On the syntactic nature of the me-lui and the person-case constraint

Abstract

This paper is part of a more extensive project whose main topic is the role of Case-theory in the general design of the language faculty. The ultimate goal of this work would be to show that Case does not play the central role current linguistic theories attribute to it, and to derive its effects from other general conditions of the system. In this paper, we will focus on several phenomena that show, contrary to standard assumptions, that Case and Agreement-checking are independent processes. We will argue that Case-features are not the relevant trigger for overt agreement-inducing movement; in particular, in the cases we will analyze, we will show that verbal agreement is sensitive to some animacy feature of the attracted object. Case-marking will then be analyzed as a property of the morphological component, with no bearing on the issue of syntactic movement.