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

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
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