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Burzio ’ s Generalization , Markedness , and Locality Constraints on Nominative Objects 1
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Woolford, Ellen |
| Copyright Year | 2003 |
| Abstract | Recent research on Burzio’s Generalization converges on a surprising conclusion: what blocks accusative Case in unaccusative constructions has nothing to do with the Case or theta assigning abilities of unaccusative verbs; instead an overriding principle requires sentences to have a nominative Case. Yet there is little consensus about how to formulate the relevant principle, or how to deal with the many counterexamples in the form of sentences with no nominative. It is argued here that the relevant principle is markedness: when there is a choice of licensed Cases for a DP, the grammar selects the less marked Case. There are counterexamples because markedness is violable and may be overridden by other constraints. Markedness accounts for the nominative Case on unaccusative subjects and on the objects of dative and ergative subject constructions. However, nominative checking on objects may be blocked even when the subject is not nominative, due to locality constraints on Case checking domains. The ideal Case checking domain contains only one 1 I would like to thank Artemis Alexiadou, Josef Bayer, Ellen Brandner, Miriam Butt, Hubert Haider, Kyle Johnson, Jóhannes G. Jónsson, Joan Maling, John McCarthy, Gereon Müller, Halldór Sigurðsson, Carson Schütze, Sten Vikner, and Dieter Wunderlich for many interesting questions and helpful comments on this work. 300 / ELLEN WOOLFORD DP, but languages may tolerate deviations from this ideal. This work is relevant to an important issue in both syntax and phonology of whether it is a closer source or target that matters in situations where like blocks like. In the situations discussed here, a closer potential target (DP) blocks Case checking. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://people.umass.edu/ellenw/Woolford%20Burzios%20Generalization.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
