Copular Structures In Initial Polish L2

This contribution is devoted to the learners’ processing of copular structures in the earliest stages of the acquisition of Polish as a foreign language. Within the VILLA project, 14 Italian L1 learners participated in a 14-hour Polish course under controlled input conditions and took part in a structured task designed to elicit copular structures. Target structures come in two syntactic types, which in turn are associated with different values of parameters such as frequency, morphosyntactic complexity, semantic scope, proximity to the learners’ L1 and form-function association. The study aims to verify which parameters, if any, influence learner preferences in the choice of pronominal and nominal components as well as their accuracy in producing full target structures.