PREDICATIVE ADVERBS: EVIDENCE

FROM POLISH
Agnieszka Patejuk
Adam Przepio´rkowski

Squibs
and
Discussion

Abstract: This squib argues that adverbs can act as primary predicates.
In Polish, a relatively large class of adverbs are frequently used in
predicative constructions when the subject of predication is an InfP
(infinitival phrase) or a CP referring to abstract objects: event kinds
or facts. This requirement of a purely verbal rather than nominal sub-
ject of predication is the main difference between predicative adverbs
and predicative adjectives, explaining contrasts between their syntactic
behavior in extraction and coordination. Predicative adverbs usually
express attitudes toward event kinds or facts and often combine with
dative experiencers; in the case of InfP subjects, dative experiencers
obligatorily control the subject.

Keywords: predication, adverbs, events, control, adjectives, experi-
encers

1 Introduction

It is commonly—even if usually tacitly—assumed that adverbs cannot
act as primary predicates. Although it is not fully clear whether it is
meant as a crosslinguistic generalization, an explicit statement to this
effect may be found in a prominent monograph on predication
(Rothstein 2001:129): “I assume that the absence of a predication
relation is because adverbs are just not syntactic predicates. They never
appear in a position in which they can be predicated of a syntactic
argument; this is not because they must be predicated of events, since
even if the argument denotes an event, it cannot have an adverb predi-

We are very grateful to Mary Dalrymple, who provided detailed comments
on previous versions of this squib, as well as to anonymous reviewers and the
LI Squibs and Discussion editors, whose remarks also led to many significant
improvements. We also benefited from comments by MirosØaw Ban´ko, Emily
Bender, Anna Bondaruk, Barbara Citko, Jan Fellerer, Steve Franks, Tracy Hol-
loway King, John Lowe, Joan Maling, Geoff Pullum, Boz˙ena Rozwadowska,
Ewa Willim, Jacek Witkos´, and the audiences of LFG 2018, SE-LFG26, LAGB
2019, CSSP 2019, and SE-LFG28. The usual disclaimers apply.

Agnieszka Patejuk gratefully acknowledges the Mobilnos´c´ Plus mobility

grant awarded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

This squib is dedicated to the memory of Susan Rothstein (1958–2019).

Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 52, Number 4, Fall 2021
835–851
(cid:2) 2020 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00394

835

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

cated of it. The examples in [(1)–(3)] are all unacceptable with adver-
bial predicates, though the corresponding adjectives are all OK.”

(1) The destruction of the city was brutal/*brutally.

(2) The reading of the verdict was slow/*slowly.

(3) John considered [the running slow/*slowly].

More often, discussions of nonverbal predication concentrate on nomi-
nal, adjectival, and prepositional predicates, implicitly assuming that
adverbs cannot be productive predicates. For example, the only adver-
bial predicates mentioned in Roy 2013, a monograph on nonverbal
predication, are lexical idiosyncrasies such as the Irish and Spanish
equivalents of well in Jane is well.

The aim of this squib is to show that it is not universally true
that “adverbs are just not syntactic predicates” or that they may act
as primary predicates only exceptionally. We demonstrate on the basis
of attested data1 that, in Polish, a certain—relatively large and var-
ied—class of adverbs may be productively used as predicates in copu-
lar constructions, namely, in constructions in which the subject is a
verbal constituent—a complementizer phrase (CP) or a bare infinitival
phrase (henceforth, InfP; not to be confused with InflP or IP, i.e.,
Inflectional Phrase)—denoting a fact or an event kind.2

2 Verbal Subjects of Predication

It is well-known that, crosslinguistically, CPs and InfPs may act as
grammatical subjects, also in predicative constructions in which they
are predicated of, that is, in which they act as subjects of predication.
(4)–(5) are examples from Uhrig 2018:chap. 6, a recent corpus study
of English subjects.3

(4) [That he ate lots of junk food] was not healthy.

(5) [To redouble humanitarian efforts during Ramadan] would

also be both honourable and politically effective.

Similarly for Polish, as in the attested (6)–(11) from the National
Corpus of Polish.4

1 This squib is almost exclusively based on authentic examples drawn
from the National Corpus of Polish (NKJP; http://nkjp.pl; Przepio´rkowski et
al. 2011, 2012).

2 While there are other constructions in Polish that might perhaps also
be analyzed as involving predicative adverbs, in this squib we concentrate
exclusively on constructions with verbal subjects.

3 For the sake of clarity, subjects of predication are marked with square

brackets.

4 Verbal subjects in Polish predicative constructions are further dis-
cussed—and provided a syntactic analysis couched in Lexical Functional
Grammar (Kaplan and Bresnan 1982, Dalrymple, Lowe, and Mycock 2019)—
in Patejuk and Przepio´rkowski 2018.

