chapter 3
Polish equatives as symmetrical structures*
Anna Bondaruk
John Paul II Catholic University, LublinThe chapter focuses on the syntactic structure of true equatives in Polish, i.e.
those sentences that contain two proper names or two pronouns flanking the
pronominal copula to. These clauses differ considerably from both predicational
and specificational sentences as regards verbal agreement and the Person-Case
Constraint (PCC). Arguments are offered to prove that the two differences Polish
equatives exhibit can be accounted for by positing a special symmetrical structure
for this type of copular clause. The analysis is a modified version of Pereltsvaig’s
(2001, 2007) proposal, based on Moro (2006) as well as Chomsky (2013). It relies
on movement of one of the DPs from within a symmetrical structure to break up
the initial symmetry which is triggered by the the need to label the symmetrical
structure.- Introduction
The present paper examines the structure and derivation of equative copular clauses in
Polish. Equatives (or identity statements) are understood here in the sense of Higgins
(1979), i.e. as those copular clauses that signal identity between the two DPs found on
both sides of the copula. It is typical of equatives that they show two referential DPs
of type 〈e〉 flanking the copula (cf. Mikkelsen 2005). The main focus of the paper is
one type of Polish equatives, namely the so-called true equatives, in which either two
proper names or two pronouns surround the copula. In particular, we scrutinise those
equatives which exhibit the pronominal copula to on its own, or accompanied by the
verbal copula być ‘ t o b e ’.
First, we shall present an inventory of Polish equatives, then provide an over-
view of those properties which make equatives stand out from both predicational
- I would like to express my thanks to Gréte Dalmi for her editorial comments and the anony-
mous reviewers for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of this paper.