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This article investigates the morpho-syntactic and discourse properties of preverbal constituents in Finnish, providing a new interpretation of the distinction between Subjects and Topics, as well as an explanation for the Case forms that characterize the Object realization in this language. Based on a cartographic approach to Finnish clause structure, evidence is provided for a functional ‘separation’ between the evaluation of the EPP feature and the domain of Nominative Case assignment. Specifically, a functional ‘split’ is proposed in the high IP-zone between the TP projection, where Nominative Case is checked by the sentential Subject triggering verb agreement, and the SubjP position, dedicated to the EPP requirement and hosting the Subject of predication. Based on this distinction, preverbal constituents only qualify as ‘full Subjects’ if they pass through both Spec positions. Specific consequences apply to Subject agreement and the realization of Accusative Case when these projections host different constituents (e.g., necessive, existential and passive clauses). This split account can also provide a distinction between the Subject of predication (in the IP-zone) and a Topic (in the C-domain), showing that not any preverbal constituent can be a Subject, while any constituent can be topicalized, with specific discourse functions and language-specific restrictions.

The experimental research presented in this paper reports on findings from the study of case (syntactic and morphological) in 16 Cypriot Greek adults diagnosed with Down syndrome (DS) and 17 typically developing children. We perform phonetic and phonological analyses alongside morphosyntactic and syntactic analyses on data collected from eight experimental tasks. Results reveal near-ceiling performance for both groups. Syntactically conditioned differences related to structural complexity, problematic use of tense and subject-verb agreement or bundling/DP effects, are not recorded. We establish that the greater majority of differences observed between the two groups are mainly conditioned by articulatory limitations related to the distinct physiology associated with DS, as well as minor differences in their phonological systems. A small residue of differences that are determined to be morphosyntactic in nature is also recorded; these exhibit a clear systematicity in choosing the default case value (nominative), instead of the targeted one. Given the close to ceiling performance with case, morphosyntactic inaccuracies are determined to be neither due to lack of knowledge of the case assignment mechanisms, nor lack of knowledge of inflectional paradigms, but rather a morphological discrepancy, during the Vocabulary Insertion stage.

Accusative clitic pronouns are acquired later than both nominative and reflexive pronouns in typically developing French-speaking children. However recent research suggests that not all these clitics are equally difficult, 3rd person accusative clitics (ACC3) being more problematic than 1st and 2nd person. In this study, we explored three properties which could make ACC3 complex: (1) gender marking, (2) discourse-participant independent reference, and (3) optionality in spoken French. We have created specific experiments assessing the role of each of these properties in clitic acquisition in 41 French-speaking children aged 4–8. Results show that all three properties play a role in making ACC3 complex, with the strongest influence coming from gender marking. Implications of these results are discussed in light of previous related studies.

The relation between volitive/involitive moods of Sinhala verbs and subject case marking remains unresolved in the scarce generative literature on Sinhala. Previous analyses of subject case marking in this language (Gair, 1990a,b; Inman, 1992; Beavers and Zubair, 2010, 2013) assume that non-nominative cases are lexical/inherent/quirky cases assigned by involitive verbs to the subject NP, whereas nominative case is not tied to any particular lexical semantics, and arises as the default case when the semantic conditions for all available quirky cases fail. We argue that the distinction between nominative and non-nominaive cases in Sinhala should not be characterized as one between default and lexical/inherent/quirky cases. Rather, based on previously unnoted data, we contend that (i) nominative case in Sinhala is a structural case assigned by a finite T, and (ii) A-movement in Sinhala is driven by case valuation (see Epstein and Seely, 2006; Boskovic, 2002, 2007), rather than by a universal EPP structural requirement on T (contra Gair, 1990a,b; see Chomsky, 2000, 2001).

Taking reduced relative clauses as the basis of comparison, this study investigates Karachay–Balkar non-subject relative clauses with two different patterns. The subject in the modifier clause can bear the genitive case in the presence of agreement morphology on the head noun, or the nominative case in the absence of agreement morphology. Based on binding and adverbial placement tests, the current study suggests that (i) Karachay–Balkar relative clause patterns with genitive or nominative subjects are deficient in the absence of CP and TP; (ii) in the absence of TP, temporal interpretation is a secondary effect of AspP; (iii) the genitive subject moves into the DP domain to check the definiteness feature; (iv) the genitive pattern is preferred when the referents of the genitive construction and the head noun are shared by the speaker and the hearer; and (v) in the absence of the definiteness feature and CP/TP, the nominative case is licensed as the default case. This study shows that Karachay–Balkar relative clauses are reduced with respect to the absence of CP/TP. However, the size of the structure does not differ in genitive and nominative patterns, and the patterns are not in free variation as a syntax–semantic interface is at play.