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

837

(6) Ciekawostka.˛ jest,

[z˙e w akumulatorach jako paliwo

is.3SG that in batteries

curio.INS
uz˙ywany be˛dzie alkohol].
used
will
‘It is an interesting fact that alcohol will be used as fuel in
batteries.’ (NKJP)

alcohol

fuel

(7) Grzechem jest

[ogla.˛dac´

ten film].

(8) Jasne

is.3SG watch.INF this film
sin.INS
‘It is a sin to watch this film.’ (NKJP)
byØo,
clear.NOM.SG.N was.3SG.N that comes
kradziez˙y].
theft
‘It was clear that it had been stolen.’ (NKJP)

[z˙e pochodzi on z

he from

(9) Ciekawe

jest

[odpowiadac´ na znane sobie

interesting.NOM.SG.N is.3SG answer.INF on known self
pytania]?
questions
‘Is it interesting to answer questions known to oneself ?’
(NKJP)

(10) Bez

sensu byØo,

s´wiat].
[z˙e
without sense was.3SG.N that attacked whole world
‘It did not make any sense that they were attacking the whole
world.’ (NKJP)

atakowali caØy

(11) W dobrym gus´cie jest

[zapoz˙yczyc´ cos´

taste

is.3SG borrow.INF something from

in good
me˛skiej garderoby].
male
‘It is in good taste to borrow something from men’s ward-
robe.’ (NKJP)

wardrobe

Polish is a relatively free word order language, and the typical
(but not exclusive) word order in such constructions is “predicate –
copula – verbal subject,” perhaps due to the relative heaviness of such
verbal (CP/InfP) subjects. In (6)–(7), the nominal predicate is in the
instrumental case, just as in the usual predicative constructions with
nominal subjects (see, e.g., Pisarkowa 1965 and Przepio´rkowski 1999).
Similarly, in (8)–(9), the adjectival predicate is in the nominative,
again mirroring the usual predicative constructions with nominal sub-
jects. As shown in (10)–(11), the predicate may be a prepositional
phrase, just as in the case of nominal subjects. Examples (6)–(11)
show that all six possibilities—nominal/adjectival/prepositional pred-
icate (cid:3) CP/InfP subject—are fully acceptable and attested. Note that,
in all six examples, the copula occurs in the “default” third person
singular neuter5 form because the grammatical subject is not nomina-

5 In Polish, gender is overt on finite verbs only in the past tense—that

is, in (8) and (10), but not in the other four examples.

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

tive (it is not cased at all); this is an instance of so-called default
agreement (Dziwirek 1990).

Such verbal subjects of predication may also occur in “small
clause” constructions involving verbs such as uwaz˙ac´ ‘consider’,
where—unlike in (6)–(11)—they are grammatical objects rather than
grammatical subjects.

(12) Koledzy . . .

uwaz˙ali

za dyshonor

colleagues.NOM considered.3PL as dishonor.ACC
[przegrywac´ z
kobieta.˛].
lose.INF
‘Colleagues . . . considered it a dishonor to lose against a
woman.’ (NKJP)

with woman

(13) Uwaz˙am

za prawdopodobne,

[z˙e wirus ten moz˙e
consider.1SG as probable.ACC.SG.N that virus this may
sie˛
REFL spread
‘I consider it probable that this virus may spread.’ (NKJP)

rozprzestrzenic´].

As expected, such subjects of predication in the object position become
grammatical subjects in the passive voice (a by-phrase may also be
used, as shown in (14)).

kobieta.˛] byØo

uwaz˙ane

with woman was.3SG.N considered.NOM.SG.N

(14) [Przegrywac´ z
lose.INF
(przez kolego´w).
za dyshonor
as dishonor.ACC by
colleagues
‘To lose against a woman was considered a dishonor (by
colleagues).’

(15) Jest

uwaz˙ane

za prawdopodobne,

[z˙e

is.3SG considered.NOM.SG.N as probable.ACC.SG.N that
wirus ten moz˙e sie˛
virus this may REFL spread
‘It is considered probable that this virus may spread.’

rozprzestrzenic´].

In brief, it is uncontroversial that verbal (CP/InfP) constituents
may act as subjects of predication—and often as grammatical sub-
jects—in Polish predicative constructions.

