Author

• Yadegar Karimi

Abstract

This paper investigates the nature of Absolutive case and the
syntactic mechanisms underlying its licensing. To this end, two
recent minimalist approaches to the syntactic derivation of ergative
structure will be introduced. Drawing on evidence from the
syntactic derivation of clauses with intransitive complex predicates
in Kurdish, it will be established that the Absolutive case is
checked by the head of the Tense Phrase (T°). Thus construed, the
chain of argumentation in this paper favors an approach to ergative
structure where Absolutive case is treated on a par with Nominative
case.

Keywords

• absolutive case
• ergative structure
• inherent case
• intransitive complex predicate