The difference in the default prosodic realization of simple sentences with unergative vs. unaccusative/passive verbs (assigning early nuclear accent with unaccusative/passive verbs but late nuclear accent with unergative verbs) is often related to the syntactic distinction of their nominative arguments as starting off in different hierarchical positions. Alternative accounts try to trace this prosodic variation back to asymmetries in the semantic or pragmatic contribution of the verb to an utterance. The present article investigates the interaction of the assignment of default nuclear accent with the predictability of the verb. In an experimental study testing the acceptability of nuclear accent assignment, we confirmed that the predictability of the verb influences accentual preferences (such that highly predictable verbs are preferably not accented). However, the experiment also reveals that the unaccusativity distinction cannot be accounted for by means of pragmatic phenomena of this type: the two verb classes are associated with distinct accentual patterns in the baseline condition, that is, without the predictability manipulation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This article surveys some leading generative ideas about agreement and case, and connects them to several universal and near-universal observations noted by typologists. It begins with the familiar fact that adjectives can agree with noun phrases in number and gender but not in person, whereas verbs can agree in person as well—depending on the structure. From there it moves to the fact that verbs typically do not agree with their objects unless they also agree with their subjects. Several possible types of agreement with objects are then identified and distinguished, and some substantive similarities between object agreement and subject agreement are noted. It is shown that both subject agreement and object agreement are sensitive to the case morphology borne by the noun phrase (dative versus accusative, ergative versus nominative) in some languages but not in others, and the implications of this result for the assignment of case are considered. In all, the discussion covers four known linguistic universals in the area of agreement and case, and proposes three new ones. These are all explained in terms of two universal properties of the agreement relation and one parameter.

The paper provides a historical and areal investigation of the North Russian perfect, often referred to as the “ possessive perfect ”. This perfect is encoded by a periphrastic predication consisting of a copular auxiliary and a past passive participle in an invariant form; the non-prototypical subject is case-marked with an adessive-like PP while the object is assigned the nominative or, in some varieties, accusative case; contrary to several scholars there is no trace of ergativity. As to the diachrony, the paper represents a case study on the rise of non-prototypical subjects and the development from subjects to objects. The historical investigation of the perfect reveals that etymologically it is neither related to the possessive construction of the mihi est type (as has been commonly assumed before) nor to a passive. Instead, the development out of a patient-oriented resultative construction based on the copula with a predicative resultative participle is suggested. The adessive-like PP (often functioning as a new dative in East Slavic) enters this construction as an adverbial referring to a participant that is physically or mentally affected by the resultant state but develops later exclusively the meaning of the agent of the preceding action and, subsequently, acquires behavioral subject properties. The areal perspective of the investigation reveals two hotbeds of expansion. First, the early sequence of changes leading from the patient-oriented resultative construction to the impersonal perfect with a number of syntactic active properties, and encompassing such languages as Polish, all East Slavic, Baltic and Fennic languages, seems to have been influenced by Polish. Second, the later developments consisting of the incorporation of the free-dative -like adverbial into the construction, the acquisition of agent meaning, and subsequently, subject properties has been instigated by North Russian. From North Russian dialect area this construction spread to such languages as Standard Russian, Estonian, Karelian, Votian and Latvian with a decreasing degree of grammaticalization. Both areal and diachronic perspectives allow equilibrating areal and internal triggers for the described developments.

This paper makes two main contributions to our understanding of ergativity. First, it supports the claim that ergative is an inherent case, through a study of the Warlpiri lexicon: no ergative-marked subjects are derived, in accordance with Marantz’ Generalization. Second, it reanalyses syntactic ergativity in Dyirbal. It demonstrates that the language underlyingly has an ergative–nominative–accusative case system, with imperfect morphological realization of these cases. It further shows that syntactic ergativity in Dyirbal is not sensitive to the absolutive, but rather underlying nominative and accusative, regardless of morphological realization.