3 Predicative Adverbs in Polish

It turns out that in such cases the predicate may often be expressed
by an adverb.6 For example:

(16) Dobrze

jest,
good.ADV is.3SG that feel
‘It is good.ADV that they feel respect.’ (NKJP)

czuja.˛ respekt].

respect

[z˙e

6 The existence of predicative uses of adverbs has occasionally been
pointed out in Polish linguistic literature, especially in Grzegorczykowa 1975:
32–36, where constructions with InfP subjects are discussed; predicative ad-
verbs are also mentioned in Kibort 2004:sec. 4.5 and Bondaruk and Szymanek
2007:sec. 4.2.

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

839

(17) NajØatwiej

najtaniej

byØo

[upØynnic´

easy.ADV.SUP and cheap.ADV.SUP was.3SG.N sell.INF
ziarno czy ziemniaki].
grain or potatoes
‘It was easiest.ADV and cheapest.ADV to sell grain or pota-
toes.’ (NKJP)

Forms marked in (16)–(17) as ADV, while glossed here with En-
glish adjectives, are uncontroversial adverbs in Polish. Although they
are morphologically related to corresponding adjectives—for exam-
ple, dobrze.ADV (cid:2) dobry.ADJ.NOM.SG.M—they cannot be analyzed as
adjectives: (a) they cannot be used adnominally (see (18)); (b) they
can be used adverbally (see (19)); and (c) they are not syncretic with
any forms in the inflectional paradigms of corresponding adjectives.7
(18) (cid:2)dobry.ADJ.NOM.SG.M / *dobrze.ADV(cid:3) pØywak.NOM.SG.M

‘good swimmer’

(19) On (cid:2)dobrze.ADV / *dobry.ADJ.NOM.SG.M(cid:3) pØywa.3SG.

‘He swims well.’

Constructions with adverbial predicates are analogous to those
with typical—nominal, adjectival, and prepositional—predicates: in
both, the copula may be dropped in present tense, as in (20)–(21); in
both, other verbs that can combine with nonverbal predicates may be
used (e.g., wydawac´ sie˛ ‘seem’, stac´ sie˛ ‘become’), as in (22)–(23);
in both, the verbal CP/InfP subject triggers “default agreement” on
the verb.

(20) Najtrudniej

[pogodzic´

sie˛

tym] ludziom

difficult.ADV.SUP reconcile.INF REFL with this people.DAT
mØodym.
young.DAT
‘[It is] most difficult.ADV for young people to come to terms
with this.’ (NKJP)
(21) Przykro, [z˙e nie udaØo

uratowac´ sosen].

sie˛

sad.ADV that NEG managed REFL save
‘[It is] sad.ADV that we did not manage to save the pines.’
(NKJP)

pines

(22) Praktyczniej

sie˛

[miec´

wydaje

ja.˛ na oku w
practical.ADV.CMP seems.3SG REFL have.INF her on eye in
koalicji].
coalition
‘It seems more practical.ADV to keep an eye on her in the
coalition.’ (NKJP)

7 Moreover, since the adverbs in (17) are superlative (comparative could
also be used, as in (22)–(23)), it is not feasible to analyze them as some sort
of defective verbs, or “quasi-verbs” (see Saloni 1974, as well as Ban´ko 2001
and references therein, on this grammatical class), as is sometimes done in
Polish linguistics (see, e.g., Laskowski 1999:60–61).

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

(23) . . . staØo

teraz kadre˛
became.3SG.N REFL good.ADV.CMP that now team

lepiej,

[z˙e

sie˛

inny].

poprowadzi ktos´
lead
‘ . . . it is (lit. became) better.ADV that somebody else will
now lead the national team.’ (NKJP)

somebody else

When predicative adverbs are replaced with corresponding adjec-
tives, the meaning normally remains the same;8 compare the predica-
tive constructions in (16)–(17) with those in (24)–(25).9

(24) Dobre

[z˙e

czuja.˛ respekt].

jest,
good.ADJ is.3SG that feel
‘It is good.ADJ that they feel respect.’
byØo

najtan´sze

respect

(25) NajØatwiejsze i

[upØynnic´ . . . ].

easy.ADJ.SUP and cheap.ADJ.SUP was.3SG.N sell.INF
‘It was easiest.ADJ and cheapest.ADJ to sell . . . ’

Furthermore, it is possible to coordinate an uncontroversial prepo-

sitional predicate with an adverb, as in the attested (26).

(26) W dobrym gus´cie i modnie

taste

byØo
w
and trendy.ADV was.3SG.N have.INF in

in good
domu wypchanego cietrzewia].
home stuffed
‘It was in good taste and trendy.ADV to have a stuffed grouse
at home.’ (NKJP)

grouse

[miec´

While it is a matter of debate which cases of unlike category coordina-
tion should be analyzed via ellipsis of sentential coordination (so-
called conjunction reduction), it is generally assumed that the unlike
category predicates are conjoined directly, within a single predicative
position, by virtue of bearing the same predicative features (Sag et al.
1985) or predicative “supercategory” (Bruening and Al Khalaf 2020).
Indeed, (26) has the same predicative meaning as the prototypically
predicative (27), which involves a nominative gerundial subject instead
of an InfP and an adjective in place of an adverb.

