Case Distribution and Nominalization: Evidence from Finnish

Abstract

Abstract. In many languages, case is distributed among many grammatical elements inside of argument DPs. This article shows that case distribution in Finnish is sensitive to certain nontrivial structural properties of those DPs. This makes it possible to use case distribution as a tool to investigate the internal structure of a variety of DPs, including nominalized clauses. It is argued, based on such new evidence, that (i) there exists a syntactic nominalizer head n within various kinds of nominal phrases, and that (ii) genitive argument DPs of nominalized clauses undergo raising analogous to the EPP‐triggered DP raising in finite clauses. Furthermore, these genitive arguments are base‐generated below the nominalizer head n. Implications involving recent theories of Agree, valuation, and phrasal movement are discussed.

Book Review

“…Finally Finnish and Estonian quantified nouns bear Partitive case (Sakuma, 2008;Brattico and Leinonen, 2009;Brattico, 2010Brattico, , 2011Brattico, , 2012Rutkowski, 2001).…”

STRUCTURAL CASE ASSIGNMENT, THEMATIC ROLES AND INFORMATION STRUCTURE*

“…In fact, there appears to be no governing head. One solution is to assume that the Finnish noun head decomposes into ‘ n + root’ structure (Pylkkänen 2002; Brattico 2005; Brattico & Leinonen 2009) and that the genitive is checked against n ( n = nominalizer, as in juokse‐minen ‘run‐ing’, possibly a zero morpheme). Another possibility is that the genitive case is checked against φ that is part of all noun phrases.…”

The Case of the Divisible Phase: Licensing Partitive Case in Finnish

“…For quantity adjectives, I assume that case concord licenses morphological case on the adjective. I leave the specific formulation of case concord aside, but see Brattico & Leinonen 2009. With respect to quantity nouns, I propose that they appear with a DP complement and license inherent elative case on the DP.…”

“…Finnish complex clause structures show widely diverging behavior (see Vainikka 1989 for an overview of the different types and Brattico & Leinonen 2009 for a more recent discussion). Arguably, these structures differ in the size of the embedded clause.…”