Author:  Falk, Yehuda N.

Date: Dec 30 1998

Title: Unmarked Case

Email: msyfalk@mscc.huji.ac.il

Remarks: This is a draft; comments eagerly awaited

Abstract: 
There is good evidence for two conflicting approaches to nominative/absolutive
nominals. Under one approach, despite their superficial appearance, they have
the features of ergative or accusative Case. This approach is supported, inter
alia, by agreement phenomena. Under the other approach, nominative/absolutive
nominals are unmarked for Case. This is a very traditional view, and
is supported by agreement and other syntactic phenomena that seem to
distinguish unmarked Case from marked Case. The only way to reconcile
these apparently contradictory analyses is a two-level approach to Case, in
which "Case specification" and  "Case realization" are separated: the former
being the specification of features on a nominal argument by a head; the
latter being the functional category K. In LFG, this means that Case
realization  is c-structure Case and Case specification is the
f-structure feature CASE.