(27) W dobrym gus´cie i modne

byØo

in good

taste

and trendy.ADJ.NOM.SG.N was.3SG.N

8 In the case of InfP subjects, as in (25), adjectives are sometimes per-
ceived as degraded with respect to the corresponding adverbs. They are also
much less frequent in the National Corpus of Polish, although naturally occur-
ring and fully acceptable examples may easily be found; see, for example, (28)
and (31).

9 In such constructions with verbal subjects of predication, predicative
adjectives must appear in the “default” nominative singular neuter form (Pa-
tejuk and Przepio´rkowski 2018), so—for reasons of space and to avoid unnec-
essary clutter—such forms are henceforth glossed as ADJ rather than (ADJ.)
NOM.SG.N.

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841

w domu wypchanego cietrzewia].

[posiadanie
having.NOM.SG.N at home stuffed
‘Having a stuffed grouse at home was in good taste and
trendy.ADJ.’

grouse

4 Predicative Adverbs vs. Predicative Adjectives

As noted above, in the case of InfP and CP subjects, the same predica-
tive meaning may be expressed by adverbial and adjectival predi-
cates—compare again (16)–(17) with (24)–(25). While there is no
systematic difference in meaning between the two constructions, there
are some idiosyncratic lexical differences. For example, there is no
adverb with the meaning corresponding to the main meaning of the
adjective waz˙ny ‘important’,10 so only the adjective may be used (see
(28)), and—conversely—it seems that only the adverb gØupio ‘stupid,
awkward’ has the meaning ‘awkward’, so only the adverb can be used
in the intended sense in (29).

(28) Bardzo waz˙ne / *waz˙nie

jest

[ukazac´

jego

important.ADJ/*ADV is.3SG show.INF his

very
naturalne pie˛kno].
natural
‘It is very important.ADJ to show his natural beauty.’ (NKJP)

beauty

(29) . . . (cid:2)gØupio / #gØupie(cid:3)

byØo

[milczec´],

(cid:2)awkward.ADV/#stupid.ADJ(cid:3) was.3SG.N be-silent.INF
razem metrem.

skoro jechaØys´my
as
‘ . . . it was awkward.ADV to be silent, as we traveled to-
gether on the subway.’ (NKJP)

traveled.1PL.F together subway.INS

However, there are systematic syntactic differences between the
two constructions. First, only in the case of adjectival predicates may
the nominalizer to ‘it’ be added to the subject CP; compare (30) with
(16) and (24).11

(30) Dobre / *Dobrze jest

[to,

z˙e

czuja.˛ respekt].

good.ADJ/*ADV is.3SG it.NOM.SG.N that feel
‘It is good.ADJ that they feel respect.’

respect

Second, extraction out of InfP is only possible with adverbial predi-
cates.12 The following example, not involving extraction, is attested

10 The morphologically related adverb waz˙nie seems to only have legal
uses, where it means ‘binding, valid’, as in maØz˙en´stwo waz˙nie zawarte ‘valid
marriage’, lit. ‘marriage bindingly established’. The English sentential adverb
importantly may be expressed in Polish as co waz˙ne lit. ‘what(’s) important’.

11 InfPs cannot be nominalized in this way; see (34).
12 Extraction out of CP is generally very limited in Polish (see, e.g., Witkos´

1995), so we do not examine it here.

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

with the adjectival predicate najtrudniejsze ‘most difficult’, but it is
at least equally acceptable with the adverb najtrudniej:

[udowodnic´

(31) (cid:2)Najtrudniej / Najtrudniejsze(cid:3) jest
difficult.ADV.SUP/ ADJ.SUP
wartos´c´
. . . w seniorach].
swoja.˛
self’s.ACC value.ACC
in seniors
‘It is most difficult.ADV/ ADJ to prove one’s value at the sen-
ior level.’ (NKJP)

is.3SG prove.INF

However, when the direct object of the infinitive is topicalized, only
the version with an adverb is acceptable.

(32) Swoja.˛

wartos´c´

(cid:2)najtrudniej / *najtrudniejsze(cid:3) jest

one’s.ACC value.ACC difficult.ADV.SUP/*ADJ.SUP
[udowodnic´ w seniorach].
prove.INF

in seniors

is.3SG

Third, as noted in footnote 8, when an InfP subject may occur either
with an adverbial predicate or with an adjectival predicate, the adver-
bial version is much more frequent and often preferred. Thus, the
adverbial version of (31) seems more natural than the attested adjecti-
val version, and similarly for (17) vs. (25). No such acceptability
contrast is observed with CP subjects, in which case adjectival predi-
cates are often more frequent.

