion in section 1). In
other words, unlike in the case of negated existential-locative sentences with byc (see below),
there is no requirement for nie ma to be perfective in order to assign the GEN case to its internal
argument.
In sum, for a nominal argument in existential-locative byc sentences to be marked for
GEN two requirements have to be fulfilled: (i) the right configuration: the nominal argument has
to be generated as a direct internal argument of the negated “quasi-transitive” verb (this
corresponds to the GoN rule in Polish), and (ii) the right aspectual properties of the predicate:
the verb has to be grammatically perfective (this corresponds to the condition for the assignment
of the optional Partitive case in Polish; cf. section 1). Given these two conditions responsible for
the GEN marking in negated existential-locative sentences, the “hermaphroditic” nature of the
GEN in such cases receives a natural explanation. 66
65 This conclusion corresponds in some respect to the conclusion reached by Witkos (2000) in his analysis of
the negative locative copula nie ma. He analyzes nie ma in negated existential-locative clauses as “a defective
verb, which can be regarded as an equivalent of the transitive verb miec, ‘have’, but taking a
locative/prepositional argument and devoid of the external argument,” and which is composed of several
features, among others, the case feature [+Objective] (pp. 301-2). Notice that, unlike the analysis proposed in
this paper, the locative phrase is analyzed by Witkos as an internal argument of the negated copula.
66 It should be pointed out that in existential-locative sentences other verbs than byc can be used; cf. (i)
(Grzegorek 1984:108). However, in no other case is the nominal argument marked for GEN in negated
existential-locative sentences; cf. (ii). To explain this, it could be assumed that in negated existential-locative
sentences with verbs other than byc the conditions necessary for the GEN marking are not fulfilled: (i) these
verbs are morphologically not perfective and/or the nominal argument is not generated as an internal
argument of a “quasi-transitive” verb (i.e., the locative phrase is not a quasi external argument in such cases,
but rather an internal argument, as suggested by Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995).
(i) a. Na stole lezala ksiazka.
46

What about negated locative bywac and byc sentences with NOM subjects? Unlike the
negated existential-locative sentences with GEN NPs, negated locative bywac and byc sentences
do not describe just a stative situation. The subject, which is usually a human entity, is in fact a
controller or “internal causer” (cf. Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995) of the described
eventuality. Piñón (1994) actually refers to such a reading as a process reading (recall section
3.1.4). Given this, the nominal argument will not be generated as an internal argument, but rather
as an external argument in accordance with Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s “Immediate Cause
Linking Rule”, cited in (56) below:
(56) Immediate Cause Linking Rule (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995:135)
The argument of the verb that denotes the immediate cause of the eventuality described
by that verb is its external argument.
The structures of affirmative and negated locative bywac and byc sentences with NOM subjects
are given in (57) and (58), respectively. In both (57) and (58) it is the nominal argument that
moves to Spec,TP to satisfy the EPP and at the same time undergoes an Agree relation with
Tense (hence the NOM marking). This also explains the unmarked NP-V-PP word order of such
sentences (see section 3.1.1).
(57) vP
NP v’
v VP
V PPloc
on table lie3.SG.F.PAST bookNOM.SG.F
b. Na stole byla ksiazka.
on table be3.SG.F.PAST bookNOM.SG.F
‘There was a book on the table.’
(ii) Na stole nie �bylo /*lezalo ksiazki.
on table NEG �was3.SG.N /*lay3.SG.N bookGEN.SG.F
47

(58) NegP
Neg vP
NP v’
v VP
V PPloc
Given the structure in (58) and given what we said above about the conditions of GEN
assignment in negated (existential-)locative clauses, it becomes clear why the nominal argument
in cases like (58) above cannot be marked for GEN (question Q2). The configuration required for
GEN assignment is not satisfied in such cases since the nominal argument is generated as an
external argument. In addition, in the case of negated bywac the predicate does not have the
required aspectual properties. It should be noticed that the aspectual properties alone are a
necessary but not sufficient condition for the GEN marking. In section 2, the verb byc has been
classified as grammatically perfective. However, despite this aspectual property, on the agentive
reading the nominal argument of byc – in accordance with the Immediate Cause Linking Rule in
(56) – is generated externally, which precludes its GEN marking. In other words, unlike the
existential-locative byc, which is an unaccusative verb, bywac and byc on their agentive reading
are unergative verbs. 67 Hence, the examples (3a) and (3b) have different syntactic structures
(schematized in (55) and (58), respectively). This answers the last of the five questions posed in
the beginning of the paper, namely question Q4.
6. Concluding remarks
‘There was no book on the table.’
67 In this sense bywac and byc on their agentive reading are unlike verbs of existence or verbs of inherently
directed motion, which consistently show unaccusative behavior independently of whether they are used
agentively or nonagentively. For instance, as pointed out by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995:165), the
Italian verb of existence rimanere ‘remain’ selects independently of agentivity the auxiliary essere ‘be’,
which is recognized as a deep unaccusativity diagnostic in Italian; cf. (i) (ibid.):
(i) Gianni è rimasto apposta.
Gianni is remained on purpose
48

In the previous section we arrived at the conclusion that the question of whether an intransitive
verb has an unergative or an unaccusative frame depends on both the aspectual properties of the
predicate and the agentive interpretation of its nominal argument. This conclusion corresponds to
the one reached by Arad (1998). In her paper she proposes a principle called “Structure-
Interpretation Correspondence” (SIC), which states that argument positions have fixed
(semantic/aspectual) interpretations which are available only to arguments in that position (p. 17).
For example, the aspectual interpretation associated with the subject position is that of originator
of an event (causer, agent, etc.), and the aspectual interpretation associated with the object
position is that of measurer of an event (affected argument, patient). In other words, SIC says
that there are certain meanings which are only available to arguments if they occupy a certain
position. “One of the consequences of [SIC] is that a certain position may not be associated with
its particular interpretation. For example, there can be an object which is not a measurer.
However, a given position can never be associated with another interpretation, which is available
in (or associated with) another position. For example, you cannot have an agentive interpretation
assigned at the object position” (ibid. 17f.). Applying this principle to the Polish examples, this
would mean that in negated bywac and byc on its agentive reading the nominal argument has to
be generated in the subject position since otherwise it could not be interpreted as an agent. In
contrast, the GEN nominal argument in negated existential-locative byc sentences (and for that
matter also the postverbal NOM nominal argument in affirmative existential-locative byc
sentences), which never have an agentive interpretation, cannot be generated in the subject
position, but instead must be generated in the object position. As a consequence, (negated) bywac
and byc on its agentive reading have a syntactic structure typical of unergative verbs, while
negated existential-locative byc sentences (and for that matter also affirmative existential-locative
byc sentences with the postverbal NOM nominal argument) have a structure typical of
unaccusative verbs.
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