Suggested answer for Exercise 1

Following the Case Filter, which states that all DPs must have Case, we have to assume that these DPs have case. Case assigners are verbs, prepositions and the finite inflection. Case assigners must be ‘close’ enough to the DP to be able to assign case to it. Finite I can assign nominative Case to its specifier position only, while verbs and prepositions can assign accusative Case to their complement DP or to the DP in the specifier position of their complement.

a) In sentence John met Mary in the park there are four DPs. The DP John has nominative Case as when it is substituted with a pronoun that displays overt Case marking the pronoun has nominative Case in this position. Nominative Case is assigned by the finite inflection, as nominative Case is available only for subject DPs in finite clauses. The DP ‘Mary’ has accusative Case assigned by the verb. The DP ‘the park’ gets accusative Case from the preposition ‘in’.

b) In sentence For me to survive this week will be quite difficult there are two DPs, both in the subject subordinate clause. The subject DP has no nominative Case. As we have seen earlier non-finite I filled with the infinitival marker to cannot assign Case, at all. In fact, the DP does not have nominative Case. It has accusative Case assigned by the complementiser for. The object DP of the subordinate clause gets Case from the verb survive.

c) In sentence Everybody goes to see the painting the subject DP everybody gets nominative Case from the finite I of the sentence. The object DP is assigned accusative by the verb see.

d) Sentence John persuaded Bill to go to see a doctor is a complex sentence. Its structure is superficially very similar to sentence (1b), but the structure of the two sentences is not identical. The verb persuade has three arguments. It has an agent, a patient and a proposition argument. The agent DP gets nominative Case from the finite I. Bill gets accusative Case from the verb persuade. Notice that while expect in sentence (1b) assigns accusative Case to the specifier position of its propositional complement, persuade assigns accusative to its complement. Finally the DP a doctor is assigned accusative Case by the verb see.

e) In sentence Mary gave a book to John for Xmas there are four DPs. The agent DP gets nominative Case from the finite I of the sentence. The patient DP a book is assigned accusative Case by the verb, the goal argument is assigned Case by the preposition to and the DP Xmas is assigned Case by the preposition for.