Accusative case assignment to the verbal internal argument in the Albanian language and the corresponding case assigning model

Abstract

The following paper aims at shedding some light on the Albanian language case system with a special focus on the assignment of the accusative case. As a member of the vast Indo-European family Albanian language is characterized by an inflected case system and as so a free word order. Traditionally, we are taught and we still teach to the coming generations that accusative case is assigned mostly by the verb to that sentence noun phrase syntactically representing the direct object and semantically introducing the Theme or the Patient. Moreover in Albanian accusative is also assigned by another morphological category bearing the distinctive features [+noun;+verb], namely the proposition. Furthermore, as a researcher in the field of generative syntax, I have a stake in analyzing certain exceptional cases of accusative case assignment to the subject NP of the Albanian subjunctive clause. In conclusion, I was tempted to adopt Chomsky’s reconciling proposal in accusative case assignment under the specifier-head structural and schematic relation.