The Locus of Ergative Case Assignment: Evidence from Scope

The apparently symmetrical patterns of A/S vs. O and A vs. S/O systems of case opposition often tempt an explanation of ergative as a structural (as opposed to inherent) case. In one class of such implementations, agent and object case are determined by distinct, cross-linguistically universal sources (e.g., T(ense) and v), and the two types of case opposition result from parameters determining whether case on intransitive subjects aligns with objects or agents. This intuition has been formalized both in terms of global case-realization principles within GB – be it via dependence (Marantz 1991) or competition (Bittner & Hale 1996) – and, within the spirit of the minimalist program, in terms of whether A-case or O-case is obligatory (Bobaljik 1993; Laka 1993, 2000). In sum, all of the above proposals agree that the ergative is a structural case differing from nominative only in terms of (a) morphology and (b) whether intransitive subjects align with it. Thus, they all predict that the syntactic behavior of nominative and ergative subjects should be largely parallel. Indeed, to date, no difference in subjecthood properties such as control or binding have been found in “morphologically ergative” languages. Moreover, there is no difference in the A’-status of ergative and nominative subjects (as diagnosed by the nonexistence