These facts can be explained by postulating that adverbs subcate-
gorize for strictly verbal subjects of predication, while adjectives take
nominal(ized) subjects of predication. That is, whenever adjectives
seem to combine with verbal subjects of predication, these apparently
verbal subjects have an outer nominal layer. This explains the extrac-
tion facts in (32): on the assumption that the additional nominal layer
results in an island constraint, nominalized InfPs occurring with adjec-
tival predicates are barriers to extraction, while purely verbal InfPs
occurring with adverbial predicates are not. Moreover, on the assump-
tion that syntactically more complex structures are dispreferred to syn-
onymous simpler structures, frequent preference for predicative ad-
verbs is also explained (though it is not clear why this preference
is only observed in the case of InfP—and not CP—subjects). This
categorial difference in subcategorization properties of predicative ad-
verbs and adjectives also explains the fact that—while unlike category
coordination of predicates is robust in Polish (see, e.g., (26)–(27))—
adjectival and adverbial predicates cannot be coordinated; compare
the ungrammatical (33) with the grammatical (17) and (25).13

13 Given that PPs may predicate of either nominal or verbal constituents,
prepositional predicates may coordinate with either adverbial predicates (which,
by hypothesis, expect verbal subjects) or adjectival predicates (which, by hy-
pothesis, expect nominal subjects); compare (26) and (27).

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843

(33) *NajØatwiej

najtan´sze

byØo

[upØynnic´

easy.ADV.SUP and cheap.ADJ.SUP was.3SG.N sell.INF
ziarno czy ziemniaki].
grain or potatoes
Intended: ‘It was easiest.ADV and cheapest.ADJ to sell grain
or potatoes.’

This inability to coordinate adjectival and adverbial predicates is ex-
plained by conflicting expectations as to the actual categorial status
of the shared InfP subject: predicative adverbs require an InfP, while
predicative adjectives require a nominalized InfP. Finally, this analysis
also explains the fact that when CPs are nominalized overtly, as in (30),
they may combine with adjectival predicates, but not with adverbial
predicates.

A potential problem for the proposed analysis is that InfPs cannot
be nominalized overtly, whether the predicate is adverbial or adjectival
(or in any other context); compare the grammatical (31) with the un-
grammatical (34).

(34) *(cid:2)Najtrudniej / Najtrudniejsze(cid:3) jest
difficult.ADV.SUP/ ADJ.SUP
udowodnic´ swoja.˛
prove.INF

wartos´c´].
self’s.ACC value.ACC

[to

is.3SG it.NOM.SG.N

While there is a tension between overt nominalization facts and the
hypothesis about different subcategorization patterns of predicative
adverbs and adjectives, the impossibility of overt nominalization of
InfPs does not rule out covert nominalization—a hypothesis supported
by extraction facts in (32) and the coordination puzzle in (33), which
cannot be explained otherwise. The relevant facts can be modeled by
stating that the overt nominalizer to ‘it’ subcategorizes for CPs, while
the empty N head acting as the covert nominalizer subcategorizes for
both CPs and InfPs.

In summary, adverbs may be used as primary predicates in Polish;
they occur in typical predicative constructions, including copular con-
structions; and they express predicative meanings analogous to those
expressed with adjectives. However, the subjects of predication of
such adverbial predicates must be strictly verbal—InfP or CP—and,
given the limited range of abstract objects that such verbal constituents
may denote (events, facts, etc.), the range of predicative adverbs is
much smaller than the range of predicative adjectives (which may also
predicate of nominal subjects, which may refer to a wide range of
abstract and physical entities). This is the issue to which we turn next.

5 Types of Predicative Adverbs in Polish

What kinds of adverbs may act as primary predicates? They do not
seem to correspond directly to any of the classes postulated within
classifications we are aware of (including those proposed in Cinque
1999, Ernst 2001, and Maienborn and Scha¨fer 2011). They might be

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preliminarily characterized as “evaluative” in a sense:14 they describe
perception of eventualities (events, states, processes; Bach 1986) or
facts as positive or negative, either in general or in some specific
respect. The following are among the most common predicative ad-
verbs in the National Corpus of Polish:

• Good/Bad in general: dobrze ‘good’, fajnie ‘cool’, pie˛knie
‘beautiful’ (used metaphorically), wspaniale ‘wonderful’; z´le
‘bad’, niedobrze ‘not-good’

