Grammar I

LV/UB

Graciela Palacio
2012(revised 2015)

LESSON 11
CASE:
Consider the following sentence:
The woman killed the robber.
Kill is a two-place verb. It takes two arguments (the woman and the robber) and one
complement (the robber). The two arguments are determiner phrases. Within the framework
of Generative Grammar, all overt (i.e. explicit) determiner phrases must have case, abstract
case. But what is case? Abstract case is a universal property of determiner phrases. Case is a
property that has to do with the way the phrase is pronounced according to its distribution in
the sentence. In English, however, this becomes evident only if we replace the determiner
phrase by a pronoun. Consider the following examples:
The woman
She

killed
killed

the robber.
him.

The robber
He

killed
killed

the woman.
her.

In the first sentence, the first determiner phrase the woman and the pronoun she are said to be
in the nominative case1. The second determiner phrase the robber and the pronoun him are
said to be in the accusative case2.
In the second sentence, the order of the constituents has been reversed. Now the robber/he
appear in the nominative case, and the woman/her in the accusative case.
In the case of the determiner phrases the woman and the robber, case is not overtly marked so
the two determiner phrases seem to be the same, irrespective of the position that they have in
the sentence.
In the case of the pronouns, the pronunciation varies overtly (she vs. her and he vs. him).
There are languages where determiner phrases which are not pronouns also have an overt
manifestation of case.
A third case form found in English determiner phrases is the genitive case3, e.g.:
The mans wife killed the robber.
His wife killed the robber.

Also called subjective case.

Also called objective case.
3
Also called possessive case.
2

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As the examples above illustrate, the distinction between nominative, accusative and genitive
cases is overt (i.e. explicit) in English in the pronoun system. Genitive case is also overt in
the case of determiner phrases which are not pronouns. It is overtly marked by means of s.
To sum up: As was said above, abstract case is a universal property of determiner phrases.
However, the overt realization of abstract case by means of morphological case varies crosslinguistically (i.e. from language to language).
Determiner phrases have features:
1. person features:
first person (1 Per)
second person (2 Per)
third person (3 Per)
2.

number features:
singular (Sg)
plural (Pl)

3. Gender features:
masculine (Masc)
feminine (Fem)
common (Com)
neuter (Neuter)
4. Case features:
nominative (Nom)
accusative (Acc)
genitive (Gen)
Features in the pronoun system:
Person/Number/Gender

Nominative

Accusative

Genitive

Genitive

1 Per, Sg.
Common G:
2 Per, Sg.
Common gender
3 Per, Sg.
Masculine
3 Per, Sg.
Feminine
3 Per, Sg.
Neutre G:
1 Per, Pl
Common G
2 Per, Pl
Common G
3 Per, Pl
Common G

me

mine

my

you

you

yours

your

he

him

his

his

she

her

hers

her

it

it

its

Its

we

us

ours

our

you

you

yours

your

they

them

theirs

their

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Notice that in the case of the second person you nominative and accusative have the same
form. The same happens in the case of the third person singular it.
A determiner phrase is valued as nominative by a finite tense element. A determiner phrase
is valued as accusative by a transitive verb or by a preposition. A determiner phrase is
marked as genitive by the determiner which is the head of the DP where the possessive or
genitive occurs.
Lesson 11 Activity 1: (to be handed in as Assignment 11)
What is the case of the underlined DPs?
1. I think that he is innocent.
2. I think him innocent.
3. The woman believed that the man was innocent.
4. The woman believed the man innocent.
5. The woman believed him innocent.
6. Her sister raised her.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, 2nd ed. Blackwell.

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