Ellen Woolford

Lexical Case, Inherent Case, and Argument Structure

In addition to the division in Case theory between structural and non-structural Case, the theory must distinguish two kinds of nonstructural Case: lexical Case and inherent Case. Lexical Case is idiosyncratic Case, lexically selected and licensed by certain lexical heads (certain verbs and prepositions). Inherent Case is more regular, associated with particular -positions: inherent dative Case with DP goals, and ergative Case with external arguments. Lexical and inherent Case turn out to be in complementary distribution with respect to -positions: only themes/internal arguments may have lexical Case, and only external arguments and DP goals may have inherent Case. This complementary distribution can be accounted for under recent views of vP structure that place both external arguments and (shifted) DP goals outside the VP proper at the point at which nonstructural Case is licensed. Claims in the literature that the more regular datives and ergatives are actually structural Cases are based on faulty or misleading diagnostic tests.

FOUR-WAY CASE SYSTEMS: ERGATIVE, NOMINATIVE, OBJECTIVE AND ACCUSATIVE

In the context of an analysis of the four-way Case system of Nez Perce, this paper presents evidence for three claims concerning Case theory. First, ergative is not a structural Case like nominative or accusative; instead, ergative is a lexical Case like the dative. Second, contrary to the usual assumption that UG allows for only one structural Case for objects, there are, in fact, two structural object Cases available in UG: one, termed ’objective Case‘ here, is assigned/checked in Spec Agr-O and is associated with object agreement, if the language has object agreement. There is a limit of one objective Case per clause. The other, termed ’accusative Case‘ here, is assigned/checked by V inside VP and is never associated with object agreement. There may be more than one structural accusative Case per clause. The third claim is that the following descriptive generalization holds universally: in a clause with a lexically Cased subject (e.g., ergative or dative) the highest object cannot have structural accusative Case (although that object can have objective Case). That generalization and the facts that motivated Burzio‘s (1986) generalization are manifestations of a broader generalization governing the maximum number of accusative Cases that a verb can assign.

More on the Anaphor Agreement Effect

This article provides additional evidence for the universality of Rizzis (1990) anaphor agreement effect, under which the ungrammaticality of nominative anaphors in English, Italian, and Icelandic is due to the presence of agreement. Languages without agreement are shown to allow nominative anaphors. Objective anaphors cannot be associated with agreement, unless the agreement is a special anaphoric form. Superficial counterexamples to Rizzis proposal are shown not to be problematic. The relative merits of two formal accounts outlined by Rizzi (1990) are discussed. Finally, it is suggested that the anaphor agreement effect can be a diagnostic for the presence of covert agreement.

Symmetric and asymmetric passives

Double object constructions manifest three different passive patterns. In Kinyarwanda, Norwegian, and Swedish, either object can passivize (symmetric passive) while in English, Fula, and Chicheŵa, only one object can passivize (asymmetric passive). However, there are two types of asymmetric passives. In the English type, the accusative object with the highest thematic role must passivize and transitive impersonal passives are impossible, regardless of whether the language allows intransitive impersonal passives. In the Chicheŵa type, only the object associated with the Case-assigning morpheme adjacent to the passive morpheme can passivize.It is proposed here that there are two different mechanisms that can deprive an NP of Case in the passive; the morphological structure of the passive verb determines which of the three passive patterns these mechanisms will produce. The passive morpheme can absorb a Case (cf. Baker 1988b), but only from an accessible Case assigner. A rule of Case Theory, calledAccusative Case Blocking (ACB), blocks a passive verb from assigning structural Case to its thematically highest accusative object, but only if the passive morpheme attaches early so that the agent is suppressed when ACB applies. ACB is shown to be responsible for the effects attributed to Burzios (1986) generalization and for the fact that verbs cannot assign accusative Case to their subjects.

Object Agreement in Palauan: Specificity, Humanness, Economy and Optimality

Palauan exhibits a complex pattern of object agreement, conditioned by aspect, specificity, number, and humanness (Wilson 1972, Josephs 1975, Georgopoulos 1991, 1992). While current syntactic theory provides different structural positions for objects that trigger object agreement and objects that do not (e g Mahajan 1990, Georgopoulos 1992), it does not yet provide a complete answer to the question of which objects will occupy which of these positions and why, especially in a pattern of agreement as complex as the one in Palauan. For Palauan, the following three questions need to be answered: (1) Why is such a peculiar disjunction of features associated with object agreement in Palauan? [+human] and/or [+specific,+singular] (2) Why are exactly the same features associated with inserted prepositions, but not base-generated prepositions? (3) Why does object agreement only occur in the perfective aspect, while preposition insertion is limited to imperfectives?

Minimalism and Optimality Theory

This article discusses the relation between the minimalist program (MP) and optimality theory (OT) and will show that, contrary to popular belief, MP and OT are not inherently incompatible or competing frameworks/theories. Instead, we will show (i) that the two can well be seen as complementary parts of a more general model of grammar and (ii) that the resulting hybrid system may be superior to the two constituting parts in isolation.