Advances in Biolinguistics - The Human Language Faculty and Its Biological Basis

This account of multiple nominatives can naturally be extended to multiple
genitives, as seen in the following example of NPs.

(7) a. kinoo-no Yamada-sensei-no gengogaku-no koogi
yesterday-GEN Yamada-professor-GEN linguistics-GEN lecture
‘(Lit.) yesterday’s Professor Yamada’s lecture on linguistics’
b.
kinoo n

Prof. Yamada n

gengogaku n

koogi n

The proposed theory conducts a valuation of the genitive case in a manner
parallel to the valuation of the nominative case. As noted in footnote 3, any
nominal element in the nominal structure is merged with n in our analysis,
which adopts the idea proposed by Baker (2003) and Kayne (2009). Since
n is assumed to be a phase head (Fukui and Zushi 2008), unbounded Merge
is applied to its edge, as illustrated in (7b). Each nominal element merged
at the edge of n receives a genitive case value, and hence multiple occurrences
of genitive case.^9
It is important to note that the fact that multiple occurrences of identical
case are impossible in agreeing languages, such as English, is straightforwardly
derived from the proposal that case valuation in that type of language is
carried out via Agree. Whether unbounded Merge is applied to the edge in
English-type languages is a matter of debate. If unbounded Merge does not
apply to those languages, the impossibility of multiple occurrences of identi-
cal case immediately follows. The same conclusion can be drawn even if
unbounded Merge is assumed to be possible at the edge in this type of
language. Suppose such languages allow more than one nominal to be merged
with v, as in the structure (6b). Under the assumption that Agree is a biu-
nique relation, once a case feature of one nominal can be valued by a probe
under Agree, further case valuation by the same probe becomes unavailable,
since its φ-features are inactivated. Unless some special device of case valu-
ation is stipulated, the unvalued case feature would remain, crashing the
derivation.
Let us now return to the question regarding the structure of stative sen-
tences. We argue that both experiencer and theme arguments are outside the
domain of VP, which differs from the standard view of the structure of stative
sentences. It is standardly assumed that the theme argument is an “object”
that occupies a complement position of the predicate. We attribute this analysis
of the structure of stative sentences to the theory of lexical categories pro-
posed by Baker (2003) and Kayne (2009). They argue that verbs differ from

Case and predicate-argument relations 55