Case Theory

I. Three kinds of case in English:

		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive

1S		I		me		my
2S		you		you		your
3S		he		him		his
		she 		her		her
		it 		it		its
		one		one		one's

1P		we		us		our
2P		you 		you		your
3P		they 		them		their

		John		John		John's

Examples:

Nominative:
He bit the dog 		John bit the dog

Accusative:
The dog bit him 		The dog bit John

Genitive:
The dog bit his leg	The dog bit John's leg

II. Case Assigners:

		Nominative	Accusative	Genitive

		Tense (in I)	P, V		AGR (in DET)

Two other ways an NP can get case in English :

(i) “For” in COMP:

I hope [CP for [IP him to win the race] ] 
*I hope [CP  [IP him to win the race] ] 

(ii) Exceptional Case Marking (ECM), where a special group of transitive verbs can ‘shoot’ case into the subject position of a lower IP:

I want [IP him to win]
I expect [IP him to win]

So “want” and “expect” are ECM verbs. But note: 

*I hope [IP him to win] 

So apparently “hope” is not an ECM verb. 

As these examples show, both “for” in COMP and ECM verbs assign accusative case.

III. Structural Features of Case Assignment:

A m-commands B if:
	(1) A doesn't dominate B
	(1) The first maximal projection dominating A also dominates B.

Each case assigner must m-commands the NP it’s assigning case to:

Tensed INFL m-commands the subject position.
V m-commands its direct object position.
P m-commands its NP complement.
AGR in DET (presumably) m-commands the NP in DET
Also:
“For” in COMP m-commands the subject position.
ECM Verbs m-command the subject of the lower IP (assuming no intervening C position).