Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 87
DP affects semantic interpretation and, therefore, cannot be viewed as a purely PF
phenomenon, motivated solely by the LCA.^24 ,^25
The purely syntactic motivation for the movement of a DP from within a sym-
metrical structure postulated here for Polish equatives makes our analysis similar in
spirit to that of Ott (2011, 2012), who analyses split topic constructions in German
in terms of a symmetrical structure.^26 The details of his analysis are not relevant for
our discussion and therefore will not be provided here. It is also worth noting that
claiming that the symmetrical structures can be broken up by movement, makes our
analysis compatible with Chomsky (2013: 43), who suggests, relying to some extent on
Moro (2000), that there are two ways in which the symmetrical syntactic objects such
as {XP, YP} can be labelled, namely (1) by modification of a symmetrical syntactic
object so that there is only one visible head, or (2) if X and Y are identical in a relevant
respect, then they provide the same label, which becomes the label of the entire syntac-
tic object. The former, he argues, involves movement of either XP or YP, which takes
place, for instance, in copular constructions, whereas the latter can be attested, inter
alia, in indirect questions.^27 Chomsky (2013: 44) further argues that the lower copy of
the moved element is invisible to the Labelling Algorithm, since “it is a part of a discon-
tinuous element”, and consequently, the resulting structure will obtain the label of the
other element that does not move.^28 In our account, however, the opposite is the case,
- Another possible derivation for sentences such as (40), suggested by an anonymous re-
viewer, is the one in which ty ‘you’ merges as the second element within a ‘BSC’, and from this
position, it internally merges with the ‘BSC’. The resulting derivation for (40) is then analogous
to that depicted in (38). - Actually, Kayne (2010) rejects the LCA and derives what he claims to be the universal
Specifier - Head-Complement order from the properties of Merge, as well as interactions
between the Probe and the Goal in the Bare Phase Structure. However, Kayne (2010:16) main-
tains that “the merger of two phrases is unavailable”, which clearly contradicts the proposal
made in this paper. - An example of a split topic construction in German is provided in (i) below:
(i) Gute Studenten haben nur wenig eine Frage gestellt.
good students have only few a question asked
‘As for good students, only few have asked a question.’ (Ott 2011: 80)
- In indirect questions such as (i) below, Chomsky (2013) argues that the most prominent
feature of both XPs, i.e. α and β, which is Q, provides the label for the entire structure.
(i) They wondered [α in which Texas city [β C [JFK was assassinated]]]
- Labelling Algorithm (henceforth, LA) (Chomsky (2013: 43): Suppose SO = {H, X}, H a
head and XP not a head. Then LA will select H as the label, and the usual procedures of
interpretation at the interfaces can proceed.