Case Absorption and WH-Agreement

The study of A-movement is receiving a lot of attention in recent research under the stimulus of the Minimalist Program. This book provides a principled account of case absorption that gives a precise characterization of the similarities between causative and passive for the first time. It further shows that raising and ECM also involve case absorption, demonstrating the central role that case absorption places in the theory of A-movement. Case Absorption and WH- Agreement is also the first systematic attempt to put a tight constraint on WH-agreement, surveying a wide range of phenomena discussed in the literature to show that despite the superficial morpho-syntactic multiplicity of its realization, WH-agreement is highly restricted because it arises through the interaction between case theory and A-bar processes. This book targets researchers who are interested in the latest developments in the principles-and-parameters approach, as well as those who want to understand central issues in the theory of A-movement.