This paper analyzes movement to the Tense domain in Russian. It demonstrates that Russian verb does not normally leave the vP, and that only internal Nominative arguments can remain in situ, while external ones obligatorily raise to [Spec; TP], as in English. Unlike in English, external subjects can be sentence-final, but this results from additional Information Structure related movement when they are in narrow focus. The paper shows that various Russian constructions have no overt material in the left periphery (‘V O’, ‘V S’ with internal Nominative arguments, etc.). Obligatory external subject raising proves that the EPP requirement in the Tense domain is definitely operative in Russian, so covert expletives are introduced in these cases. Turning to sentences with non-Nominative XPs in the left periphery, the paper demonstrates, contrary to several recent models, that such XPs never exhibit subject properties and hence cannot pass through [Spec; TP]. The paper concludes that these constructions also contain covert expletives (i.e. Russian has them wherever English has overt ones) and that only Nominative DPs can satisfy the EPP requirement in Russian. These results are interesting for the EPP typology and for the more general question of whether EPP-driven movement depends on agreement.

Russian nouns in nominative and accusative numerical expressions appear in three different forms, depending on the numeral: nominative singular with the numeral 1, genitive singular with the paucal numerals 2-4, and genitive plural with all other numerals. Results from an acceptability judgment task and a self-paced reading task on Russian case/number marking provide support for a theory stating that the suffix used with paucal nouns is morphologically ambiguous. The ambiguity resolution process involving this suffix leads to extra processing cost, compared to the unambiguous suffixes in other numeral contexts (the number 1, and the numbers 5+). This would account for the additional processing time observed with the paucal nouns. The status of the form occurring with the paucal numerals has long been a challenging issue in Russian linguistics, and the new results add to the growing body of literature which makes use of experimental methods to address issues of linguistic theory and analysis.

The Case Tier Hypothesis (CTH, Yip, Maling, and Jackendoff, 1987) accounts for the distribution of nominative and accusative in Finnish and Korean remarkably well, but a number of outstanding puzzles remain. We reformulate the CTH in Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004), showing that the new proposal covers all the standard data and extends to several previously problematic phenomena, such as multiple nominatives and case variation in adverbials. After analyzing the core case patterns of Finnish and Korean, we go beyond these two languages and work out the general typological predictions of our proposal. This reveals what the theory admits and what it excludes, two central questions in theoretical linguistics.

This paper develops a new perspective on the question of what type of verb movement the modern Celtic languages display, V to I movement or V to C movement. Under the standard assumption that the subject remains relatively low in these languages compared to Germanic languages, this category fails to be a diagnostic, since both verb movement operations cross the subject. The analysis presented here starts from the theory of verb movement developed in Koeneman (2000), which argues that the verb does not move to prefabricated functional head positions but moves in order to project one or more of its functional features (tense and agreement). It is shown how this theory offers a better understanding of verb movement (parameters) than mainstream approaches. After developing a concrete proposal for verb movement variation in Germanic, the paper tries to extend this analysis to the Celtic languages, so that a uniform analysis of verb movement (variation) ensues. The main conclusion is that it is very unlikely that Celtic languages have a verb movement operation involving an agreement projection. They are better analyzed as having a verb movement operation that projects tense features. The result is that the nature of verb movement in Germanic and Celtic is basically the same.

Two majors patterns of core term marking are found cross-linguistically: an accusative pattern in which P is the only core syntactic role marked by a case form distinct from the quotation form of nouns or by an adposition, and an ergative pattern in which A is the only core syntactic role marked by a case form distinct from the quotation form of nouns or by an adposition. Current case terminology is adapted to the description of systems consistently following one of these two patterns, but is difficult to extend to core term marking systems characterized by alignment variations. Moreover, several minor patterns are attested, characterized by a wider use of marked case forms or adpositions, and current terminology fails to provide convenient labels for case forms or adpositions occurring in such patterns. It is argued that: (a) in languages in which nouns are inflected for case, the case form coinciding with the quotation form of nouns should be labeled in a uniform way, irrespective of the uses it may have in syntactic constructions, (b) new labels should be coined for marked case forms or adpositions used in S/A or S/P role.

Hebrew has no multiple nominative construction (MNC) of the Japanese type, contrary to the claims of three recent studies. The alleged “broad subject” in the Hebrew constructions is nothing but a left-dislocated DP. A series of arguments is presented to the effect that this DP patterns with Ā-bar phrases and displays none of the subject properties characteristic of either standard or broad subjects.

