Case mismatches in Greek: Evidence for the autonomy of morphology

186 manuel espaol-echevarra and angela ralli
language, e.g., Mohawk. It is further predicted that the three features do not
have to be equally visible to syntax. 8
Let us proceed by examining rstly the notion of non-movement chain
formation, and the non-distinctiveness condition on the features involved in
this sort of chains proposed in (1iv).
2.1. Coindexation and feature interpretability
In this section, we would like to propose that the Chain Condition in (1) must
involve constituents that are nondistinct in +Interpretable features. Thus,
our claim is that the nondistinctiveness of the features involved in CLLDchains
should be relativized according to the +/;Interpretable distinction in
Chomsky (1995). On the basis of this distinction, Case is syntactically characterized
as ;Interpretable, while Gender and Number are +Interpretable. 9
A ;Interpretable feature, i.e., Case, is invisible to the C-I level, as opposed
to the +Interpretable features of Gender and Number which belong to the
features visible to this level. This distinction between +Interpretable and
;Interpretable features allows us to derive the contrast in grammaticality be-
8
As may be expected by such assumptions, the overt manifestation of Cases is not
isomorphic with the set of functions that these Cases may express. For instance,
more than one functions are expressed by Genitive case in Greek, e.g., indirect object,
adnominal relation, cf. footnote 5.
9
Notice that the +/;Interpretable opposition could also distinguish dierent types of
cases. For instance, structural cases, suchasAccusative or Nominative, are, in the general
case, ;Interpretable, whereas inherent cases could be considered +Interpretable,
since they are, by denition, closely related to -marking. However, even the most
structural cases may sometimes be related to a semantic interpretation, and thus behave
as +Interpretable features, as the following Latin example seems to indicate,
cf. Blake (1994, 32):
(i) Vado Romam
go-1sg Rome-acc (destination)
`I go to Rome'
The occasional behaviour of Accusative asaninherent Case can be explained by assuming
that a constituent may be associated to both a structural and an inherent Case
in certain contexts, as argued in Torrego (1998) (but see Babby (1980), Yip Maling
Jackendo (1987), and McCreight (1988) for the opposite view). In section 2.3.1,
we propose that Case, both in its structural and inherent manifestations, is never a
+Interpretable feature. The fact that inherent C ase may show certain properties of
+Interpretable features can be derived from its close relation to -marking.
Acta Linguistica Hungarica 47, 2000