Theoretical Aspects of Movementmorphological Case distinctions? There are two things that we might say. One is that
Case positions are only Case positions when occupied by a pronominal DP. This
would be rather difficult to arrange however, as it appears that apart from the fact that
Cases are only visible on pronominals, what defines Case positions is fairly general:
the subject of a finite clause is nominative, the object position of a verb or preposition
is accusative and the subject position of a non-finite clause is accusative. It is not clear
how to include the presence of the pronominal into the definition of a case position.
The alternative is to claim that there are general case positions that are occupied by
any DP, but only some DPs show any morphological reflex of this. Obviously this is
the more general and simplest position and hence it is preferable unless there can be
demonstrated to be advantages of accepting that case positions are only defined in the
presence of a pronoun.
One reason to believe that case positions are generally defined but just
morphologically distinguished on certain elements is the fact that case is not
distinguished on all English pronouns. For example there is no distinction between
nominative and accusative for the pronoun it:
(86) a he eats it
b it eats him
The third person singular masculine pronoun demonstrates a Case distinction
between subject and object position in (86), but not the pronoun it. It would be
extremely difficult to account for why Case positions are only defined in the presence
of pronouns, except for it and would be much better to say that the Case position is
defined in the presence of it but this pronoun does not realise the distinction overtly. In
other words, it is the nominative form of this pronoun and it is the accusative form.
But once we have accepted this as a possibility it is reasonable to accept it for all other
nominal elements as well.
One way to view this situation is to separate two notions of Case. One notion of
Case, relating to the traditional view, is that Case has to do with the form a nominal
element takes dependent on its position or, in some languages, its function in a
sentence. We can call this phenomenon Morphological case. The other view of Case
is that this is something a DP gets simply by occupying a certain structural position,
whether or not it is realised overtly. We call this Abstract Case, or just Case (spelled
with a capital). From this perspective then, any DP that occupies the subject position
of a finite clause has nominative Case irrespective of whether that DP looks different
from what it would if it were sitting in an object position and bearing accusative Case.
One piece of support for this distinction comes from observations such as the
following:
(87) a for her to be ready on time would be a miracle
b for she to be ready on time would be a miracle
c her to be ready on time would be a miracle
d *she to be ready on time would be a miracle
In (87) we have a series of pronominal subjects of non-finite clauses. In the one
grammatical case the subject is accusative, demonstrating that this is an accusative
position. The ungrammaticality of the nominative pronoun in (87b) is therefore