Small Clauses Reconsidered: Not So Small and Not All Alike: Barbara Citko

Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua
Small clauses reconsidered:

Not so small and not all alike§
Barbara Citko
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Box 354340, Seattle, WA 98195-4340, USA
Received 9 November 2006; received in revised form 26 May 2007; accepted 28 May 2007
Available online 8 August 2007
Abstract
This paper re-examines a syntactic typology of small clause constructions, based on new cross-
linguistic evidence from languages that allow two different kinds of copula elements: verbal copulas and
pronominal copulas. Such languages include Arabic (Eid, 1983), Hebrew (Doron, 1983; Rapoport,
1987), Russian (Pereltsvaig, 2001), Polish (Rothstein, 1986), Scottish Gaelic (Adger and Ramchand,
2003), among others. The two types of copular constructions in these languages have been argued to
correlate with a difference in interpretation along the predicational/equative dimension, and with a
structural difference involving the size of the small clause. This paper re-examines both semantic and
syntactic differences between the two types, focusing on new data from Polish. It focuses on selection,
case, extraction possibilities, and interpretation, and argues that the differences between the two types of
small clauses lie not in the size of the small clause, but in the featural make-up of the functional
projection heading it.
# 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Small clauses; Pronominal copula; Verbal copula; Defective categories
1. Introduction
My main goal in this paper is to offer new crosslinguistic evidence in favor of two claims
concerning small clause constructions. I am using the term ‘small clause’ here in a purely
§
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Department of Linguistics of the University of Washington, the
2005 Annual LSA Meeting, and the 14th FASL meeting at Princeton University. Many thanks to these audiences for
useful feedback. I also would like to thank the Lingua anonymous reviewer for many useful suggestions, and Adam
Przepiórkowski for comments on an earlier draft. All the remaining mistakes are my own.
E-mail address: bcitko@u.washington.edu.
0024-3841/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2007.05.009
262 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
descriptive sense, to refer to any construction consisting of a subject and a non-verbal predicate,
illustrated in (1).
I will focus on copula clauses, illustrated in (2a–c), in which this relationship is the only
predication relationship.
(2) a. Mary is a doctor.

b. Mary is smart.
c. Mary is in the office.
The first claim I will defend in this paper is that small clauses are bigger than the representation in
(1) might suggest. In particular, I will provide new evidence in favor of the claim that small
clauses involve an asymmetric structure, headed by a predicational functional head. Following
Bowers (2002), I will refer to this functional projection as a pP.
This is by no means a novel claim (see Bowers, 1993; Bailyn, 2001; Contreras, 1995; Chomsky,
1995; Gueron and Hoekstra, 1995; Adger and Ramchand, 2003; Harves, 2002; den Dikken, 2006
for arguments against symmetric small clauses such as the ones given in (1)). However, I believe
it is important to revisit these arguments from the perspective of Chomsky’s bare phrase structure
theory, which dispenses with X-bar theory, and handles all structure building by means of a single
operation Merge. This departure from X-bar theory makes symmetric small clauses perfectly
compatible with minimalist tenets. And in fact, the symmetric structure is (1) essentially what
Moro (1997, 2000) proposes for copula clauses.
The second claim I will defend in this paper concerns the types of small clauses Universal
Grammar allows. I will argue that there are two types of small clauses, which in some languages
involve different copula elements. My main empirical focus will be on Polish, a language which
allows verbal and pronominal copulas, illustrated in (4a–b), respectively.
(4) a. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem. verbal copula clauses

Jan is my best friend
‘Jan is my best friend.’
b. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel. pronominal copula clauses
Jan PRON my best friend.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 263
Polish is not unique in this respect. Other languages with both verbal and pronominal copulas are
Arabic (Eid, 1983), Hebrew (Doron, 1983; Rapoport, 1987; Greenberg, 2002; Rothstein, 2001),
Russian (Pereltsvaig, 2001), Scottish Gaelic (Adger and Ramchand, 2003). What is interesting
about Polish is that the two copula elements can co-occur in what I will henceforth refer to as dual
copula clauses:
(5) Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel. dual copula clauses

Jan PRON is my best friend
The properties of Polish dual copula clauses will be my primary focus in this paper.1,2
1
I would like to immediately address (and discount) one intuitively very plausible analysis of dual copula clauses, on
which the actual subject is in a left dislocated position, and what I am calling a pronominal copula is a resumptive pronoun
in a subject position. (See Rutkowski, 2006 for a recent implementation of this proposal.)
(i) [IP SUBJECT [IP PRON [I’ BE [ . . .] ] ]
The contrast in grammaticality between (ii) and (iii) suggests that this cannot the right analysis for dual copula clauses. It
shows that quantified DPs are possible as subjects in dual copula clauses but impossible in left dislocated positions.
(ii) Każdy student to (jest) potencjalny geniusz.
every student PRON is potential genius
‘Every student is a potential genius.’
(iii) * Każdy student, on (jest) potencjalnym geniuszem.
every student he is potential genius
‘Every student is a potential genius.’
Furthermore, the grammaticality of the following examples shows that DP left dislocation is possible in dual copula
clauses, which is incompatible with the pronoun on ‘he’ itself being left-dislocated.
(iv) Jan, on to naprawde˛ jest najlepszym profesorem.
Jan he PRON indeed is best professor
‘Jan is the best professor indeed.’
2
There are other uses of the pronoun to in Polish besides the copula use. It can also function as a proximate
demonstrative pronoun (i), a relative clause light head in the sense of Citko (2004) (ii), a correlative pronoun (iii), and an
eventive to in the sense of Progovac (1998) (iv–vi). What distinguishes the eventive to from other types is the fact that
it is used to refer to events. Progovac (1998) further distinguishes three uses of the eventive to: deictic use (iv), anaphoric
use (v), and bound variable use (vi). The Polish examples below are modeled upon Progovac’s Serbo-Croatian
ones.
(i) To dziecko jest grzeczne.
this child is polite.
‘This child is polite.’
(ii) Weź sobie to, co chcesz.
take self this what want.2SG
‘Help yourself to what you want.’
(iii) Co chcesz, to sobie weź.
what want.2SG this self take
‘Help yourself to whatever you want.’
(iv) To Nowak pływa. deictic use
this Nowak swims
‘That is Nowak swimming./What you see/witness is Novak swimming.’
(v) Maria jest zme˛czona, ale Jan tego nie wie. anaphoric use
Maria is tired but Jan this-GEN not knows
‘Mary is tired but Jan doesn’t know that.’
(vi) Nowak przeczytał ksia˛żke˛ i *(to) szybko. bound variable use
Nowak read book and this quickly
‘Nowak read the book, and quickly.’
264 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
At first glance, the existence of languages with two types of copulas adds plausibility to the so-
called two be approaches to the copula ‘be’. Proponents of such approaches assume that the
lexicon contains two copula elements, be of identity and be of predication, whose meanings are
given in (6a–b) (Higgins, 1973; Rapoport, 1987; Russell, 1919; Zaring, 1996; Babyonyshev and
Matushansky, 2006).3
(6) a. lP. lx [P(x)] be of predication

b. lx.ly [x = y] be of identity
On this view, verbal copulas are predicational, and pronominal ones equative. However, the fact
that the two copulas in Polish can co-occur casts doubt on this view. If indeed to were an equative
copula and być a predicational one, the grammaticality of dual copula sentences would be rather
puzzling. It is not clear how a single sentence can be simultaneously equative and predicational.
It is worth noting here that dual copula sentences are not ambiguous between the two
interpretations; as we will see in section 3, they parallel in interpretation pronominal copula
clauses.
Proponents of the so-called one be approaches deny the existence of two copula elements, or
the ambiguity of the copula in languages like English (Heggie, 1988; Moro, 1997; Partee, 1986;
Williams, 1983; den Dikken, 2006; Adger and Ramchand, 2003), and treat all copula sentences
as involving the same predicational copula be.
The issue of the lexical ambiguity (or the lack thereof) of the copula is in principle
independent of the issue of the structural ambiguity (or the lack thereof) of copula clauses. There
are also two views on this matter. One view discounts structural ambiguity altogether, and
assumes that all copula clauses involve the same underlying structure. For Moro (1997), this
single structure is a symmetric small clause, whereas for Adger and Ramchand (2003), den
Dikken (2006), and (Mikkelsen, 2004), it is an asymmetric one. The other view correlates the
use of a given copula element with a difference in structure, and derives the differences in
interpretation from this difference in structure. I will defend a version of this claim in this paper.
This is also not a novel claim (see Carnie, 1995; Heycock and Kroch, 1999; Pereltsvaig, 2001;
Rothstein, 2001; Rapoport, 1987 for similar claims). However, I will depart from these authors
in two crucial respects. First, I will argue that the difference between the two types is not along
the identity/predicational dimension. Second, I will argue that a symmetric small clause cannot
be one of the two types. Instead, I will argue that there are two types of asymmetric small clauses,
and that both are headed by a predicational head. And third, I will argue that the differences
between them lie in the featural make-up of this predicational head. In this respect, my account
of Polish copula clauses is similar in spirit to Adger and Ramchand’s (2003) account of Gaelic
ones.
2. Syntactic properties of Polish copula clauses
2.1. Basic properties
As we have seen above, Polish has both a verbal and a pronominal copula. It also allows these
two copulas to co-occur. This results in three distinct types of copula clauses:
3
The two happen to be homophonous in languages like English.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 265
(7) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel. pronominal copula clauses

