Default Case in English
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Schütze (2001) argues for two claims. First, that Universal Grammar makes use of the so-called Default Case, which refers to “case forms used to spell out nominals that do not receive a case specification by assignment or other syntactic means” (Schütze 2001:205). The second claim is that “ACC is the default case in English” (Schütze 2001:210). This talk challenges the second claim by pointing out that all environments with Default Case (as argued by Schütze) are simultaneously environments which require the so-called strong pronouns. Building on this observation, this article suggests that the Default-Case forms in English are nominative forms of strong pronouns, which have been mistaken for accusative pronouns because they happen to be syncretic with them (i.e., morphologically identical to them). This reinterpretation allows for a more restrictive theory of Default Case, and it has implications for the specific constructions where Default Case has been argued to be needed. |
| Related projects: |