• Evoking good/bad emotions: miØo ‘nice’, przyjemnie ‘pleas-
ant’, zabawnie ‘funny’, ciekawie ‘interesting’; przykro ‘sorry’,
gØupio, niezre˛cznie ‘awkward’, smutno ‘sad’, straszno ‘scary’
• Reasonable/Unreasonable: rozsa.˛dnie ‘reasonable’, ma.˛drze

‘wise’, sensownie ‘sensible’; gØupio ‘stupid’

• Easy/Difficult: Øatwo ‘easy’, nietrudno ‘not-difficult’, prosto
‘straightforward’, wygodnie ‘convenient’; trudno ‘difficult’,
cie˛z˙ko ‘hard’, niewygodnie ‘inconvenient’, nieØatwo ‘not-easy’
(nie)bezpiecznie ‘(un)safe’; korzystnie ‘profitable’,
tanio ‘cheap’; zdrowo ‘healthy’, praktycznie ‘practical’, and
others

• Other:

The complete list of such adverbs is much longer, and many of
them occur in predicative constructions very frequently. For example,
within the 300-million-token balanced subcorpus of the National Cor-
pus of Polish, there are a few thousand occurrences of predicative
trudno ‘difficult’, Øatwo ‘easy’, and dobrze ‘good’, and hundreds of
occurrences of cie˛z˙ko ‘hard’, miØo ‘nice’, przyjemnie ‘pleasant’, and
others. Both the number of different adverbs that can be used predica-
tively and the frequency of such predicative uses demonstrate the pro-
ductivity of the construction.

The observation that predicative adverbs often refer to subjective
perception of facts or events (or event kinds; see below), rather than
to their objective characteristics, is supported by minimal pairs such
as the following:

(35) Jan

dobrze

pØywaØ.

Jan.NOM well.ADV swam.3SG.M
‘Jan swam well.’

(36) Janowi dobrze

[pØywac´].
byØo
Jan.DAT well.ADV was.3SG.N swim.INF
‘Jan enjoyed swimming.’

While (35) means that Jan was a skillful swimmer (even though per-
haps he did not like swimming), (36) may only mean that swimming
felt good to Jan (even though perhaps he was a terrible swimmer).

14 This is also how they are characterized in Grzegorczykowa 1975:36.

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6 Predicative Adverbs with Experiencers

Since predicative adverbs often—but perhaps not always (see, e.g.,
tanio ‘cheap’)—express subjective attitudes, it is not surprising that
they often take an experiencer argument—a dative nominal phrase,
as in the attested (20) and (37)–(38).15

(37) Maciusiowi bardzo przyjemnie byØo,

[z˙e

pleasant.ADV was.3SG.N that

Macius´.DAT very
kro´lewski poseØ nie mo´wiØ w zagranicznym je˛zyku].
royal
language
‘It was very pleasant.ADV to Macius´ that the royal envoy
was not speaking in a foreign language.’ (NKJP)

envoy NEG spoke in foreign

(38) Oczywis´cie autorowi

najtrudniej

byØo

author.DAT difficult.ADV.SUP was.3SG.N

obviously
[uzyskac´ szczego´Øy].
get.INF details
‘Obviously, it was most difficult.ADV for the author to get
the details.’ (NKJP)

While in (37) the experiencer is an argument of (bardzo) przyjem-
nie ‘(very) pleasant.ADV’ only, in (38) the dative dependent of najtrud-
niej ‘most difficult.ADV’ is at the same time the subject of the infinitival
phrase headed by uzyskac´ ‘gain’; that is, the dative experiencer controls
the subject of the infinitival subject of predication.

According to the criteria in Landau 2013:29, this is an instance
of obligatory control: the dative experiencer and InfP are codependents
(they are dependents of the predicative adverb)16 and the controlled
“PRO” (the subject of InfP) is interpreted as a bound variable, as
evidenced for example by the exclusively sloppy readings under ellip-
sis in (39).

(39) Janowi najtrudniej

byØo

[poprosic´ o pomoc],

Jan.DAT difficult.ADV.SUP was.3SG.N ask.INF
(cid:2)Marysi
Marysia.DAT too / but NEG Marysia.DAT

tez˙ / ale nie Marysi(cid:3).

for help

15 In the case of adjectival predicates, such an experiencer is instead ex-
pressed by a prepositional phrase headed by dla ‘for’, as in (i), corresponding
to (38) in the main text.