Languages appear to differ in the locality conditions that regulate nominative Case checking: a dative or ergative subject blocks nominative checking of an object in Faroese and Nez Perce, but not in Icelandic or Hindi. Languages also differ in the effect that object shift has on subject Case: object shift has no effect on subject Case in Icelandic, but causes ergative Case to appear on the subject in Nez Perce. These superficially unrelated effects follow if one violable locality constraint is added to the small set of Case faithfulness and markedness constraints within Optimality Theory. This locality constraint, Pure Domain, requires that the checking domain of a head contain only Cases checked by that head. Differences in the relative rank of Pure Domain with respect to Case faithfulness and markedness constraints produces the cross-linguistic variation noted above. This domain approach to Case locality captures the standard notion that a closer DP can interfere with the checking of a further DP, but it also captures the fact that a further DP can interfere with the checking of a closer DP, if that further DP is close enough, a situation that arises with object shift.

The Japanese existential construction can be used either to assert the presence of some entity in a certain location or to indicate that something is an integral part of another. It has been noted, however, that the part–whole reading seems to disappear when the nominative NP precedes the locative PP. Contrary to the existing analyses which make appeal to some constraint on movement to derive this disambiguation effect, this paper presents an information structural account. The analysis is empirically supported by the lack of disambiguation in embedded contexts and the significant role of contextual information that encourages the ‘missing’ part–whole interpretation to re-emerge.

The paper examines two questions concerning Irish non-finite clauses, i.e.: (1) the free variation between overt subjects and PRO and (2) dialectal variation. As regards the first issue, it is argued that Irish non-finite clauses represent two types, namely: clauses with PRO which exhibit anaphoric Agr in T checking PRO's null Case and non-finite clauses which exhibit non-anaphoric Agr in T checking nominative Case of the subject. The mechanism licensing overt subjects and PRO can be used to account for distinct word orders found in Northern and in Southern dialects. While the former allow overt object shift in the presence of either the overt subject or PRO, hence yielding the following orders: S+O+particle+V and PRO+O+particle+V, the latter trigger overt object shift only in the presence of PRO and never in the presence of an overt subject, hence giving rise to the following patterns: S+particle+V+O and PRO+O+particle+V. In order to account for this dialectal variation, the particle a is taken to represent a marker of transitivity in Northern dialects and hence to appear in v. Object shift is triggered by the necessity to satisfy the v's EPP-feature and subject raising from Spec, vp is triggered by the EPP-feature of T. For Southern dialects the following assumptions are made: (1) the particle a has always a Case feature to check, (2) the particle a can appear in v or in T, when it appears in v, it checks the Case of the object and when it appears in T, it checks the Case of the subject, (3) overt subjects are licensed by the particle a , which is an overt realisation of non-anaphoric Agr in T, and (4) PRO is licensed by anaphoric Agr in T. Under these assumptions, the order S+particle+V+O arises if a is in T, whereas the order PRO+O+particle+V surfaces if a occurs in v. It is further suggested that subject and object raise in Southern dialects for Case reasons, not for EPP-checking. The pattern S+O + particle + V is impossible in Southern dialects, as in order to license the overt subject a must be in Agr, whereas in order to license object shift a must appear in v. Since a cannot occupy two positions simultaneously, this order is never attested.

In this paper, we focus on a group of the Kurdish, Korean and Persian Light Verb Constructions (LVCs); consisting of a semantically light verb (LV) and a verbal noun (VN). It is argued that the LVs, capable of case marking and hosting verbal features, in combination with T function either as nominative and accusative case markers or only as nominative case markers. It is shown that the arguments of VNs can be structurally licensed via T and LV whose case assigning roles are not thematically restricted. Although these LVs as the most thematically bleached natural verbs seem very similar to v in the Minimalist Program, the way they are analyzed in this work indicates that the LVs can not support the notion of v(P) as a head above VP in a clause.

Wiltschko (2003) proposes that Halkomelem Salish possesses interpretable T features on D, and as a consequence lacks both nominative Case and a TP projection. In this reply to Wiltschko's paper, I argue instead that Salish languages have tense and Case systems which are fundamentally similar to those of English. I then discuss the consequences of these findings for a theory of cross-linguistic variation. I suggest that there will be no languages with interpretable T features on D, and that we should reject the use of parameters with which have consequences in disparate modules of the grammar.

