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

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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
Page 1 and 2: Differential subject marking in Pol
Page 3 and 4: that is neither intrinsically telic
Page 5 and 6: ‘John used to come to parties.’
Page 7 and 8: section 4, I will try to answer the
Page 9 and 10: ‘(In this hospital) no patient di
Page 11 and 12: waterGEN decrease3.SG.N.PAST.PERF /
Page 13 and 14: e dependent on the perfective aspec
Page 15 and 16: (14) a. b. (15) a. OK czytajacIMPER
Page 17 and 18: In fact, there is diachronic eviden
Page 19 and 20: JohnNOM BE3.SG.M.PRES.HABIT at part
Page 21 and 22: of why there should be a correlatio
Page 23 and 24: ywac has to be [+animate] (preferab
Page 25 and 26: prototypical subject (agentivity, v
Page 27 and 28: (32) a. Sera nie bylo w sklepie. (D
Page 29 and 30: NEG BE2.SG.IMP.HABIT as often in ni
Page 31 and 32: (38) a. Bozenki nie bylo wczoraj u
Page 33 and 34: discussion above; a “theme-like
Page 35 and 36: a. przybyly ‘arrived’ b. upadly
Page 37 and 38: able to nominalize into complex eve
Page 39: GEN marked nominal in (3a) NOM mark
Page 43 and 44: some sense “externally” to the
Page 45 and 46: Spec,TP position is concerned, it c
Page 47 and 48: What about negated locative bywac a
Page 49 and 50: In the previous section we arrived
Page 51 and 52: Cetnarowska, B. (2000b). The Unerga
Page 53 and 54: Lakoff, G. (1966). Stative Adjectiv
Page 55: Spencer, A. and M. Zaretskaya (1998

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

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