(i) Oczywis´cie dla autora

najtrudniejsze

byØo

[uzyskac´

for author.GEN difficult.ADJ.SUP was.3SG.N get.INF

obviously
szczego´Øy].
details
‘Obviously, it was most difficult.ADJ for the author to get the details.’
16 The experiencer is a dependent of the adverb rather than the copula
since (a) its acceptability depends on the particular predicate, not on the copula,
and (b) the absence of the copula does not affect the experiencer (see (20));
see also Patejuk and Przepio´rkowski 2018. Bondaruk and Szymanek (2007)
also analyze the dative experiencer as a dependent of the adverb, albeit as its
external argument.

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‘It was most difficult.ADV for Jan to ask for help, (cid:2)for Ma-
rysia too / but not for Marysia(cid:3).’

Here, the elided clause may only be understood as ‘It was most difficult
for Marysia to ask for help’ (and similarly for the negated version);
it cannot be understood as ‘Jan asking for help was most difficult for
Marysia’.

While the issue of obligatory control into subject is controversial,
it has been reported for languages as diverse as Balinese (Arka and
Simpson 1998) and German (Stiebels 2007). Constructions with predi-
cative adverbs, dative experiencers, and infinitival subjects provide
another argument against a ban on control into subject.

7 Semantics of Predicative Adverbs

Let us consider the following constructed examples, with InfP and CP
subjects of predication, the latter with a pro-dropped subject, here
assumed to refer to Jan:

(40) Janowi miØo

byØo
Jan.DAT nice.ADV was.3SG.N swim.INF /
‘Jan enjoyed (cid:2)swimming / the fact that he swam(cid:3).’

(cid:2)[pØywac´]

/ [z˙e pØywaØ](cid:3).

that swam.3SG.M

Both examples seem to be saying that Jan experienced a certain event
as nice. However, their meanings differ: the InfP version may only
mean that he enjoyed swimming, while the CP version means that he
considered it nice that he swam—perhaps because swimming was
nice, or perhaps because he thus overcame his fear of water. Hence,
only the CP version may be followed by something like ale samo
pØywanie nie byØo takie miØe ‘but the swimming itself was not so nice’
without creating a direct contradiction.

Such considerations lead to the conclusion that predicative ad-
verbs may predicate of two sorts of abstract objects: events (or their
kinds; see below) expressed by InfPs or facts expressed by CPs. This
conclusion is supported by the fact that while all of the adverbs listed
in section 5 occur with InfP subjects, only some of them—mostly
those expressing general or emotional attitude—may occur with CP
subjects. Thus, both events and facts may be good, bad, nice, reasona-
ble, and so on, but only events—not facts—may be easy, safe, healthy,
and so on. Also, the textual frequency of predicative adverbs with
CP subjects is a couple of orders of magnitude lower than with InfP
subjects.

The preliminary conclusion that predicative adverbs occurring
with InfP subjects refer to specific event tokens is incompatible with
the following example:

(41) Janowi

trudno

byØo
Jan.DAT difficult.ADV was.3SG.N get up.INF.PFV
‘It was difficult.ADV for Jan to get up.’

[wstac´].

The verb wstac´ ‘get up’ has perfective aspect, so it seems to refer to
telic events. But (41) does not assert or presuppose that there was any

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S Q U I B S A N D D I S C U S S I O N

847

particular getting-up-by-Jan event—(41) may describe a situation in
which Jan did not even seriously start getting up. Rather, what was
perceived by Jan as difficult was (instantiating) the getting-up-by-Jan
telic event kind. Where InfP is interpreted as referring to particular
events, it is because of the veridical entailments of the predicate: unlike
trudno ‘difficult’, miØo ‘nice’ is veridical in this sense.17

On the basis of these observations, and representing facts as true
propositions, we propose the following partial meaning representations
(leaving out tense, etc.) for the InfP and CP versions of (40):18

(42) (cid:4)s. nice(s) (cid:2) exp(s) (cid:4) j (cid:2)

arg(s) (cid:4) ((cid:2)(cid:4)e.swim(e) (cid:2) ag(e) (cid:4) exp(s))

(43) (cid:4)s.nice(s) (cid:2) exp(s) (cid:4) j (cid:2)

arg(s) (cid:4) ((cid:2)∃e. swim(e) (cid:2) ag(e) (cid:4) j)

