Inherent Case is understood as Case, the assignment of which has to be accompanied by theta-assignment (Chomsky 1995). While Nominative on the subject and Accusative on the direct object are typical representatives of structural Case, Genitive or Dative are usually taken as representatives of inherent Case. In this paper I first review the properties of ditransitive verbs in Czech explored in D...

This study examined the acquisition of prenominal and postnominal genitives by Iranian EFL learners. Two variables were considered: possessive categories and language proficiency. We considered the influence of possessive categories such as lexical modifier, semantic relationship, and weight and syntactic complexity on genitive alternations by Iranian EFL learners. Also, we examined whether the...

The argument-modifier distinction is less clear i n NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in certain kinds of nominalizations which retain some “verbal” properties (Grimshaw 1990). The status of apparent arguments of non-deverbal relational nouns like sister is more controversial. Genitive constructions like John’s teacher,...

Languages differ regarding the depth, structure, and syntactic domains of recursive structures. Even within a single language, some structures allow infinite self-embedding while others are more restricted. For example, when expressing ownership relation, English allows embedding prenominal genitive -s, whereas postnominal is much How do speakers learn which specific not? The distributional lea...

In Norwegian, possessive pronouns can be prenominal (min bil 'my car') or postnominal (bilen min 'car.DEF my'). In the Principles and Parameters literature, the standard assumption is that possessive pronouns are prenominal in underlying structure, while the postnominal position is a result of N-movement. This paper takes a different approach. The focus is the grammatical differences between th...

This paper discusses genitive phrases in Hindi/Urdu in general and puts a particular focus on genitive scrambling, a process whereby the basic order of constituents is changed. In Hindi/Urdu, genitive phrases may not only occur at different structural positions within the NP that they modify; under the right circumstances, they can also be found outside of the NP, yielding discontinuous structu...

In this paper, I discuss the semantics of certain instances of non-canonical genitive Case in Russian. I use the term non-canonical genitive Case to refer to the phenomena whereby an object of the verb is assigned genitive Case, rather than accusative. More specifically, I discuss two phenomena: Genitive of Negation and Intensional Genitive. The paper is organized as follows. First, I introduce...

A number of authors have claimed that indefinite pronoun constructions like everything red are formed by raising a noun (thing) over a higher prenominal adjective (red). We examine phenomena in English and other languages which appear to show that adjectives participating in the indefinite pronoun construction do not correspond to prenominal forms, but to postnominal ones. We evaluate the chall...

This article explores the variation between the emergent genitive its and the periphrastic form of it in Early Modern English, situating this case in the larger picture of English genitive variation. As previous studies have often focused on non-pronominal possessors (given that Present Day English pronominal possessors often appear prenominally, with limited variation), this early pronominal g...

The German noun phrase generally reflects a straightforward four-way case distinction (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), but this is most clearly realized on the determiner. Nouns show a depleted case system: genitive is only marked specifically on masculine/neuter nouns in the singular. There are several contexts which require genitive case: possessor NPs and objects of certain verbs ...