Subjects, nominative case, agreement and functional heads

Abstract

The aim of this article is twofold: first we want to develop a theory for the licensing of the functional properties case and agreement in governmentbinding theory; secondly, we want to show that this theory specifically accounts for a wide range of phenomena in the Germanic and Romance languages, both modern and historical, synchronic and diachronic. Our starting point is that the functional features case and agreement of any category, lexical or functional, need to be licensed. We will discuss the principles involved in detail, following up Chomsky (1986, 1988) Pollock (1989) and subsequent work. The theoretical proposal that we make elaborates three issues: first, we shall suggest a distinction between C-oriented and I-oriented languages with concomitant typological distinctions. Second, we shall eliminate the option of spec-head agreement from current definitions of nominative case marking and suggest that nominative case can be assigned exclusively by C or I under government. Third, we will propose that ‘subjectverb agreement’ is a separate licensing operation, which constitutes one of the options for licensing INFL features for person, number and gender. The empirical result of our proposal is a unified treatment of the interaction between the V2 phenomenon, various types of case properties and