The parameters of case marking and spell out driven movement

Abstract

This paper proposes that case decomposes into a number of separate functional projections, which are ordered in a universal functional sequence. Cross-linguistic variation in position and complexity of case morphology is then accounted for in terms of differential noun phrase movement within the invariant sequence (Cinque 2005). I further investigate the possibility that variation in movement may be reduced to variation in the shape of the actual lexical entries. In order to implement this idea, the model of cyclic spell out by Starke (2009b) is adopted. In this model, each step of external merge is followed by lexical access. Consequently, evacuation movements may be triggered after each step of external merge in order for successful lexicalization to take place. Keywords: agglutination; case; case paradigm; flexion; lexicon; movement; nanosyntax; parameter; phrasal spell out; variation