This paper focuses on two types of multiple nominative constructions in Japanese. In addition to the subject, the nominative particle ga can mark a possessor of the subject or an adjunct. A prevalent view in the literature is that all ga-phrases are nominative NPs or DPs and are licensed in multiple specifier or adjoined positions in one particular projection (Fukui, 1986; Heycock, 1993b; Hiraiwa, 2001; Ura, 1996; among others). However, this licensing mechanism alone cannot account for some striking properties of the two constructions. I argue that a possessive ga-phrase is a nominative NP, while ga attached to an adjunct is interpreted as a focus marker. The particle ga functions as a case marker whenever it marks an NP bearing a θ-role. However, an interpretational rule also treats it as a focus marker when the constituent to which it is attached appears as the first ga-phrase in a multiple nominative construction. These assumptions account for a range of observations, some of which are new. They also explain two particular properties that are difficult to capture in the standard analysis: (i) the difference in the number of ga-phrases permitted in the two constructions; and (ii) the fixed order of ga-phrases in both constructions.

This paper deals with a parallelism between sentences and noun phrases in Classical Arabic. The parallelism in question concerns the distribution of the number feature on the verb in the verb subject (VS) sequence and the (in-)definiteness feature on nouns in the N+NP sequence, the so-called semitic construct state (CS). In both cases, the verb and the head noun do not carry number and (in-)definiteness features respectively. Previous syntactic analyses have treated these two problems as two separate phenomena, thus denying any parallelism between the two constructions. This paper argues that this parallelism is genuine and is due to the verb in the VS sequence being historically a nominal element in a CS relation with the subject.

Pesetsky and Torrego (Pesetsky, D., Torrego, E., 2001. T-to-C movement: causes and consequences. In: Kenstowicz, M. (Ed.), Ken Hale: A Life in Language. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) argue that in English T on D is [−interpretable] and this has the effect of structural case assignment. I propose that in Halkomelem Salish T on D is [+interpretable]. This proposal accounts for several properties of Halkomelem: i) nouns can bear tense marking, which manipulates the temporal interpretation of nouns, ii) there is no TP and iii) there is no nominative case. The value of interpretability of a given feature can thus be viewed as an important locus of parametrization.

This paper examines the status of syntactic rules, such as they are given in formal frameworks, by discussing the case assignment to the Russian semipredicatives sam (‘self’) and odin (‘alone’) when they occur with the infinitive. The paper focuses in particular on the appearance of these semipredicates in the dative case, the so-called ‘second dative’. It is argued that formal approaches to the second dative suffer from a number of shortcomings which can all be contributed to the fact that they do not take the semantics of the relevant expressions (dative, nominative, infinitive, lexical meaning of sam and odin) into consideration in the linguistic analysis. The negligence of semantics leads to (i) the use of non-motivated rules and notions, (ii) circularity in the explanation, (iii) arbitrariness in the distinction of linguistic data, and, in some cases (iv) wrong predictions. In this paper it is shown that an analysis that proceeds from the semantic (or conceptual) basis of morphological case adds a deeper level of explanation and understanding to formal analyses of the second dative. By discussing the different contexts in which the second dative occurs, it is shown that the syntactic combination of the second dative and the infinitive expresses that there is a force directed at the realization of the infinitive situation by the participant expressed by odin or sam. The nominative occurs if the idea of assigning a situation is absent, and the subject of the infinitive (which is associated with the participant expressed by the semipredicative) and the infinitive situation, are conceptualized as manifestations of the same scene.

In German, oblique Cases (dative and genitive) require morphological licensing while structural Cases (nominative and accusative) do not. This difference can be captured by assuming that in German, NPs bearing oblique Case have an extra structural layer Kase phrase (KP) which is missing in NPs bearing structural Case. Focusing on dative NPs, we will show that the postulation of such a phrase-structural difference between oblique and structural case allows for a unified explanation of a wide array of facts both from the domain of grammar and from the domain of language comprehension. First, with regard to grammar, several asymmetries between dative NPs and nominative/accusative NPs follow if the former but not the latter are included within a KP-shell, including asymmetries with respect to function changing operations, clausal licensing, binding and topic drop, among others. Corroborating evidence for our analysis of dative Case in German will be provided by a comparison with data from English and Dutch. Second, when combined with certain independent assumptions about the human sentence parsing mechanism, the postulation of a KP for datives helps explain several recent experimental findings with respect to on-line sentence understanding, including the facts that dative case is dispreferred in situations of local syntactic ambiguity and that dative case may erroneously override structural case during sentence comprehension but not vice versa.

