Two negation patterns of Polish locatives

Polish locatives, like that in (1), may be negated in two ways, illustrated in (2) and (3):

(1) Marysia byla w pracy.
Mary was at work.

(2) Marysia nie byla w pracy.
Mary-NOM not was-FEM in work
Mary was not at work.

(3) Marysi nie bylo w pracy.
Mary-GEN not was-NEUTER in work.
Mary was not at work [lit. There was not Mary at work.]

The two negative patterns in (2) and (3), "the 'personal' negative construction" and "the impersonal negative construction" respectively, involve different conceptualisations of the situation. The aim of my presentation is to show that the distinction between the two construals can be accounted for if analysed in terms of the relative prominence of the participant and the location, where prominence is treated as a multifaceted phenomenon, whose dimensions include autonomy/dependence, trajector/landmark alignment, reference point/target status, and topic/comment status.