Jan PRON my best friend
b. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem. verbal copula clauses
c. Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel. dual copula clauses
The pronominal copula can co-occur with the verbal one in all three tenses:
(8) a. Jan to jest mój nalepszy przyjaciel.

b. Jan to był mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
Jan PRON was my best friend
‘Jan was my best friend.’
c. Jan to be˛dzie mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
Jan PRON will-be my best friend
‘Jan will be my best friend.’
In this respect, Polish differs from other languages that allow both verbal and pronominal
copulas, such as Arabic or Hebrew, in which a pronominal copula appears in the present tense,
and a verbal one in the past and future tenses, as shown in (9a–c) for Arabic, and (10a–c) for
Hebrew.
(9) a. Il-mudarris (huwwa) il-latiif. Arabic

the-teacher PRON the-nice
‘The teacher is nice/ the nice one.’
b. Il-mudarris kaan latiif.
the-teacher was nice
‘The teacher was nice.’
c. Il-mudarris haykuun latiif.
the-teacher will.be nice
‘The teacher will be nice.’
(10) a. Dani (hu) more. Hebrew

Danny PRON teacher
‘Danny is the teacher.’
b. Hana haita yafa.
Hana was pretty
‘Hanna was pretty.’
c. Hana tihye yafa.
Hana will.be pretty
‘Hanna will be pretty.’
266 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
Another difference between these two languages and Polish concerns agreement. In Hebrew and
Arabic, the pronominal copula shows overt agreement with the subject, whereas in Polish it does
not, as shown in (11a–c).4
(11) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

Jan PRON my best friend-MASC.SG
b. Maria to moja najlepsza przyjaciółka.
Maria PRON my best friend-FEM.SG
‘Maria is my best friend.’
c. Jan i Tomek to moi najlepsi przyjaciele.
Jan and Tom PRON my best friend-MASC.PL
‘Jan and Tom are my best friends.’
With this background, let me turn to a discussion of the similarities as well as the differences
between these three types of copula clauses in Polish.
2.2. Category selection
Perhaps the most obvious difference between pronominal and verbal copula clauses in Polish
involves syntactic selection. The data in (12a–d) suggest that pronominal copulas are only
compatible with nominal predicates.5
(12) a. Jan to [DP mój najlepszy przyjaciel]

b. * Jan to [AP przyjacielski]
Jan PRON friendly
‘John is friendly.’
c. * Jan to [PP w przyjacielskim nastroju]
Jan PRON in friendly mood
‘John is in a friendly mood.’
d. * Jan to [VP sie˛ zaprzyjaźnił z Maria˛]
Jan PRON REFL became-friends with Maria
‘Jan became friends with Maria.’
4
The examples in (11a–c) might suggest that the subject and the predicate have to agree in phi-features. However,
Linde-Usiekniewicz (in press) shows, based on the grammaticality of the following examples, that agreement between the
two is not necessary.
(i) Jan to był straszna świnia.
Jan PRON was-MASC terrible-FEM pig-FEM
‘Jan was a real bastard.’
(ii) Tych troje muzyków to najlepsze trio jazzowe.
these three musicians-PL PRON best trio jazz
‘These three musicians are the best jazz trio.’ (Adam Przepiórkowski, personal communication)
5
A natural question that arises here, brought to my attention by an anonymous reviewer, is what allows DPs to function
as predicates. DPs, being semantically saturated, are assumed not to be able to function as predicates I assume that they
can type-shift into predicative types, via a type shifting operation which maps e-type expressions into an <e,t> ones
(Chierchia, 1984).
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 267
Such a constraint on c-selection in copula clauses would be consistent with Pustet’s (2003)
implicational universal governing the selectional restrictions imposed by copula verbs, given in
(13).
(13) nominals > adjectivals > verbals6
According to this implicational universal, if a language allows a copula with some element on
this scale, it will also allow the same copula with the element(s) to its left. For example, if a
language allows a given copula to occur with adjectival elements, it will allow the same copula to
occur with nominal ones. The examples in (14a–b) and (15a–b), however, show that this
generalization is only partially correct; non-nominal predicates with pronominal copulas are fine
as long as their subjects are of the same category.7
(14) a. W domu to w domu.

at home PRON at home
‘Home is home.’
b. Droższe to nie zawsze lepsze.
more-expensive PRON not always better
‘More expensive is not always better.’
(15) a. ??W domu to wygoda.

at home PRON comfort
‘Home is comfort.’
b. ??Droższe to nie luksus.
more-expensive PRON not luxury
‘More expensive isn’t luxurious.’
The verbal copula być ‘be’, on the other hand, is more permissive. It allows DPs, PPs, and APs as
its complements, and does not require the subjects to be of the same category.
(16) a. Maria jest [DP studentka˛]

Maria is student
‘Maria is a student.’
b. Maria jest [AP ma˛dra]
Maria is smart
‘Maria is smart.’
c. Maria jest [PP w domu]
Maria is at home
‘Maria is at home.’
Dual copula clauses pattern with pronominal copula ones with respect to selection. They both
require the subject and the predicate to be of the same category, as shown in (17a–b).
6
This hierarchy ignores PP predicates.
7
English copula clauses also allow non-nominal subjects. However, they differ from the Polish ones in that they do not
require the complement and the subject to be of the same syntactic category:
(i) From Amherst to Baltimore is about 350 miles.
(ii) More expensive isn’t always better.
(iii) Electronically is usually fastest. (Partee, 1999:369)
268 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
(17) a. Droższe to nie jest zawsze lepsze.

more-expensive PRON not is always better
‘More expensive is not always better.’
b. ?*Droższe to nie jest luksus.
more-expensive PRON not is luxury
‘More expensive isn’t luxurious.’
For example, if the subject is nominal, the predicate has to be nominal as well, as shown in (18a–c):
(18) a. Warszawa to jest [DP stolica Polski]

Warsaw PRON is capital Poland
‘Warsaw is the capital of Poland.’
b. * Warszawa to jest [AP polska].
Warsaw PRON is Polish
‘Warsaw is Polish.’
c. * Warszawa to jest [PP w Polsce].
Warsaw PRON is in Poland
‘Warsaw is in Poland.’
2.3. Case
Another difference between verbal and pronominal copula clauses involves case. The nominal
complement of the verbal copula być ‘be’ has to be Instrumental8:
(19) a. Jan jest lekarzem/*lekarz.

Jan is doctor-INSTR/doctor-NOM
‘John is a doctor.’
In pronominal copula sentences, on the other hand, both noun phrases have to be Nominative:
(20) Warszawa to stolica Polski /*stolica˛ Polski.

Warsaw PRON capitol-NOM Poland-GEN capitol-INSTR Poland-GEN
8
There are some exceptions to this generalization. They seem limited, however, to fixed expressions, such as
introductions and emotive statements, illustrated in (i) and (ii), respectively. Thanks to Adam Przepiórkowski for
pointing them out to me.
(i) Jestem Nowak.
be.1SG Nowak-NOM
‘I am Nowak.’
(ii) Jesteś świnia!
be.2SG pig-NOM
‘You are a pig.’
Another potential counterexample involves cases in which the predicate is an AP rather than an NP. In such cases,
Nominative is the norm, as shown in (iii).
(iii) Jan jest ma˛dry /*ma˛drym.
Jan is clever- NOM clever-INSTR
‘Jan is clever.’
For the purpose of this paper, I will abstract away from this interesting difference between adjectival and nominal
predicates, and refer the interested reader to Bailyn and Citko (1999) and Przepiórkowski (2001) for relevant discussion.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 269
With respect to case, dual copula clauses also pattern with pronominal rather than verbal ones. As
shown in (21), they are only grammatical if the postcopular element is Nominative9:
(21) Warszawa to jest stolica Polski /*stolica˛ Polski.

