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This article aims to argue for the Agree-less plus single cycle approach, advocated recently by Hornstein (2009), according to which long-distance dependency is captured by regular movement plus the mechanism of which copy is pronounced. Based upon Lasnik's (1999) observation that the "raising to object" involved in the ECMconstruction is optional, it is demonstrated that this can be best captured under this approach by assuming (i) that either the top (in the higher Spec- VP) or the bottom copy (in the embedded Spec-TP) of the A-chain involved is pronounceable and (ii) that the activation for LF interpretation such as binding and scope correlates with which copy is pronounced. It is further demonstrated that the same mechanism of pronunciation and LF interpretation also captures similar properties found in the Japanese ECM construction. The article also addresses the question how it is possible for the top copy of an A-chain to be active for LF interpretation even though the chain involves string-vacuous movement, following Abe and Hornstein's (2012) mechanism of chain production. It is demonstrated that the revised mechanism of pronunciation and LF interpretation is well supported by the phenomenon of nominative-genitive conversion in Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we investigate the case split on the possessor in Udmurt. Traditionally, the choice between ablative and genitive possessor case is said to be driven by the grammatical function (GF) of the XP containing the possessor. We argue that the case split is not driven by GFs; rather, it is determined by the case value of the XP that contains the possessor. Importantly, there is no evidence which points to a possessor raising analysis in Udmurt. Instead, we present an analysis according to which the possessor always bears genitive but may be assigned another structural case by an external head. Due to a morphological constraint, stacked case features fuse into a single feature set in the postsyntactic morphological component. If accusative and genitive stack on the possessor, only the default semantic case marker, i.e., the ablative marker, can realize the resulting feature set. In any other context the genitive marker is chosen. We thus claim that there is no abstract ablative on the possessor; instead, the morphological ablative marker realizes a combination of two abstract structural cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for the presumption that syntactic movement is involved inside the passive nominal (Anderson 1977, 1979, Chomsky 1970, 1981, 1986, Kayne 1984). I argue that pace Grimshaw (1990) and Williams (1982), there are some facts that follow only by assuming that the prenominal genitive DP originates from a noun's object position. Furthermore, basing my argument on Grimshaw's (2004) claim that Romance/Latinate suffixes license N's complements, whereas their Germanic counterparts cannot, I demonstrate that this dichotomy is observed in the formation of passive nominals as well. This in turn offers the basis for the movement of N's complements to the DP-initial position. The present study will thus reinforce the parallelism that has been purported in the generative literature to exist between the sentence and the noun phrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue for an approach to grammatical case that treats case-marking not as the passive realisation of other morpho-syntactic properties of a construction, but as bringing its own independent contribution to the con-strual of a clause, through inference over possibly underspecified semantic con-tent of a case-marker in context. We take as case studies two instances of Differ-ential Case-Marking: the partitive alternation in Estonian and differential uses of the marker ko in Hindi/Urdu. For Estonian, it is argued that the partitive case is semantically partitive even in alternation in grammatical contexts with nomina-tive and genitive. From this assumption, we derive the various construais of the partitive as indicating indefinite quantity or imperfective aspect and show how other uses of the case, including after negation, may be traced to the basic parti-tive interpretation. We also argue that the completive interpretations of nomina-tive and genitive derive from contrast with the partitive reading, rather than as being encoded in the case marking itself. With Hindi/Urdu 'dative' maker ko, we argue how pragmatic inference can operate also over grammatical levels to explain the uses of the marker with human direct objects, to specify definite-ness of inanimate direct objects and, in alternation with ergative ne, deontic modality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]