Structural and Inherent Case betwween minimalism and lexical functional Grammar

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to examine structural and inherent Case in Standard Arabic (SA) in the light of two linguistic theories: Government and Binding (GB) theory and the Minimalist Program (MP), as proposed by Chomsky (1981, 1986a, 1986b, 1993, 1995, 2000) and Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), as presented by Bresnan (2001), Dalrymple (2001) and Falk (2001).Chomsky (1981) distinguishes two types of Case: structural and inherent. LFG, on the other hand, distinguishes three types of Case: structural Case, semantic Case and quirky Case. According to these modern linguistic theories, this study distinguishes two main types of Case in SA: argument Case and non-argument Case. Argument Case is assigned to arguments, i.e., obligatory constituents, whereas non-argument Case is assigned to adjuncts, i.e., optional constituents. Argument Case involves two types of Case: structural and inherent. Non-argument Case involves two types of Case: semantic Case and concord Case. Semantic Case is assigned to VP adjuncts, whereas concord Case is assigned to NP modifiers.This thesis argues that all these types of Case in SA are assigned structurally under the c-/m-command constraint, a core structure notion in Chomsky's approach. This argument obviates the need for the structural/inherent distinction in Chomsky's theory. One piece of evidence in support of this argument is provided by the behavior of two types of Case which have not received enough attention in the literature. These are: the semantic Case and the concord Case. Another crucial piece of evidence is presented by the syntactic behaviour of lexical barriers which proves that Case assignment in SA is structurally constrained. A third piece of evidence is provided by examining Case assignment in two types of di-transitive constructions in SA: the morphological causative construction (MCC) and the double object construction (DOC. Finally, in support of the assumption that Case assignment in SA is purely structural, this study argues that genitive Case in construct state (CS) in SA is structural.