The acquisition of structural case: Effects on binding, movement and semantic interpretation

In the principles-and-parameters model (since Chomsky 1981) research into the actual acquisition of structural Case has so far predominantly been motivated by questions about the specific syntactic environments that allow licensing of NPs by Case, much less by the question what visible effects can be detected in the grammatical development as a result of structural Case being acquired.

Recent views on Case theory share the idea, spelled out specifically in Chomsky's (1993) outline of in the minimalist program, that structural Case should be seen as a feature that needs to be checked in the Spec of a functional head. And this is one way in which structural Case needs to be distinguished from other forms of Case-marking. On this view, a NP argument that needs to be Case-licensed structurally will always have to move, either in overt or covert syntax.

This new approach makes it possible to tie the acquisition of structural Case to predictions about grammatical representations children make use of. Whether a NP is or is not structurally Case-marked will always correlate with differences in position (overtly or covertly).

If the acquisition of structural Case is preceded by stages in which the child uses forms of default Case or other forms of non-structural Case - this developmental path should ideally reflect itself in processes of binding, wh-movement and quantification, which all have been shown to be sensitive to movement triggered by the need to check structural Case.

This raises the following general question: How does the acquisition of structural Case take place? More specifically: Can Case-form be tied to structurally defined position - and, if so, how does this relationship guide the acquisition of Case in a specific language? The aim of this project is to address this question by finding out more about children's knowledge of movement, binding or quantification through experimental work.