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

(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.
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