Chapter 3 - Basic Concepts of Syntactic Theoryformedness conditions of D-structure is the lexicon which provides structures with
categorial information and Theta theory with the -roles to be assigned. We might
represent this in the following way:
(83) Lexicon X-bar theory
D-structure Theta theory
movement
S-structure
2.2.2 S-structure and Case Theory
So far we have looked at some of the principles governing the distribution of arguments
at D-structure. In order to understand movement we must now consider some of the
principles that apply at S-structure which determine the distribution of arguments at
this level.
In chapter 2 we mentioned the grammatical notion of Case, pointing out that
certain pronouns in English have different Case forms. Nominative pronouns include
he, she, I and we while accusative pronouns are him, her, me and us. What determines
which form the pronoun appears in is apparently its S-structure position. If a pronoun
is the subject of a finite clause it will be nominative, anywhere else it is accusative (we
ignore the possessor position inside the DP which is associated with genitive Case:
his, her, my and our):
(84) a he has helped her
b I consider [him to be unkind to us]
In (84a) the clause is finite as tense is marked on the auxiliary verb. The subject he is
in the nominative form, not the accusative him. However, the object of the verb help,
her, is in the accusative not the nominative she. In (84b), while the main clause is
finite and has a nominative subject, I, the embedded clause is non-finite. This clause
has an accusative subject him. The object of the preposition in this clause is also
accusative, us.
Now consider the following example:
(85) he was helped
The pronoun is in the subject of a finite clause and so naturally is in the
nominative. However, as this clause is passive, the pronoun originates from the object
position at D-structure. But this fact does not seem to have any bearing on the case of
the pronoun: the pronoun is nominative not accusative as a non-moved object would
be. Clearly, then, it is the position that a pronoun sits in at S-structure that determines
its case. We might claim therefore that there are positions which are Case positions,
specifically nominative positions and accusative positions, and there are positions
which are not Case positions.
But if there are nominative and accusative case positions, what are we to say about
the non-pronominal DPs that sit in these positions as no other DP demonstrates