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.
Abstract This paper argues that prenominal Mandarin de in XP- de -NP constructions serves uniformly as a polymorphic semantic linker, despite its varied syntactic environments. We propose that de introduces an underspecified relation variable, R, which connects the XP to the NP’s individual argument. The admissible values of R derive from two sources: they are either supplied lexically by the noun through inherent or qualia-instantiated relations, or they arise from a small set of grammar-driven interface relations. We show that the semantic variation of XP- de -NP results from resolving R without positing lexical ambiguity. This framework further accounts for two pseudo-modification patterns without resorting to coercion. Duration pseudo-modification applies a duration modifier to a TELIC-derived event profile, while canonical fake nominal modification saturates a head-licensed, event-dependent qualia relation. Both combine with the verbal predicate via non-saturating Event-dependent Restrict. Modifier-ordering asymmetries follow from the preservation of qualia roles, dependencies among lexical relations and the distinction between lexical saturation and adjunct modification. Finally, the relation-variable mechanism is shown to be shared crosslinguistically with the English clitic ’s , although the latter is restricted to DP-like possessors. This unified account highlights de as a single polymorphic linker that systematically mediates XP-NP relations across diverse constructions.
Stress position in English words is well-known to be influenced by phonological, morphological, and (morpho)syntactic factors (esp. verbs vs. nouns). All these influences, however, are far from categorical, and very often stress varies from one word to another in a seemingly unpredictable manner. What is more, recent corpus-based work points to the relevance of opaque, i.e. etymological prefixes. It is, however, unclear why effects of opaque morphology should be productive synchronically. Moreover, there is an increasing body of research indicating that stress assignment works on the basis of lower-level information, i.e. analogy. In this paper we analyze the results of a pseudo-word experiment testing the production of trisyllabic verbs. Structural predictors tested in the analysis comprise syllable weight and prefixation (measuring the transparency of prefixes). To test analogy, we had a computational analogical model predict stress in the pseudo-words based on all verbs in the Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary. Lexical support measures were then used as predictors alongside weight and prefixation in a mixed-effects logistic regression model. The results show that all three variables are significant predictors of main stress in the experimental data. Lexical support is strongly correlated with actual productions, but AML underpredicts some of participants' preferences. These are, however, explained by syllable weight and transparency of the prefix in our regression model. We conclude that properties on different levels of representation are relevant for the prediction of stress position in English pseudo-verbs.
A considerable number of Grassfields Bantu languages instantiate determiner phrase internal re-ordering for possessive pronoun focus that, in turn, may affect the form of noun class exponents. I describe the phenomenon in the Eastern Grassfields Bantu languages Ngemba, Medumba and Shupamem, and argue that it should be thought of as an instance of anti-agreement effects (see, a.o., Schneider-Zioga, Patricia. 2007. Anti-agreement, anti-locality and minimality. the syntax of dislocated subjects. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 25. 403-446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-006-9014-5, Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka. 2016. Anti-locality and optimality in Kaqchikel agent focus. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 34(2). 429-479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9310-z, Baier, Nico. 2018. Anti-agreement. University of California dissertation, The United States of America) within the nominal domain. I adopt Carstens (Carstens, Vicki. 2026. The grammar of gender: Insights from Bantu asymmetries of AGR with conjoined subjects. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 44(2). 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-026-09702-x)'s grammar of gender, and propose an account of the phenomenon using Baier (Baier, Nico. 2018. Anti-agreement. University of California dissertation, The United States of America)'s theory of anti-agreement - which assumes that information structure features such as [focus] and [topic] can trigger impoverishment rules (see also Lahne, Antje. 2009. Where there is fire there is smoke: Local modelling of successive-cyclic movement. Universitat Leipzig dissertation, Leipzig. Ershova, Ksenia. 2024. phi-feature mismatches in Samoan resumptives as postsyntactic impoverishment. In Serova Kutay & Snigaroff Madeline (eds.), Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society 59 (2023), 87-102. https://kershova.github.io/Ershova_CLS59_proceedings.pdf. Fongang, Tadjo Leonel. 2025b. Topic resumption in Bamileke Ngemba: Animate/inanimate asymmetries and strictly local Impoverishment. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics. 10(1). https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.15465.).
