Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 77
content but must be filled overtly by some lexical element either via head movement
or else by the merger of an XP in its specifier. For Russian equatives such as (27) below,
he proposes the structure in (28) (structure (28) has been modelled on structure (17a),
proposed by Reeve (2010: 221) for Russian specificational sentences, which he sub-
sumes under equatives):
(27) Zevs ėto Jupiter. (Reeve 2010: 220)
Zeus.nom cop Jupiter.nom
‘Zeus is Jupiter.’
(28) TP
DP T′EqPDPCOPJupiterZevs TEq′ėto Eq VPV DPThe details of Reeve’s analysis are not relevant for our discussion, and therefore will
not be mentioned here in detail. What we will try and do instead is to use Reeve’s
main idea that equatives contain a special functional projection, i.e. Eq, and test it
against the Polish data under scrutiny. In (28) the Russian pronominal copula is gen-
erated in [Spec, EqP]. As has been shown in Section 3.1 above, the Polish pronomi-
nal copula is not a maximal projection, but rather a functional head, which occupies
the T position (cf. (11) and (13) above). The head status of to is supported by the fact
that it always selects a vP, whose head is either filled by the verb być ‘to be’ or is left
empty (cf. sentences (3)–(5) above). If we adopt the assumption that to is indeed a
head of T, then for true equatives such as (3), repeated for convenience as (29), we
can posit the structure in (30):
(29) Ja to (jestem) ty.
I.nom cop am you.nom
‘I am you.’