earticle

영어

Structural Case (i.e., inherent Case) is associated with theta-positions, whereas structural Case is not (Chomsky 1981, 1986, Bošković 1997, 2002, Woolford 2006). If inherent Case (which Bošković assumes is assigned to elements in situ) is available only to nominals that the Case-assigning verb θ-marks, as is standardly assumed, inherent Case is excluded from ECM constructions. The inherent Case option of the ECMed nominal is ruled out due to the association with θ-licensing, the ECMed nominal not being θ-marked by its Case licensor: the only Case available to objects that undergo ECM, then is structural. In this paper, following Bošković (1997, 2002), I argue that structural Case must be checked by movement. In this respect, the ECMed nominal must move to the matrix non-thematic position (i.e., here, the outer spec of the matrix v*) in order to have its structural Case checked against v*: that is, the Korean ECMed nominal receives its structural Case in its surface position. From that surface A-position, the ECMed nominal can be passivized to the matrix [Spec, TP]. Unlike in English, the embedded clause of ECM constructions in Korean has an overt tense morpheme and an overt complementizer, which indicates that it is of a CP structure. If we assume that the ECMed nominal moves from the embedded subject position, it must raise across the embedded [Spec, CP] by A-movement. This violates locality on A-movement.