Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 83
in contradistinction to to być predicational clauses, they are immune to the PCC (cf.
Section 3.2). One explanation we would like to offer for the ban on Multiple Agree in
Polish equatives draws on Moro (2000), who, similarly to Pereltsvaig, argues that equa-
tives represent ‘bare’ small clauses (henceforth ‘BSC’), which, in turn, form the so-
called unstable structures, i.e. structures without a label. Moro (2006) further argues
that one of the DPs from within the ‘bare’ small clause must be internally merged with
it to provide the label for the ultimate structure.^21 When the DP merges with the ‘bare’
small clause, the resulting structure has a label of the DP. This is schematically repre-
sented in (37), taken from Moro (2006: 3):
(37) [DP DP [‘BSC’ DP DP]]
If this line of analysis is adapted to the representation in (34), then the resulting struc-
ture will be as shown in (38):^22
(38)
T′T vPDPDPty tiTPDPv‘BSC’ti DP DPjestemtoJaiWhen compared with (34), the structure in (38) contains an extra movement step, i.e.
the second DP does not move directly to [Spec, TP], but it first internally merges with
the ‘BSC’, a structure without a label. Once the second DP is internally merged (moved)
with the ‘bare’ small clause, it supplies the ‘BSC’ with its own label, i.e. DP. The rest of
- The motivation for breaking up the symmetry in a ‘BSC’ based on labelling is different
from Moro (2000), where the movement of a DP from within a ‘BSC’ is triggered by the fact
that symmetrical structures cannot be linearised at PF. - The fact that the ‘BSC’ in (38) is selected by the verb być ‘to be’ predicts that equatives
can occur independently of to. That this is indeed the case has been shown in Section 2, where
there are instances of equatives such as (1), in which just the sole verb być ‘to be’ is present,
without being accompanied by to.