Warsaw PRON is capitol-NOM Poland-GEN capitol-INSTR Poland-GEN
2.4. Extraction possibilities
Yet another difference between the two types of copula sentences involves their behavior with
respect to movement.10 Movement of Instrumental predicates out of verbal copula clauses is
possible, as shown in (22a) for long-distance wh-movement, and in (22b) for long scrambling.
(22) a. ?Kimi myślisz, że był Jan ti?

who-INSTR think.2SG that is Jan
‘Who do you think that John is?’
b. ?Najlepszym kandydatemi myśle˛, że jest Jan ti.
best candidate- INSTR think.1SG that is Jan
‘I would like John to be the best candidate.’
The slightly degraded status of these examples has to do with an independent factor, involving the
generally degraded status of long distance extraction from embedded indicative clauses. This
interfering factor can be easily controlled for by replacing the indicative clause with a subjunctive
one, which makes wh-movement of an Instrumental predicate fully grammatical:
(23) a. Kimi chcesz, żeby był Jan ti?

who-INSTR want.1SG that was Jan
‘Who would you like Jan to be?’
b. Najlepszym kandydatemi chciałabym, żeby był Jan ti
best candidate- INSTR want.1SG that was Jan
‘I would like John to be the best candidate.’
9
For the sake of completeness, let me mention one potential counterexample to the generalization that dual copula
sentences do not allow Instrumental predicates, illustrated in (i).
(i) % Piotr to jest dobrym lekarzem.
Piotr PRON is good-INSTR doctor-INSTR
‘Piotr is a good doctor.’
However, there are good reasons to believe that to in examples of this sort is not a copula but an emphatic marker.
Examples of this sort are very marked, not acceptable to all informants, and require a special intonation contour. While I
do not want to downplay the significance of this pattern, I believe it is a different phenomenon. There is a principled
distinction between the emphatic use of the pronominal to, and the non-emphatic copula use of the pronoun to. First, there
is no sense in which pronominal or dual copula sentences with nominal predicates are emphatic. Second, if the
pronominal copula to were simply an emphatic marker, it should be optional. This is not the case, as shown in (ii), which
suggests that the status of the pronominal element in copula sentences is distinct from its status in emphatic sentences.
(ii) Jan * (to) nasz najlepszy lekarz.
Jan PRON our best friend
‘Jan is our best friend.’
10
The examples in this section are modeled upon Matushansky’s (2000) Russian ones. Matushansky’s paper, however,
deals with the distinction between verbal copula clauses with Nominative and Instrumental predicates, rather than the
distinction between verbal and pronominal copula clauses. Russian differs from Polish in that it allows both Nominative
and Instrumental predicates in verbal copula clauses.
270 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
Extraction out of pronominal copula clauses, on the other hand, results in ungrammaticality11:
(24) a. * Coi myślisz, że fizyka to ti?

what think.2SG that physics PRON
‘What do you think physics is?’
b. * Nauka o naturzei myśle˛, że fizyka to ti.
study about nature think.1SG that physics PRON
‘I think that physics is the study of nature.’
What is relevant for the purpose of this paper is the status of extraction out of dual copula
clauses. In this respect, they also pattern together with pronominal rather than verbal copula ones:
(25) a. * Coi myślisz, że fizyka to jest ti?

what think.2SG that physics PRON is
‘What do you think that physics is?’
b. * Nauka o naturzei myśle˛, że fizyka to jest ti?
study of nature think.1SG that physics PRON is
‘The study of nature, I think that physics is that.’
Interestingly, there is a similar difference with respect to subject extraction; verbal copula clauses
allow subject extraction, whereas pronominal and dual copula ones do not, as shown in (26a–c).
This shows that the presence of the pronominal copula blocks both subject and predicate
extraction.12
(26) a. Ktoi chcesz, żeby ti był twoim najlepszym przyjacielem?

who want.2SG that was your best friend-INSTR
‘Who would you like to be your best friend?’
b. * Coi myślisz, że ti to fizyka?
what think.2SG that PRON physics
c. * Coi myślisz, że ti to jest fizyka?
what think.2SG that PRON jest physics
11
The grammaticality (i) seems like a counterexample to the generalization that extraction from pronominal and dual
copula clauses is ungrammatical. This is only apparent, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (ii), which suggests that (i)
might involve no wh-movement at all.
(i) Co to (jest) fizyka?
what PRON is physics
‘What is physics?’
(ii) * Coi fizyka to jest ti?
what physics PRON is
‘What is physics?’
12
In this respect, verbal copula clauses parallel non-copula clauses, which also allow subject extraction and do not show
that trace effects:
(i) Ktoi chcesz, żeby jutro przyszedł na zebranie?
who want.2SG that tomorrow come to meeting
‘Who would you like to come to the meeting tomorrow?’
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 271
3. Interpretation of Polish copula sentences
This section focuses on the differences in interpretation between the three types of Polish
copula clauses. Let us start with the typology established by Higgins (1973), who distinguishes
four types of copula clauses: predicational, identity (or equative), specificational, and
identificational ones. These are illustrated in (27a–d), respectively.
(27) a. John is a bank robber. predicational

b. The bank robber is John. specificational
c. The morning star is the evening star. identity/equative
d. That place is Boston. identificational
Predicational statements ascribe some property, such as that of being a bank robber in (27a), to
the subject. Specificational statements ‘merely say what one is talking about; the subject delimits
a domain and the specificational predicate identifies a particular member of that domain.’
(Higgins, 1973). Quite often, specificational statements have a list-like interpretation. For
example; (27b) can be naturally paraphrased as (28).
(28) The following person is the bank robber: John Thomas.
The third type, identity or equative statements such as the one given in (27c) above, establish
identity between two individuals. Higgins further distinguishes identity statements from
identificational ones, exemplified in (29a–b), which are typically used to teach names of people
or things, or to identify names of people or things:
(29) a. That place is Boston.

b. That animal is a tiger.
The division of copula sentences into these two four types is by no means uncontroversial. Quite
commonly, identificational sentences are assimilated to specificational ones (for a recent
implementation of this proposal, see Mikkelsen, 2004).13 In a similar spirit, specificational
sentences are sometimes treated either as a subset of equative ones (Heycock and Kroch, 1999),
or as inverted predicational ones (Moro, 1997, 2000; Adger and Ramchand, 2003; den Dikken,
2006).
With this division of copula clauses into four interpretative types, let us look at the distribution
of verbal and pronominal copulas in Polish. In specificational statements, only pronominal and
dual copulas are allowed, as shown in (30a–b). The only possible interpretation for (30c) is one in
which my best friend is impersonating or pretending to be Jan, which I take to be not a
specificational interpretation.
13
To be more precise, Mikkelsen argues that Higgins’ identificational class is not uniform, and is split into two types,
illustrated in (i) and (ii). Mikkelsen refers to the two types as truncated clefts and demonstrative equatives, and argues that
truncated clefts pattern with specificational clauses and demonstrative equatives with equatives.
(i) That is Susan. truncated clefts
(ii) That woman is Susan. demonstrative equatives
272 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
(30) a. Mój najlepszy przyjaciel to Jan.

my best friend PRON Jan
‘My best friend is Jan.’
b. Mój najlepszy przyjaciel to jest Jan.
my best friend PRON is Jan
c. # Mój najlepszy przyjaciel jest Janem.
My best friend is Jan
Higgins’s identificational sentences exhibit a similar pattern; they are grammatical with
pronominal and dual copulas, as shown in (31a) and (31c), respectively, whereas they are
ungrammatical with the verbal copula, as shown in (31b).14
(31) a. To miasto to Boston.

this town PRON Boston
‘This town is Boston.’
b. * To miasto jest Bostonem.
this town is Boston
c. To miasto to jest Boston.
this town PRON is Boston
Not surprisingly, identity sentences exhibit precisely the same pattern of copula use15:
(32) a. Doctor Jekyll to Mr Hyde.

doctor Jekyll PRON Mr Hyde
‘Doctor Jekyll is Mr Hyde.’
b. # Doktor Jekyll jest panem Hyde.
doctor Jekyll is Mr Hyde
‘Dr Jekyll is Mr Hyde.’
c. Doktor Jekyll to jest Mr Hyde.
Doctor Jekyll PRON is Mr Hyde
‘Doctor Jekyll is Mr Hyde.’
Predicational sentences are somewhat more complex. Given the discussion so far, we would
expect them to be ungrammatical or infelicitous with pronominal or dual copulas. This would
14
One might ask why specificational sentences with a verbal copula are merely infelicitous, whereas identificational
ones are fully ungrammatical. This, I believe, has to do with the fact that the ‘impersonation’ interpretation is unavailable
for identificational sentences.
15
The example in (33b) would be possible in the following scenario. Imagine you are calling Doctor Jekyll, and his
secretary answers the phone and tells you cannot talk to Dr Jekyll because today he is Mr Hyde. I am thankful to Ray
Jackendoff for suggesting this scenario.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 273
result in a clear-cut complementary distribution. This prediction, however, is not confirmed.

