Аннотация:The article shows that cases of discrepancy between forms of governance in Russian and Polish can be explained by the contradiction between the infinite variety of non-linguistic situations and a finite number of linguistic signs, intended to describe them. Because of this contradiction many situations give grounds for several various verbal interpretations,
while Russian and Polish grammars fix as normative different interpretations. So, in description of the situation “Pyotr’s hands were shaking” Pyotr can potentially be designated either as a place of the described event or as a recipient of this event. Grammar of Russian chooses the first interpretation (U Petra drozhali ruki, literally At Pyotr hands were shaking), while grammar of Polish prefers the second one (Ręce Piotrowi się trzęsły, literally Hands were shaking to Pyotr).