An attempt is made to gain a general understanding of how referential hierarchy phenomena work morphosyntactically. Languages with and without morphological case turn out to adopt rather different strategies for dealing with the demands that referential hierarchies place on their clause structure. An investigation of Kashmiri (with morphological case) and Northern Tiwa (without case) indicates that at least two factors influence the morphosyntactic manifestation of hierarchy phenomena: a structural association that appears to exist between referential features of clitics and agreement and inflectional structure on the one hand, and the competing demands on inflectional structure from Nominative agreement vs. high ranking referential features on the other. A consideration of these two factors contributes to an understanding of why certain hierarchy phenomena take the form they do, why different strategies are used in different types of languages to avoid violations of the hierarchy, and the role that morphological case marking can play in hierarchy phenomena.

Verb agreement in Hindi has recently been shown to be sensitive to both argument structure and morphological case features (Mohanan, 1994): the verb agrees with the ‘highest nominative’ argument, i.e., with a nominative S- or A-argument, or if there is no nominative A, with a nominative O-argument (where S = ‘single argument of intransitives’, A = ‘transitive actor’, O = ‘transitive object’). In this article we propose that such a combination of morphological and syntactico-semantic notions is a general characteristic of the over-all syntax of many if not all Indo-Aryan languages. On the basis of constructions which are demonstrably sensitive to grammatical relations, viz. verb agreement, gapping in nonfinite clauses, control constructions and matrix-coding (‘raising’), we argue that these relations are defined as ‘nominative or ergative S/A’ in Maithili and Nepali. Hindi shows a split between some constructions being sensitive to the same grammatical relation and others to a notion of ‘non-genitive S/A’ (gapping in converb clauses) and to ‘highest nominative’ (agreement). Other constructions, viz. conjunction reduction, converbial reference control, and reflexivization, prove not to be sensitive to grammatical relations, in contradiction to frequent assumptions made in the literature on Indo-Aryan syntax.

This chapter provides an analysis of children's so-called ‘genitive subjects’ (like my in My want one) within the framework of Principles and Parameters Theory. Child clauses with genitive subjects have been argued to have a very different syntactic structure from their adult counterparts, viz. to be nominal rather than clausal, or VPs rather than IPs, or projections of an underspecified (rather than a fully specified) INFL. I argue that the distribution of children's genitive subjects shows conclusively that the structures containing them are clauses rather than nominals. I go on to challenge the traditional analysis of her/my/our/its subjects as genitive pronouns, arguing instead that her subjects are objective, my/its subjects function as strong nominative pronouns for the children who use them, and that our subjects result from a lexical gap in the child's pronoun paradigm. I conclude that there is no evidence that English children go through a genitive subjects stage, and hence no evidence that the grammars developed by two- and three-year old children are radically different from their adult counterparts.

Following the view in Kayne (1993) according to which possessive sentences involve a copulative head with a D/PP complement, this paper investigates possessive contexts in Spanish which involve, apart from a possessor and a possessum argument, adjectival modification. These contexts will be shown to give raise to a case of have/be alternation. The choice of the copulative head is associated to different word order in the post-copular material, as well as to different agreement on the adjectival head. I argue that this cluster of properties follows from two different syntactic derivations leading to the raising of the possessor argument to the nominative checking position of the copulative possessive sentence. Moreover, based on the observation that only scalar adjectives are allowed in inalienable possessive sentences with be copulas, whereas both scalar and intersective adjectives are possible in their have counterparts, I will develop an account of the syntactic conditions under which scalar and intersective readings arise. Finally, it will be argued that possessive sentences involving transitory possession structurally differ from those involving permanent possession. In particular, I will propose that the adjective and the possessum argument form a small clause in the former case, whereas in the latter, the projection containing the possessum is generated as a complement of the adjective. The set of proposals in this paper have interesting consequences not only for the syntax of possessive contexts, but also for the syntax of DP's. For instance, from the approach developed here it follows that adjectival modification can be licensed through overt movement of a projection containing the modified noun to the specifier of the projection headed by the adjective. Therefore, we should allow for DP-internal raising of the noun as part of a raising XP.