While it is true that the verbal copula is the most common correlate of a predicational
interpretation, it is not true that predicational interpretation is impossible with pronominal
and dual copula sentences. This is shown by the grammatical status of all three examples
given in (33).16
(33) a. Jan jest lekarzem.

Jan is doctor
‘Jan is a doctor.’
b. Jan to lekarz.
Jan PRON doctor
c. Jan to jest lekarz.
Jan PRON is doctor
The following examples, obtained via a Google search engine, also illustrate predicational uses
of the pronominal copula.
(34) a. Faraon to był król, który po śmierci stawał sie˛ mumia˛.

pharaoh PRON was king who after death became self mummy.
‘A pharaoh was a king that became a mummy after death.’
b. Syzyf to był taki człowiek, który cia˛gle miał pecha.
Sisyphus PRON was such man which always had bad luck
‘Sisyphus was a man that always had bad luck.’
(http://www.nochale.pl/pages/humor.html)
Furthermore, the fact that the post-copula elements in (35a–d) are non-referential shows that
examples containing them cannot be interpreted as identity statements.
(35) a. Gwarancje zatrudnienia to nic nowego.

guarantees employment-GEN PRON nothing new
‘Employment guarantees are nothing new.’ (www.wnp.pl/news)
b. Wszystko to nic.
everything PRON nothing
‘Everything is nothing.’ (www.republika.pl/mariuszparlicki)
c. Unia to nic nowego.
union PRON nothing new
‘The Union is nothing new.’ (www.radio.bialystok.pl/rep/unia/index.php)
d. Morderstwo to nic trudnego.
murder PRON nothing difficult
‘Murder is nothing difficult.’ (‘Easy to Kill’ by Agatha Christie)
16
I differ in this respect from Błaszczak and Geist (2001), who correlate the use of the pronominal copula in Polish and
Russian with an equative or a specificational interpretation. The examples in (34–35) seem to be incompatible with this
conclusion.
274 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
The use of pronominal copulas in examples of this sort casts doubt on the view that the
pronominal copula is simply an equative copula, which is how Doron (1983), Rapoport (1987),
and Rothstein (1995) analyze its semantic contribution in Hebrew.17 Greenberg (2002), on the
other hand, analyzes the pronominal copula in Hebrew as a marker of genericity. Extending
Greenberg’s proposal to Polish, however, would leave unaccounted for its obligatory presence in
equative sentences, which are not generic in any intuitive sense of the word.
Another common view regarding the contribution of the pronominal copula is to treat it as an
emphatic marker. There are three problems with this approach. First, Polish pronominal copula
sentences are not interpreted as emphatic in any intuitive sense of the word. Second, even if they
were, it would not be clear why the use of an emphatic marker should have an effect on syntactic
properties such as c-selection, case, or extraction possibilities. And third, if the pronominal
copula were simply the emphatic marker, its presence should never be obligatory. It is, however,
obligatory, if the verbal copula is absent.
A more promising alternative is to think of the pronominal copula as correlating with the
essential/non-essential distinction, or individual/stage-level distinction. This conclusion is
confirmed by the fact that the pronominal copula is infelicitous with predicates which are
inherently viewed as stage level, such as fugitive, passenger, pedestrian or spectator:
(36) # Jan to (jest) zbieg / pasażer / przechodzień / widz.

Jan PRON is fugitive passenger pedestrian/ spectator
‘Jan is a fugitive/passenger/pedestrian/spectator.’
The status of (36) improves if the predicates are coerced into a more individual level inter-
pretation:
(37) a. Jan to (jest) wieczny zbieg.

Jan PRON is permanent fugitive
‘Jan is a permanent fugitive.’
b. Jan to (jest) cze˛sty pasażer naszych linii lotniczych.
Jan PRON is frequent passenger our airline
‘Jan is a frequent passenger of our arline.’
c. Jan to (jest) najbardziej uważny przechodzień, jakiego znam.
Jan PRON is most careful pedestrian which know-1SG
‘Jan is the most careful pedestrian I know.’
d. Jan to (jest) nasz najwierniejszy widz.
Jan PRON is our most.faithful spectator
‘Jan is our most faithful spectator.’
This conclusion about the semantic contribution of the pronominal copula is consistent with
Babyonyshev and Matushansky’s (2006) observation about Russian (which also holds true of
Polish) that pronominal copulas in the past tense give rise to the so-called lifetime effects. For
17
The presence of the pronominal copula in Hebrew is obligatory in equative sentences, as shown in (i), whereas it is
optional in predicational sentences. The very fact that it may appear in predicational sentences casts doubt on the idea that
the pronominal copula is an equative one.
(i) Dani *(hu) mar yosef.
Dani PRON mr yosef
‘Dani is Mr Yosef.’
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 275
example, the example in (38a) implies that John is no longer alive, and the one in (38b) that
dinosaurs are extinct18:
(38) a. Jan to był mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

b. Dinozaury to nie były ssaki.
dinosaurs PRON not were mammals
‘Dinosaurs were not mammals.’
To sum up the discussion so far, we have seen that pronominal copula sentences differ from
their verbal counterparts with respect to category and case selection, extraction possibilities, and
interpretation. We have also seen that with respect to these four diagnostics, dual copula
sentences pattern with pronominal sentences, not verbal ones. The table given in (39)
summarizes these empirical findings.
In the remainder of this paper, I will focus on providing an account of the differences between
verbal and pronominal copula clauses on the one hand, and the similarities between pronominal
and dual copula clauses on the other. I will start out by discussing existing accounts, pointing out
their strengths and weaknesses. Next, I will turn to my own account, which in some sense
combines the insights of some of the existing accounts, but it does so without facing the problems
they face.
4. Predicate inversion accounts
4.1. Symmetric small clause + predicate inversion
The most straightforward account would derive the properties of all copula clauses from a
single underlying structure. This is indeed what the proponents of the so-called predicate
inversion accounts do. In this section, I will focus on the accounts that take this single underlying
18
The example in (38b) is modeled on Babyonyshev and Matushansky’s (2006) Russian examples, given in (i–ii) below.
The main focus of their paper is on strategies that make examples of this sort acceptable, such as point of view shift.
(i) # Slony eto byli vodoplavajuscie. Russian
elephants PRON were aquatic animals
‘Elephants were aquatic animals.’
(ii) Dinozaury eto byli presmykajusciesja.
dinosaurs PRON were reptiles
‘Dinosaurs were reptiles.’
276 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
structure to be a symmetric small clause. In the next section, I will turn to the accounts that take it
to be an asymmetric one.
Moro (1997, 2000) posits the following structure for all copula clauses19:
Raising the subject ‘John’ yields a predicational sentence (canonical copular sentence in his
terminology), whereas raising the predicate ‘the culprit’ yields a specificational sentence (inverse
copular sentence in his terminology). The two types are illustrated in (41a) and (41b),
respectively.
(41) a. John is the culprit. canonical copular sentences

b. The culprit is John. inverse copular sentences
One of Moro’s arguments in favor of an inversion account comes from extraction data, due to
Heycock and Kroch (1999).20 They show that in identity statements, neither DP may be wh-
moved, as shown in (42a–b).
(42) a. * [Whose attitude toward Davies]i would you say your attitude toward Jones is ti ?
b. * [Whose attitude toward Jones]i would you say ti is my attitude toward Davies?
19
The structure in (40) is ill-equipped to handle dual copula sentences; there is simply not enough room in it for
both the verbal and the pronominal copula. A slight modification, illustrated in (i), would fix this problem. It differs
from the structure given in (40) in that the small clause is a complement of a lexical V head rather than a functional
T head.
20
This impenetrability to extraction is not unique to wh-movement. Moro (1997) also shows that inverted and
non-inverted copula clauses in Italian show a similar contrast with respect to cliticization. Thus, cliticization is possible
out of canonical copula clauses, but not out of inverse ones.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 277
In this respect, they behave similarly to specificational statements in (43a–b), and both differ
from predicational ones in (44a–b).
(43) a. * [Whose arrest]i do you think the biggest upset was ti?
b. * [How big an upset]i do you think ti was Brian’s arrest?
(44) a. [Whose arrest]i do you think ti was the biggest upset?

