Non-canonical agreement in predicational copular clauses: Evidence from Polish

Abstract This paper examines several understudied and unusual types of copular constructions in Polish, in which the copula agrees with the predicate rather than the subject. It argues that this seemingly unexpected agreement pattern follows from a well-known principle: the controller of agreement is the highest accessible phrase in the domain of agreement. This conclusion is defended against appearances, which suggest that the controller of agreement is not the highest accessible phrase in the constructions at hand. In the process, the paper advances several theoretical claims, including the proposal that the demonstrative found in the subject position in such constructions is structurally reduced and lacks a case projection, that certain non-agreeing leftmost phrases are base-generated above TP, and that there are two flavours of Pred in Polish, including a highly defective Pred which combines with nominal predicates in the nominative instead of the usual instrumental of predication. The paper also reports the discovery of long-distance agreement in Polish, apparently not noted so far in the context of Slavic.