The Case Marking of PRO in Polish Revisited

Dr. habil. Anna Bondaruk (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin)

The aim of the talk is to examine what case PRO can be marked for in Polish and how this case marking proceeds. Since PRO is phonologically null, its case marking becomes visible only if one considers primary predicates (e.g. predicative adjectives) or secondary predicates (e.g. sam ‘alone’) whose case typically testifies to the case borne by the item they are predicated of. The data crucial for determining the case of PRO in Polish include instances of case transmission, where the case of PRO and the case of its controller are the same, and those in which the predicate (and hence) PRO exhibits default case: instrumental for primary predicates and dative for secondary ones.

Other data discussed correspond to instances of optional case transmission, where PRO either bears the case of its controller or is marked for the default case. The model adopted in the paper is Landau’s (2007) analysis of the analogous data in Russian. It is argued that Polish case transmission as well as the optionality thereof is derivable from Landau’s analysis. Landau’s model, however, must be modified to block case transmission in object control in Polish. This is achieved if one assumes that in that case of object control only C (which is obligatorily equipped with phi-features) can be targeted by Agree from v, therefore the control via PRO is blocked and hence no case transmission can arise.