b. [How big an upset]i do you think Brian’s arrest was ti?
Since for Moro both identity and specificational statements involve the same derivation, the
generalization is that inversion around the copula blocks extraction. Moro attributes it to the fact
that in an inverted structure both DPs occupy subject-like positions; DP1 is a derived subject, and
DP2 is a base-generated one.
Thus both should be subject to the same restrictions on movement as subjects are. Moro provides
an ECP style account of this prohibition. This, however, is not going to explain why movement of
the entire subject is not possible in languages like Polish, in which subjects are generally
moveable. The contrast between the ungrammatical (46a), which involves wh-movement of a
subject from a pronominal copula clause, and the grammatical (46b), which involves wh-
movement of a subject from a verbal copula clause, remains a puzzle. I will come back to this
contrast in section 6.3, assimilating the ban on extraction from pronominal copula clauses to the
ban on extraction from coordinate structures.
(46) a. * Ktoi myślisz, że ti to (jest) mój najlepszy przyjaciel?

who think.2SG that PRON is my best friend
b. Ktoi myślisz, że ti be˛dzie moim najlepszym przyjacielem?
who think.2SG that be.FUT my best friend
‘Who do you think will be my best friend?’
Another problem with treating specificational or identity statements as inverted predications is

that it does not explain (or more accurately, it does not predict) any differences between inverted
predicational clauses and identity or specificational clauses. As shown in (47a–c), inverted
predications differ from specificational and identity clauses with respect to case. In inverted
predicational clauses, Instrumental case on the inverted predicate is preserved. In identity and
specificational clauses, on the other hand, both noun phrases are Nominative. This also shows
that case considerations cannot be the motivation for inversion.
278 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
(47) a. Moim najlepszym przyjacielem jest Jan.

my best friend-INSTR is Jan-NOM
b. Stolica Polski to (jest) Warszawa.
capitol Poland-GEN PRON is Warsaw
‘The capitol of Poland is Warsaw.’
c. Dr Jekyll to (jest) Mr Hyde.
dr Jekyll- NOM PRON Mr Hyde-NOM
‘Dr Jekyll is Mr Hyde.’
This is consistent with Partee’s (1999) conclusion regarding Russian copula sentences involving
two Nominative noun phrases. Partee argues that only a subset of such sentences can be analyzed
as inverted predications. More specifically, the ones in (48a–b) can, whereas the ones in (49a–b),
in which the second noun phrase is clearly predicative, cannot.
(48) a. Vladelec etogo osobnjaka – juvelir Fužere.

owner-NOM this-GEN mansion-GEN jeweler-NOM Fužere
‘The owner of this mansion is the jeweler Fužere.’
b. Aksioma – èto istina, prinimaemaja bez dokazatel’stv.
axiom-NOM PRON truth-NOM accepted without proof
‘An axiom is a truth accepted without proof.’
(49) a. On vrač.
he-NOM doctor-NOM
‘He is a doctor.’
b. Juvelir Fužere – vladelec etogo osobnjaka.
jeweler-NOM Fužere owner-NOM this-GEN mansion-GEN
‘The jeweler Fužere is the owner of this mansion.’ (Partee, 1999:380)
The discussion in this section has shown that predicate inversion around a copula in a symmetric
small clause structure cannot account for all the properties of Polish copula clauses. In the next
section, I turn to a logical alternative, which involves predicate inversion in an asymmetric small
clause. The basic mechanism of predicate inversion remains the same; the only thing that changes
is the underlying structure of the small clause.
4.2. Asymmetric small clause + predicate inversion
Alternatively, we could assume that copula clauses can involve inversion around a copula in
an asymmetric small clause structure, in which the relationship between the subject and
the predicate is mediated by a functional head. This is what Heggie (1988), Mikkelsen (2004),
Adger and Ramchand (2003), and den Dikken (2006), among others, do.21
21
To be fair, these authors differ in the details of their analyses, such as the nature of the functional category heading the
small clause or the landing site for the inverted constituent. For Adger and Ramchand (2003), the functional head in
question is a Pred head, whereas for den Dikken it is a Relator head. Furthermore, for Heggie (1998) the landing site is the
[Spec,CP], whereas for the others it is [Spec,TP]. These differences between various implementations of the predicate
inversion account are not crucial for the purposes of this paper.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 279
Adger and Ramchand present their case for predicate inversion based on data from Scottish
Gaelic, whose copula clauses bear some resemblance to the Polish ones under consideration here.
For example, just like Polish, Scottish Gaelic has two types of copulas, which Adger and
Ramchand refer to as a substantive and a defective copula, respectively. The two copulas give rise
to three types of copula clauses, illustrated in (50a–c).
(50) a. Tha Calum faiceallach. substantive copula construction

be-PRES Calum careful
‘Calum is (being) careful.’
b. Is m or an duine sin. inverted copula construction
COP-PRES big that man
‘That man is big.’
c. ‘S e Calum an tidsear augmented copula construction
COP-PRES AUG Calum the teacher
‘Calum is the teacher.’
All three types involve the same asymmetric structure given in (51a), headed by a predicational
head, whose semantics is given in (51b).22,23
Both the substantive and the defective copula starts out as a head of pP. In substantive copula
clauses, it raises to T, which yields the word order in (50a) above. Adger and Ramchand argue
that the defective copula is too defective to raise to T by itself. As a result, it pied-pipes its
complement, which results in the following structure24:
22
In this respect, Adger and Ramchand (2003) depart from Carnie, who analyzes defective copula (in Irish) as an
identity copula.
23
An interesting piece of evidence in favor of the claim that all copula clauses are headed by a predicational head comes
from the fact that Scottish Gaelic does not allow true identity statements:
(i) *‘S e Cicero Tully
COP-PRES AUG Cicero Tully
‘Cicero is identical to Tully.’
24
This, I believe, is a somewhat weak point of the analysis. It is not clear what notion of defectiveness Adger and
Ramchand appeal to. Other types of weak or defective elements can certainly move, and in many cases are even required
to. Clitics are a good example of deficient elements that are required to move. A more theoretical issue with the inversion
analysis in (52) concerns the fact that a nonmaximal projection undergoes inversion.
280 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
Augmented copula clauses involve a similar pied-piping derivation. In such cases, the pronom-
inal augment is the actual predicate that starts out as the complement of the p head and undergoes
inversion. The second DP, if present, is base-generated as a right adjunct.25 Its function is ‘to
explicitly identify the contextually given individual’ (Adger and Ramchand, 2003:352).26
A natural question to ask is whether the Polish copula sentences can be treated similarly. There
are also three types of copula clauses to consider. These are repeated in (54a–c):
(54) a. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem.

b. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
25
The presence of the right adjoined DP is optional. The examples of the kind given in (i) can be analyzed as involving
predicate inversion without the adjoined DP.
(i) ‘S e Calum.
COP-PRES AUG Calum
‘It’s Calum.’
26
Adger and Ramchand give extraction facts as an argument in favor of this structure. The structure in (53) does indeed
predict that extraction from the adjunct DP should be ungrammatical. It does not predict (without some extra
assumptions) that extraction of an entire adjunct DP should be ungrammatical, which is what the ungrammaticality
of (ii) shows.
(i) C o an tidsear
who the teacher/Hamlet
Answer: ’s e Calum (an tidsear)
(ii) ??C o Calum?
who Calum
(seeking the answer: ‘S e Calum an tidsear’)
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 281
c. Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

An anonymous reviewer suggests treating the pronominal copula in both (54a) and (54b) as a
predicate that inverts with the subject. Such a derivation is schematized below; the only
difference between pronominal and dual copula clauses would lie in the presence or absence
of the verbal copula jest ‘be’ in T. In order to get the word order in (54b) or (54c), the p head
would have to pied-pipe both its complement and its predicate.
However, this structure only partially explains case and extraction data. The fact that DP2 is an
adjunct explains why movement out of it is impossible. Without extra assumptions, however, it
does not explain why movement of the entire adjunct DP is impossible. The same considerations
apply to the subject DP. The presence of Nominative case on DP2 is also somewhat problematic,
given the fact that there is no point in this derivation at which DP2 is within an Agree domain of T.
This follows from the standard minimalist assumption that Probes can only ‘probe’ downwards,
into their complement domains.
Another reason why I will not pursue such predicate inversion analysis for Polish clauses with
pronominal copulas has to do with the fact that all three types of copula clauses have inverted
variants, illustrated in (56–58).27 This suggests predicate inversion does exist in Polish, but not as
a sole mechanism to derive all pronominal copula clauses.
(56) a. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem verbal copula clauses
Jan-NOM is my best friend-INSTR
b. Moim najlepszym przyjacielem jest Jan.
my best friend-INSTR is Jan-NOM
‘My best friend is Jan’
27
There is an interesting contrast between verbal copula clauses on the one hand, and pronominal and dual ones on the
other with respect to inversion of indefinites. Such inversion is possible with verbal copula clauses, but impossible with
pronominal and dual copula ones, as shown by the contrast between (i) and (ii).
(i) Lekarzem jest Jan.
doctor-INSTR is Jan
(ii) * Lekarz to (jest) Jan.
doctor-NOM PRON (is) Jan
This is reminiscent of the well-documented observation about English specificational clauses that they do not allow
indefinites in an in inverted position:
(iv) * A doctor is John.
See, however, Mikkelsen (2004), for some interesting counterexamples to this claim.
282 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
(57) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel. pronominal copula clauses

