Basic English Syntax with Exercises

genitive Case

3.2.2.2 S-structure and Case Theory

In chapter 2 we mentioned the grammatical notion of Case, pointing out that certain pronouns in English have different Case forms. Nominative pronouns include he, she, I and we while accusative pronouns are him, her, me and us. What determines which form the pronoun appears in is apparently its S-structure position. If a pronoun is the subject of a finite clause it will be nominative, anywhere else it is accusative (we ignore the possessor position inside the DP which is associated with genitive Case: his, her, my and our):

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

To answer this question we first have to consider another property of the possessor. Pre-nominally, possessors are marked by the element ‘’s’. What is this morpheme? Some have suggested that it is the marker of genitive Case born by the possessor. However, if this is a Case marker, it is a very strange one for at least two reasons. First it is a Case marker in a language which does not usually mark Case on its nominal elements. English only normally marks Case on its pronouns and noun forms are typically invariant no matter what Case position they occupy. Yet if we take ‘’s’ to be a marker of genitive Case we have to assume that nominals are marked for this Case. The other strange thing about this morpheme seen as a marker of Case is that it does not behave anything like a Case morpheme in any other language. Note that it does not attach itself to the noun, but to the last element in the whole DP:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

Note that these pronouns have a special genitive form, which demonstrates that this position is one to which genitive Case is assigned. Thus, even if the ‘’s’ morpheme is not the marker of genitive Case, DPs which sit in the specifier of a DP have this Case. The problem is that with pronoun possessors the possessive determiner (the ‘’s’ morpheme) does not appear. This is rather puzzling, especially if this morpheme is nothing to do with genitive Case.