These representations follow the neo-Davidsonian approach to event
semantics (Davidson 1967, Castan˜eda 1967, Parsons 1990), in which
particular thematic roles such as experiencer or agent are represented
as separate functional predicates—for example, exp(s) (cid:4) j or ag(e)
(cid:4) j. For concreteness, the predicative schema proposed in Rothstein
2001 is assumed here, on which the semantic representation of, for
example, Jane is nice would be (cid:4)s. nice(s) (cid:2) arg(s) (cid:4) j (leaving out
tense and aspect contributed by the copula); that is, the subject of
predication is represented via the arg function from the predicate state
s to the subject j. Such states s may host various semantic roles
(Rothstein 2001:295), here the experiencer role. What is special about
the constructions considered here is that the subjects of predication
are not ordinary entities, but kinds of events (see, e.g., Gehrke 2019
and references therein) and facts. Again for concreteness, in (42) we
adopt Chierchia’s (1998:348–349) down operator (cid:2), which shifts prop-
erties into corresponding kinds. In this case, it shifts the property (func-
tion from entities to truth values) of being a swimming-by-Jan event
to the respective event kind (i.e., an entity). After existential closure
over s, this representation leads to the proposition that this event kind
is nice for Jan.19

Similarly, understanding facts as true propositions and employing
the standard intensional representation of propositions, (43) is saying

17 See Grimm and McNally 2015:92 for similar considerations in the con-
text of English gerunds referring to event kinds and interpreted as referring to
event tokens by virtue of the entailments of the higher predicate.

18 Note that ag(e)(cid:4)exp(s) in (42) is truth-conditionally equivalent to ag(e)
(cid:4) j, as in (43). This difference in representation between (42) and (43) stems
from the fact that the agent within InfP subjects—but not within CP sub-
jects—is established via control.

19 We assume that, from the fact that some event kind is experienced as
nice by Jan, it follows that tokens of this event kind are also experienced as
nice by Jan; hence the aforementioned contradiction when (40) with an InfP
subject is followed by ale samo pØywanie nie byØo takie miØe ‘but the swimming
itself was not so nice’.

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that Jan considers the fact that he swam as nice. This encoding of
facts results in a formal difference between (42) and (43). In the case
of (42), the semantic type of the subject of predication (i.e., the value
of arg(s)) is of type e (an event kind understood as an entity), and in
the case of (43), it is of type (cid:3)s, t(cid:4) (an intensional proposition, i.e., a
function from worlds to truth values). This suggests that perhaps two
different—even if clearly related—predicates nice are involved in
(42)–(43); let us call them nicee and nicest. If so, all adverbs combining
with InfP subjects denote predicates such as nicee, and those addition-
ally combining with CP subjects are ambiguous, as they also denote
predicates such as nicest.20

However, there is another common understanding of facts, on
which they are not propositions, but particulars (see, e.g., Kratzer 2002,
Mulligan and Correia 2017, and references therein), that is, entities
of type e. If so, predicative adverbs are unambiguous. A possible
argument for this view could be the acceptability of sentences such
as (44), in which an InfP and a CP are coordinated within the subject
position.

(44) Janowi miØo

byØo

[pØywac´

z˙e pØywaØa

nim tez˙ Maria].

Jan.DAT nice.ADV was.3SG.N swim.INF and that swam
z
with him also Maria
‘Jan enjoyed swimming and the fact that Maria was also
swimming with him.’

Assuming that only constituents of the same semantic type may be
coordinated, (44) suggests that denotations of InfP and CP subjects
are of the same semantic type e.

Unfortunately, neither of the two arguments for the two positions
above is very strong. On the “formal ambiguity” view, (44) could be
explained via some coercion or type-shifting operation turning an event
kind into a fact (that an instance of this event kind took place). Con-
versely, on the “no ambiguity” view, the cooccurrence of different
predicative adverbs with InfP and/or CP subjects could be a matter
of syntactic selectional restrictions of particular adverbs. We leave this
issue for future research.

8 Conclusion

The main aim of this squib was to refute the (often tacit) assumption
that adverbs cannot act as primary predicates. In Polish, a relatively
large class of adverbs may be used in predicative constructions when

20 As suggested by the LI Squibs and Discussion editors, perhaps these
meanings could be related by a type-shifting rule triggered by some meaning
component of those adverbs that also combine with CP subjects.

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849

subjects of predication are abstract objects—event kinds and
facts—expressed by InfPs and CPs. This requirement of purely verbal
rather than nominal(ized) subjects of predication is the main difference
between predicative adverbs and predicative adjectives, explaining dif-
ferences in their syntactic behavior with respect to extraction and coor-
dination. Predicative adverbs usually express an attitude toward event
kinds and facts and may often combine with dative experiencers; in
the case of InfP subjects, the dative experiencer acts as an obligatory
controller into the subject. Constructions with predicative adverbs are
textually frequent and fully acceptable—they clearly belong to the
“core” rather than the “periphery,” if such a distinction is made.

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Agnieszka Patejuk
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences
Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford

agnieszka.patejuk@gmail.com

Adam Przepio´rkowski
Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw
Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences
Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford

przepiorkowski.adam@gmail.com

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