Jan-NOM PRON my best friend-NOM
b. Mój najlepszy przyjaciel to Jan.
my best friend-NOM PRON Jan-NOM
(58) a. Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel. dual copula clauses
Jan-NOM PRON is my best friend-NOM
b. Mój najlepszy przyjaciel to jest Jan.
my best friend-NOM PRON is Jan-NOM
To sum up briefly, the facts presented in the last two sections lead me to reject predicate inversion as
a way to derive the differences between pronominal and verbal copula clauses in Polish. This is
irrespective of whether the small clause is a symmetric or an asymmetric one. A logical alternative
that I turn to in the next two sections involves two types of small clauses, a symmetric and an
asymmetric one. On such an account, the differences in structure would correlate with the use of a
different copula element, and consequently, with a difference in interpretation. I will focus on the
relationship between copula types and small clause types, even though the authors whose analyses I
will consider were primarily concerned with the relationship between copula types and their
interpretation.
5. Two types of small clauses
5.1. Verbal copula clauses as symmetric small clauses
In this section, I consider the possibility that verbal copula clauses involve a symmetric small
clause, and pronominal ones an asymmetric one, illustrated in (59a–b). This is similar in spirit to
the analyses proposed by Carnie (1995), Heycock and Kroch (1999), Rapoport (1987), and
Rothstein (2001), who argue that predicational copula sentences involve a symmetric small
clause, and equative ones an asymmetric one.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 283
Assuming a symmetric small clause for verbal copula clauses is problematic for many of the same
the same reasons assuming a symmetric small clause for all types of copula clauses was
problematic, which were discussed in section 4.1 above. Here, let me mention a few more. First,
such a structure fails to account for the well-known fact, first discussed in Sag et al. (1985), that
coordination of unlike categories is acceptable in predicative positions, in violation of the
Coordination of Likes Constraint.
(60) a. Pat is wealthy and a Republican.

b. * Wealthy and Republicans annoy Pat.
Another problem with the structure in (59a), which I merely alluded to above, involves case
on predicative DPs or APs. The only head that can potentially value their case is T, which does
not value Instrumental case.28 As shown by Maling and Sprouse (1995), default case cannot be
involved here, since there is no crosslinguistic correlation between morphological realizations
of default case and predicative case.29 In Icelandic, for example, Nominative is the default
case, as shown by the fact that it is used on left dislocated elements, such as the one in (61a).
The example in (61b) shows that it is also the case found on primary predicates, which
is consistent with a default case mechanism. However, the ECM structure in (61c), in
which the predicate nominal is Accusative rather than Nominative, becomes a problem, which
suggests that some form of case agreement or case concord is more likely to be responsible for
predicate case.
(61) a. Strakarnir, vi þa haf aldrei veri tala . Icelandic

the-boys-NOM with them-ACC had never been spoken
‘The boys, they had never been spoken with.’
b. Hun er kennari.
he is teacher-NOM
‘He is a teacher.’
c. Eg taldi hana vera kennara
I believed her-ACC to-be teacher-ACC
‘I believe her to be a teacher.’
28
One could argue that this is the right structure for languages like Japanese or Korean, where predicate noun phrases do
indeed lack case, as shown in (i–ii). However, it still fails to account for what seems to be typologically the more general
pattern, involving case marked predicate nominals.
(i) John-wa sugureta suugakusha da. Japanese
John-TOP fine mathematician PRON
‘John is a fine mathematician.’
(ii) John-eun hulryunghan suhakca-ta. Korean
John-NOM fine mathematician-PRON
‘John is a fine mathematician.’
29
With respect to the nature of default case, I follow Schutze (2001), for whom ‘the default case forms of a language are
those that are used to spell out nominal expressions that are not assigned case by any syntactic mechanisms.’ In English,
for example, Accusative is commonly assumed to be the default case, since this is the case of left-dislocated noun phrases,
subjects in mad magazine sentences, and nominal sentence fragments, as shown in (i–iii).
(i) Me, I like beans.
(ii) What? Him wear a tuxedo?! Never.
(iii) Who wants to try this game? Me/*I.
284 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
The problem is even direr in languages like Polish or Russian, in which Nominative is the default
case, as shown by the left dislocation structures in (62a) and (63a). However, nominal predicates
in verbal copula clauses are Instrumental, as shown in (62b) and (63b). Nominative is an option in
Russian, but not in Polish.30
(62) a. Vanja, ego ja ne ljublju. Russian

Vanja-NOM, him I not love
‘Vanja, I don’t love him.’
b. Vanja byl durakom/durak.
Vanja byl fool-INSTR fool-NOM
‘Vanja was a fool.’
(63) a. Jan, nikt go nie lubi. Polish

Jan-NOM noboby him not likes
‘Jan, nobody likes him.’
b. Jan jest studentem/*student.
Jan is student-INSTR/student-NOM
‘Jan is a student.’
Thus, the facts presented in this section suggest that verbal copula clauses cannot involve a
symmetric small clause. In the next section, I turn to a logical alternative, which also assumes two
types of small clauses, but which analyzes pronominal copula clauses (rather than verbal ones) as
involving a symmetric small clause.
5.2. Pronominal copula clauses as symmetric small clauses
In this section, I consider an account on which pronominal copula sentences involve a

symmetric small clause and verbal copula sentences an asymmetric one, illustrated in (61a–b),
respectively. This is very similar in spirit to Pereltsvaig’s (2001) proposal to handle the contrast
between Russian copula sentences involving Nominative and Instrumental marked predicates.
Extending this proposal to Polish, in which Nominative case correlates with the use of a
pronominal copula structure and Instrumental case with the use of verbal one, seems fairly
straightforward.
30
For a recent discussion and analysis of the differences between Nominative and Instrumental marked predicates in
Russian, see Matushansky (2000), Harves (2002), among others.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 285
While this analysis avoids the issues raised in the previous section, it raises some issues of its
own. In particular, it makes incorrect predictions regarding dual copula clauses, such as the one
repeated in (65) below:
(65) Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

As shown in (66a), such examples clearly cannot involve a symmetric small clause structure.
Such a structure is simply too ‘bare’ to accommodate both the verbal and the pronominal copula.
The only option for them is thus the rich small clause structure given in (66b).
286 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
Assuming such a structure for dual copula clauses makes a straightforward prediction that they
should pattern with verbal copula clauses with respect to all the diagnostics considered above,
such as syntactic selection, case, movement, and interpretation possibilities. However, we saw
that they pattern with pronominal copula clauses instead. The crucial data are repeated below.
First, both pronominal and dual copula clauses impose the same syntactic restrictions on the
category of the subject and the predicate (both have to be of the same category). For example, if
the subject is a DP, the predicate has to be a DP as well, as shown in (67a). Second, the predicate
in both has to be Nominative (rather than Instrumental), as shown in (67b). And third, they cannot
undergo movement, as shown in (67c).
(67) a. Jan to (jest) mój najlepszy przyjaciel/*przyjacielski/*w domu.