I examine Gleitman's (1990) arguments that children rely on a verb's syntactic subcategorization frames to learn its meaning (e.g., they learn that see means ‘perceive visually’ because it can appear with a direct object, a clausal complement, or a directional phrase). First, Gleitman argues that the verbs cannot be learned byb observing then situations in which they are used , because many verbs refer to overlapping situations, and because parents do not invariably use a verb when its perceptual correlates are present. I suggest that these arguments speak only against a narrow associationist view in which the child is sensitive to the temporal contiguity of sensory features and spoken verb, If the child can hyppthesize semantic representations corresponding to what parents are likely to be referring to, and can refine such representations across multiple situations, the objections are blunted;, indeed, Gleitman's theory requires such a learning process despite her objections to it. Second, Gleitmans suggests that there is enough information in a verb's subcategorization frames to predict its meaning ‘quite closely’ . Evaluating this argument requires distinguishing a verb's root plus its semantic content (what She boiled the water shares with The water boiled and does not share with She broke the glass ), and a verb frame plus its semantic perspective (what She boiled the water shares with She broke the glass and does not share with The water boiled ). I show that learning a verb in a single frame only gives a learner coarse information about its semanic perspective in that frame (e.g., number of arguments, type of arguments); it tells the learner nothing about the verb root's content across frames (e.g., hot bubbling liquid). Moreover, hearing a verb across all its frames also reveals little about the verb root's content. Finally, I show that Gleitman's empirical arguments all involve experiments where children are exposed to a single verb frame, and therefore all involve learning the frame's perpective meaning, not the root's content meaning, which in all the experiments was acquired by observing the accompanying scene. I conclude that attention to a verb's syntactic frame can help narrow down the child's interpretation of the perspective meaning of the verb in that frame, but disagree with the claim that there is some in-principle limitation in learning a verb's content.

The aim of this article is twofold: first we want to develop a theory for the licensing of the functional properties case and agreement in governmentbinding theory; secondly, we want to show that this theory specifically accounts for a wide range of phenomena in the Germanic and Romance languages, both modern and historical, synchronic and diachronic. Our starting point is that the functional features case and agreement of any category, lexical or functional, need to be licensed. We will discuss the principles involved in detail, following up Chomsky (1986, 1988) Pollock (1989) and subsequent work. The theoretical proposal that we make elaborates three issues: first, we shall suggest a distinction between C-oriented and I-oriented languages with concomitant typological distinctions. Second, we shall eliminate the option of spec-head agreement from current definitions of nominative case marking and suggest that nominative case can be assigned exclusively by C or I under government. Third, we will propose that ‘subjectverb agreement’ is a separate licensing operation, which constitutes one of the options for licensing INFL features for person, number and gender. The empirical result of our proposal is a unified treatment of the interaction between the V2 phenomenon, various types of case properties and

Case is argued to be necessary both for PF-visibility of nominals and LF-visibility of theta-marked chains. Null and overt expletive and theta-marked subjects are analyzed in English, Galician Portuguese, and Slavic, and the following parameters are proposed: (i) Nominative Case features must be realized (English, Galician) and (ii) Nominative Case assignment cannot take place at LF (English, Russian). Finally, the existence of certain marginally overt expletive subjects in Slavic is explained in terms of the LF-visibility requirement.

The attempt is made to show that English is evolving away from tne nominative construction in the direction of G.A. Klimov has called the ‘active’ construction, wherein verbs are not classified for transitivity. A typological classification is proposed opposing languages with verbal classification for transitivity (nominative and ergative constructions) to languages lacking such classification, but having nominal classification for personalities or animateness (languages such as English and Dakota.)

