A Study on the Associate NP of There Constructions

This paper discusses the nature of the associate NP of English there constructions and attempts to capture the underlying similarity between the associate NP in English and the nominative object in Korean. Specifically, this paper is centered on the Case property of the associate NP. As the first step, previous proposals on the case of the associate NP are critically reviewed. Through the criticism, this paper opposes to Chomsky's (1995, 2000, 2001) analysis and to Lasnik's (1999) partitive Case analysis. In particular, convincing reason for the partitive Case assignment to the associate NP, other than other cases, cannot be found. This paper, therefore, adopts a recent claim of Boeckx (2000) that the Case under consideration is nominative by Agree. His idea is extended to the analysis of the presentational expletive construction. This paper draws a conclusion that the associate NP of the presentational expletive construction has accusative by Agree. This dichotomy (or split) is also observed in the nominative object construction in Korean. In the nominative object construction, the nominative object has nominative Case by Agree, whereas the regular object has accusative by Agree.