Jan PRON is my best friend friendly at home
‘Jan is my best friend/friendly/at home.’
b. Jan to (jest) mój najlepszy przyjaciel/*moim najlepszym przyjacielem.
Jan PRON is my best friend-NOM my best friend-INSTR
c. * Ktoi Jan to (jest) ti?
who Jan PRON is
‘Who is Jan?’
The facts reviewed in these two sections suggest that neither of the structural ambiguity
approaches is completely right. What I suggest in the next section is an alternative which
combines the insights of both of them. It resembles them in that it treats verbal and pronominal
copula sentences as structurally distinct. It differs from them in that it does not treat either kind as
involving a symmetric small clause.
6. Proposal: two types of rich small clauses
6.1. Two types of p heads
There are two crucial pieces to the analysis of Polish copula clauses that I will develop in
the remainder of this paper. First, I will maintain the view that there are two types of
small clauses, and that in languages like Polish this distinction correlates with the use of a
verbal versus a pronominal copula. However, I will argue that both types are asymmetric,
headed by a predicational head. In this respect, my proposal departs from the two proposals
I considered (and ultimately rejected) in sections 5.1 and 5.2 above, in which one of the
two types was a symmetric small clause, and parallels Adger and Ramchand’s (2003)
account, which treats all three types of copula clauses in Scottish Gaelic as involving
an asymmetric structure. Another important point that distinguishes my proposal from some
of the proposals I considered above is the fact that the distinction between the two types does
not correlate with identity versus predicational interpretation. This is also consistent with
Adger and Ramchand’s conclusion that true identity statements do not exist. Even in
the classic examples of identity statements, there is an interpretive asymmetry between the
two DPs.
Second, I derive all the differences between the three types of Polish copula clauses from a
simple assumption that the p head can be either complete or defective. The properties of the two
types of p heads are given in the following table:
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 287
The notion of defectiveness I adopt, however, is stronger than Chomsky’s (1999), for whom a
defective head is simply a head that lacks a complete phi-feature set. For example, a complete
T (which for Chomsky is a T head selected by a C head) has a full phi-feature set (hence can
value Case on a Goal). A defective T, on the other hand, is a T selected by a V head, lacking a
complete set of phi-features. Thus, it is not able to value Case. Examples of defective
heads are T heads in raising or ECM structures, and v heads in passive or unaccusative
structures.31
Chomsky’s notion of defectiveness is what Harves (2002) and Matushansky (2000) adopt to
account for the differences between Russian small clauses with Nominative and Instrumental
predicates. In their accounts, both types of small clauses are headed by a phase head, and the
differences between them stem from the fact that this phase head can be either strong or weak.
For example, the fact that Nominative predicates cannot undergo wh-movement follows from the
weak status of the phase head. Since it lacks an EPP feature, successive cyclic movement through
the edge of the phase is not possible. This predicts, however, that extraction of Nominative
subjects should be possible, since Nominative subjects are already at the phase edge. This,
however, is not what we find in Polish pronominal and dual copula clauses. As shown in (69a–b),
neither the subject nor the predicate can move:
(69) a. * Ktoi myślisz, że ti to (jest)?

who think.2SG that PRON (is)
‘Who do you think that this is?
b. * Ktoi myślisz, że Jan to (jest) ti?
who think.2SG that Jan PRON (is)
Given the independent fact that subject extraction is generally fine (as was shown in section 2.4
for verbal copula clauses), the fact that neither the subject nor the predicate can move out of
pronominal (or dual) copula clauses cannot follow from pP being a weak phase.
This is one of the reasons why the notion of defectiveness I adopt here is different from
Chomsky’s. I assume that the p head in pronominal and dual copula clauses is deficient in the
same sense the conjunction head is deficient. I further assume a fairly standard approach to the
structure of coordinate phrases, illustrated in (70), on which they are headed by a conjunction
head (see Johannessen, 1998; Munn, 1993; Zoerner, 1995, among many others, for arguments in
favor of such an account).
31
The notion of defectiveness or weakness is not limited to phase heads. A head can be defective without being a phase
head. This is the case with T heads.
288 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
There are a number of interesting parallels between deficient p heads and deficient & heads.
First, both require their specifiers and complements to be of the same category. In (68) above, I
refer to this requirement as a parallelism requirement. Second, neither allows extraction of either
the complement or the specifier. And third, neither values Case on its complement (or a DP within
its complement domain). All these properties follow from a simple assumption that such
defective heads simply lack independent syntactic features of their own, and that their only
role is to mediate a relationship between a specifier and a complement.32 This includes case
features, subcategorization features, and whatever lexical features would make them proper
governors for wh-extracted complements or specifiers.
This stronger notion of defectiveness can shed some light on the well-known properties of
coordinate structures, such as the fact that both conjuncts are of the same category (Coordination
of Likes Constraint), bear the same case, and cannot move (Coordinate Structure Constraint).
These properties are illustrated in (71a–c).
(71) a. * I saw John and smart.

b. I like him and her/*she.
c. * Whoi did you see ti and Bill?
I propose that the p head in pronominal and dual copula clauses is defective in precisely the same
sense. In the next two sections, I show how this difference in the featural make-up of the p head
can account for the differences between verbal copula clauses on the one hand, and pronominal
and dual ones on the other.
6.2. Verbal copula clauses
The structure I propose for verbal copula clauses is given in (72). The small clause is headed
by a complete p, which is filled by the verbal copula być.
32
This is not to say that it is semantically vacuous. Both defective p heads and defective & heads have semantic content.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 289
A complete p has the following set of features: uninterpretable w-features, and an optional EPP
feature. In the course of the derivation, the p head values the uninterpretable Case feature on its
DP complement, which becomes Instrumental, and the T head values the uninterpretable Case
feature on the subject DP, which becomes Nominative.33,34 A DP subject in turn values
uninterpretable w-features on T. Since T also has an EPP feature, the subject needs to raise
to [Spec,TP]. The result is the following structure:
In wh-movement cases, the p head has an EPP feature, which allows its complement to move
successive cyclically. This ‘edge property’ is what makes pP a strong phase in the sense of Chomsky
(1999), which in turn explains why the complement of p head can undergo wh-movement.35
6.3. Pronominal and dual copula clauses
Pronominal and dual copula sentences involve a small clause structure headed by a defective p
head. The pronominal copula in both is in T. The only difference between pronominal and dual
copula clauses lies in whether the defective p head is filled by the verbal copula jest ‘be’ or not.
The two structures are given in (74b) and (75b), respectively.
(74) a. Warszawa to stolica Polski.

Warsaw PRON capitol-NOM Poland-GEN
‘Warsaw is the capitol of Poland.’
33
The insight that the predicational head is involved in Instrumental case assignment goes back to Bailyn and Rubin
(1991) (see also Bailyn and Citko, 1999; and Bailyn, 2001 for a more recent implementation of the same basic idea).
34
An interesting question, brought to my attention by an anonymous reviewer, is whether instrumental case can be
thought of as a realization of partitive case assigned by the partitive be (see Belletti, 1988 for more discussion of partitive
case). This suggestion is not viable for Slavic languages, as in other syntactic environments partitive case is realized as
genitive rather than instrumental.
35
Recall that both the subject and the predicate can undergo wh-movement out of verbal copula clauses. The crucial data
are repeated below.
(i) Ktoi myślisz, że ti jest twoim najlepszym przyjacielem?
who-NOM think.2SG that is your best friend
‘Who do you think is your best friend?’
(ii) Kimi myślisz, że Jan jest ti ?
who-INSTR think.2SG that Jan is
‘Who do you think that Jan is?’
290 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
(75) a. Warszawa to jest stolica Polski.

Warsaw PRON is capitol Poland
A natural question that arises here is why the pronominal copula is base-generated in T, given the
fact that it is the verbal one that is marked for tense, as shown in (76a–b).
(76) a. Jan to był mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
‘Jan was my best friend.’
b. Jan to be˛dzie mój najlepszy przyjaciel.
Jan PRON will-be my best friend
‘Jan will be my best friend.’
This can be attributed to the fact that the pronominal copula to is an expletive copula. This means
that at LF, the verbal copula will adjoin to it, resulting in (77).36
36
In an Agree-based system, which eliminates covert movement, the relationship between the two copulas could simply
be a result of an Agree operation.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 291
The adjunction illustrated in (77) cannot be the result of overt movement for a number of
reasons. First, it would yield an incorrect word order of the two copulas:
(78) * Warszawa jest to stolica Polski.

Warsaw is PRON capitol Poland
Second, it would predict adjacency between the two copulas.37 This is not what we find; the
examples given in (79–81) show that negation, modals, and adverbs can intervene between the
pronominal and verbal copula.
(79) a. Waterloo to nie było zwycie˛stwo. (Rutkowski, 2006)

Waterloo PRON NEG was victory
‘Waterloo wasn’t a victory.’
b. * Waterloo nie to było zwycie˛stwo.
Waterloo NEG PRON was victory
(80) a. Waterloo to mogło być zwycie˛stwo.

Waterloo PRON could be victory
‘Waterloo could have been a victory.’
b. * Waterloo mogło to być zwycie˛stwo.
Waterloo could PRON be victory
(81) a. Waterloo to naprawde˛ było zwycie˛stwo.

