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

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