Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 65
(8) Dr Jekyll to (jest) pan Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll.nom cop is Mr. Hyde.nom
‘Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde.’
Although sentences such as (8) seem to represent more prototypical instances of equa-
tives than (1)–(3), they, as we shall see in Section 3.2, do not tell us much about the
structure of equatives, since they contain two 3rd person DPs on both sides of the
pronominal copula and therefore they do not show which of the two DPs determines
agreement in sentences of this type; the test that will be relied on later to determine the
structure of Polish equatives.
The type of equatives in which either two pronouns or two proper names sur-
round the copula is referred to in the literature by Heycock and Kroch (1999: 373) as
‘true equatives’ and we will borrow this term from them in relation to the Polish equa-
tives analysed here.^5 However, out of the two types of true equatives, with the verbal
and with the pronominal copula (with or without być ‘to be’), only the latter will be
analysed in the paper, since equatives with być ‘to be’ do not offer as clear-cut evidence
for the account provided here as the equatives with to.^6
Replacing the nominative predicate in (i) with the instrumental one results in a grammatical
structure, as in (ii), but with a different meaning:
(ii) Dr Jekyll jest panem Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll.nom is Mr.inst Hyde
‘Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde.’
Sentence (ii) has no equative meaning, but rather means that Dr Jekyll is pretending to be Mr.
Hyde at the moment.
- Actually copular clauses in which two definite DPs surround the copula, such as (i) below,
can also be treated as equative.
(i) Marek to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
Mark.nom cop is my best friend.nom
‘Mark is my best friend.’
However, sentences such as (i) above are trebly ambiguous between the predicational,
specificational and equative interpretation. For this reason they do not belong to true equatives
and hence are not analysed in this work.
- In particular in equative być-clauses, just like in uninverted predicational być-sentences,
agreement is always with the first (pre-copular) element, as can be seen by comparing (1)
above with (i) below. Therefore, no difference in agreement between the two types can be ob-
served, contrary to what can be attested in equative to-clauses and predicational to-sentences
(cf. Section 3.2).
(i) Ja jestem student.
I.nom am student.nom
‘I am a student.’