Waterloo PRON indeed was victory
‘Waterloo was indeed victory.’
b. * Waterloo naprawde˛ to było zwycie˛stwo.
Waterloo indeed PRON was victory
A natural question to raise here is how the properties of pronominal and dual copula clauses
follow from the defective nature of p. The defectiveness of p headed by the pronominal copula to
is manifested in the following ways. First, unlike the complete p head found in verbal copula
clauses, the defective p lacks an eventuality variable. This accounts for the fact that pronominal
and dual copula clauses cannot be interpreted with respect to some eventuality; they can only
receive individual level interpretations, and in the past tense give rise to the so-called life-time
effects. Second, the defective p requires its specifier and its complement to be of the same
syntactic category. In this respect, it parallels a defective & head, which also requires its
complement and specifier to be of the same category. In the coordinate domain, this is what the
Coordination of Likes Constraint can be reduced to.38 Intuitively speaking, this follows from the
fact that defective p heads and & heads lack any c-selection features of their own; they merely
‘duplicate’ the c-selection features of a higher head. And the third property of defective p heads
has to do with case. Since pdef lacks w features, it cannot value case features of its complement.
The only functional head that can value its case features thus is a T head, which is complete (has w
features) and has both the subject (the specifier of p) and the predicate (the complement of p) in
37
Thank you to an anonymous Lingua reviewer for bringing this prediction to my attention.
38
Exceptions to the Coordination of Likes Constraint can be thought of as involving coordination of larger like units.
292 B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295
its domain. Therefore, it can value case on both the subject and the predicate. This can be
accomplished via a Multiple Agree mechanism of Hiraiwa (2005), given in (82), which allows a
single Probe to value case simultaneously on more than one Goal.39
(82) Multiple Agree (Hiraiwa, 2005:17)

Agree is a derivationally simultaneous operation Agree (P, 8G):
Puw > GuCase,w > GuCase,w
When applied to copula constructions, Multiple Agree values Nominative case on both the
subject and the predicate:
Again, in this respect defective p heads parallel defective & heads. Defective & heads also do not
value case, which explains why in a coordinate structure, both conjuncts bear the same case.40
The last property to consider involves movement restrictions. As we have seen above, both
pronominal and dual copula clauses disallow movement of both the subject and the predicate.
The relevant examples are repeated below:
(84) a. * Ktoi myślisz, że ti to (jest)?

who think.2SG that PRON (is)
b. * Ktoi myślisz, że Jan to (jest) ti?
who think.2SG that Jan PRON (is)
Movement restrictions in dual copula structures cannot be attributed to pP being a weak phase.
More prototypical instances of weak phases (such as passives and unaccusatives) do allow
wh-movement of the subject, both short and long distance:
39
Simultaneity here is crucial, since otherwise one would expect defective intervention effects to arise.
40
This raises a natural question of whether a non-defective conjunction head exists, and if so what the properties of a
conjunction phrase headed by such a head would be. While a full consideration of this issue goes beyond the scope of this
paper, the following considerations suggest that such conjunctions might indeed exist. In such a coordinate structure, the
two conjuncts would bear distinct cases, and both violations of the Coordination of Likes Constraint and the Coordinate
Structure Constraint would be grammatical.
B. Citko / Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295 293
(85) a. Ktoi ti został oszukany?

who became deceived
‘Who was deceived?’
b. Ktoi wydaje ci sie˛, że ti został oszukany?
who seems you-DAT REFL that became deceived
‘Who do you think was deceived?’
The suggestion I would like to make here is that this restriction on movement also follows from
the defective nature of the p head. It also has an analog in the coordinate domain, in the form of
the Coordinate Structure Constraint, illustrated in (86a-b), which prohibits extraction of an entire
conjunct or its part.
(86) a. * Whoi do you think ti and John left?

b. * Whoi do you think John saw ti and left the party?
This property of defective p and & heads can also be thought of as a form of parallelism
constraint, which requires their specifiers and complements to be of the same type. The presence
of a trace in one but not the other breaks this parallelism.
7. Conclusions and implications
To conclude, I have argued in this paper for a new typology of copular sentences, based on new
evidence from Polish. I have examined three types of Polish copula sentences: verbal copula
sentences, pronominal copula sentences, and dual copula sentences, showing that dual copula
sentences pattern with pronominal copula sentences with respect to category selection, case
assignment, extraction possibilities, and semantic interpretation. All three types were argued to
involve an asymmetric small clause, headed by a predicational p head. The differences between
verbal copula clauses on the one hand, and pronominal and dual copula ones on the other, have
been shown to follow from the complete versus defective status of this p head.
The proposal made in this paper raises interesting questions involving the universality of the
distinction between the two types of small clauses. For example, is the presence of two distinct
copula elements in a language enough to warrant the distinction between two types of small
clauses? A positive answer seems conceptually plausible; however, the details of the
crosslinguistic implications remain to be worked out. What I hope to have accomplished in this
paper is to stimulate further crosslinguistic research into the syntax of languages that allow more
than one copula element.
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Small Clauses Reconsidered: Not So Small and Not All Alike: Barbara Citko

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Lingua 118 (2008) 261–295

Small clauses reconsidered:

(2) a. Mary is a doctor.

(4) a. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem. verbal copula clauses

(5) Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel. dual copula clauses

(6) a. lP. lx [P(x)] be of predication

2. Syntactic properties of Polish copula clauses

2.1. Basic properties

(7) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel. pronominal copula clauses

(8) a. Jan to jest mój nalepszy przyjaciel.

(9) a. Il-mudarris (huwwa) il-latiif. Arabic

(10) a. Dani (hu) more. Hebrew

(11) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

2.2. Category selection

(12) a. Jan to [DP mój najlepszy przyjaciel]

(13) nominals > adjectivals > verbals6

(14) a. W domu to w domu.

(15) a. ??W domu to wygoda.

(16) a. Maria jest [DP studentka˛]

(17) a. Droższe to nie jest zawsze lepsze.

(18) a. Warszawa to jest [DP stolica Polski]

(19) a. Jan jest lekarzem/*lekarz.

(20) Warszawa to stolica Polski /*stolica˛ Polski.

(21) Warszawa to jest stolica Polski /*stolica˛ Polski.

2.4. Extraction possibilities

(22) a. ?Kimi myślisz, że był Jan ti?

(23) a. Kimi chcesz, żeby był Jan ti?

(24) a. * Coi myślisz, że fizyka to ti?

(25) a. * Coi myślisz, że fizyka to jest ti?

(26) a. Ktoi chcesz, żeby ti był twoim najlepszym przyjacielem?

3. Interpretation of Polish copula sentences

(27) a. John is a bank robber. predicational

(28) The following person is the bank robber: John Thomas.

(29) a. That place is Boston.

(30) a. Mój najlepszy przyjaciel to Jan.

(31) a. To miasto to Boston.

(32) a. Doctor Jekyll to Mr Hyde.

result in a clear-cut complementary distribution. This prediction, however, is not confirmed.

(33) a. Jan jest lekarzem.

(34) a. Faraon to był król, który po śmierci stawał sie˛ mumia˛.

(35) a. Gwarancje zatrudnienia to nic nowego.

(36) # Jan to (jest) zbieg / pasażer / przechodzień / widz.

(37) a. Jan to (jest) wieczny zbieg.

(38) a. Jan to był mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

4. Predicate inversion accounts

4.1. Symmetric small clause + predicate inversion

(41) a. John is the culprit. canonical copular sentences

(44) a. [Whose arrest]i do you think ti was the biggest upset?

(46) a. * Ktoi myślisz, że ti to (jest) mój najlepszy przyjaciel?

Another problem with treating specificational or identity statements as inverted predications is

(47) a. Moim najlepszym przyjacielem jest Jan.

(48) a. Vladelec etogo osobnjaka – juvelir Fužere.

4.2. Asymmetric small clause + predicate inversion

(50) a. Tha Calum faiceallach. substantive copula construction

(54) a. Jan jest moim najlepszym przyjacielem.

c. Jan to jest mój najlepszy przyjaciel.

(57) a. Jan to mój najlepszy przyjaciel. pronominal copula clauses

5. Two types of small clauses

5.1. Verbal copula clauses as symmetric small clauses

(60) a. Pat is wealthy and a Republican.

(61) a. Strakarnir, vi þa haf aldrei veri tala . Icelandic

(62) a. Vanja, ego ja ne ljublju. Russian

(67) a. Jan to (jest) mój najlepszy przyjaciel/przyjacielski/w domu.