Analysis of case usage in Russian provides quantitatively verifiable ‘syntactic profiles’ of three styles in Russian. They are: spoken, belletristic, and technical. These differences in case usage are shown to be a function of the differing role of marked ‘shifters’. When the verb evinces a high degree of marked verbal shifters (spoken dialogue) the case system is heavily dominated by unmarked cases, particularly the nominative. When verbal shifters are absent or unmarked (technical prose), the reverse is observed, and the case system evinces a high degree of usage of marked, i.e. oblique cases, in particular the genetive. In these regards Russian belletristic prose occupies a middle ground and appears to be diachronically quite stable. The fact that, within the sentence, marked values tend to be either nominal or verbal, but not both, is viewed as a syntagmatic corollary of Stankiewicz' principle of paradigmatic limitation of co-occurrence of marked values.

predictable from the surface grammatical relations of a sentence. Thus the grammatical subject is the NP directly dominated by the S node, and it is specified as nominative; the object is the NP directly domi-, nated by the VP node, and it is specified as accusative (Chomsky 1965: 221-2). When the semantic object is in fact specified as nominative, it must first have become the grammatical subject through the operation of a transformation which modifies grammatical relations, as for example the passive or raising. Finnish contradicts these assumptions in an interesting way, by using the nominative to specify the object in certain environments. This unexpected use of the nominative for object is the topic of this paper.*

It is widely believed (Greenberg (1963), Lehmann (1973), Vennemann (1974)) that there is a relationship between the order of object and verb and the order of adjective and noun, that OV languages tend to be AdjN, while VO languages tend to be NAdj. Evidence against this is presented here from a sample of 316 languages.

Up to now, much work on the serial verb construction has been devoted either to the historical derivation of the construction or to its synchronic grammatical status. By focusing on a hitherto neglected aspect of the serial verb construction, that of the commutability constraints on verbs operating in concomitant serialization, this paper uses examples from Yoruba to highlight both the relatedness of verb serialization to other types of syntactic typology and the shortcomings of current research on the derivation of the serial verb construction. We set up a positional semantic classification of verbs which facilitates the prediction of permissible, doubtful, and non-permissible serial verb strings, showing (i) the commutability restrictions arising from such a functional-semantic classification and (ii) how various reductionist derivational explanations of the serial verb phenomenon can arise from undue concentration on one or the other of the various verb semantic functions. The utility of the approach dopted here is further illustrated by its capacity to handle an indefinitely long string of verbs, thus releasing verb serialization research from overconcentration on only two verbs in series.

Ergativity is not totally absent among the languages of Africa. Ergative characteristics are thus found in some Western Nilotic languages, e.g. in Pari. In independent indicative clauses without constituent focus, this language treats an intransitive subject (S) like an object (O) rather than like a transitive subject (A). Thus, both S and O have the absolutive case, precede the verb, cannot be cross-referenced on the verb, and can have zero manifestation, while A has the ergative case, follows the verb, can be cross-referenced on the verb, and cannot have zero manifestation. Consequently, Pari is also a language of the rare OVA (or ‘OVS’) type. The ergative characteristics are also present in clauses with derived verb stems that involve a change in valency, such as antipassive stems and benefactive stems. Independent clauses with constituent focus, on the other hand, lack some of the ergative characteristics. Other clause types, such as imperative clauses and subordinate clauses, exhibit extended ergativity and are basically verb-initial. Diachronically, however, as revealed by a comparison with genetically related languages, the extended ergativity does not reflect an extension of the use of the ergative case. Rather, the ergative case was originally a marked nominative case, which became ergative through a change in constituent order from VAO/VS to OVA/SV.

One of the most important typological distinctions in morphology and syntax has been that between ergative and nominative (also called accusative) languages. There are two primary criteria for classifying languages along these lines - a morphological basis dependent on surface cases and verbal agreement and a syntactic basis developed within the framework of relational grammar. Kamchadal cannot be readily classified according to either criterion, although related languages in its family are ergative. In this paper I will explain how the Kamchadal system developed through a historical change that affected both surface morphology and deeper syntactic processes. Further, I will suggest how the framework of relational grammar should be modified to accommodate Kamchadal syntax. This modification will also accommodate recent theoretical findings of Anderson (1976) and Moravcsik (1978).

The construction Zeṽ πα'τeϱ ... 'He'λιoζ τe may probably be explained by the tendency to avoid ‘Ubercharakterisierung’, the nominative often replacing other forms of a noun. With regard to the grammatical form of an attribute of a vocative there does not seem to have been a generally accepted idiom in prehistoric times. Scholars are however too often inclined to pose questions of this character in terms of chronology. The views upheld in connection with constructions such as γe'ϱoν ϕιλe, ϕιλoζ ǧw Meνe'λαe etc. are open to criticism. It may also be doubted whether a proper name added to verbs of calling etc. originally was in the vocative. Finally some remarks are made on the ‘nominative instead of a vocative’.