Focusing on the Shipibo language, I defend a simple ‘‘dependent case’’ theory of ergative case marking, where ergative case is assigned to the higher of two NPs in a clausal domain. I show how apparent failures of this rule can be explained assuming that VP is a Spell-Out domain distinct from the clause, and that this bleeds ergative case assignment for c-command relationships that already exist in VP and are unchanged in CP. This accounts for the apparent underapplication of ergative case marking with ditransitives, reciprocals, and dyadic experiencer verbs, as opposed to the applicatives of unaccusative verbs, which do have ergative subjects. Finally, I show how case assignment interacts with restructuring to explain constructions in which ergative case appears to be optional.

This article shows that accusative case and object agreement are not closely related in Amharic, a language in which both are morphologically overt. This suggests that it is wrong to generalize Chomsky’s claim that agreement and case are both manifestations of the same Agree relation from subjects to objects across the board. I show that object agreements in Amharic are the true manifestations of Agree (not pronominal clitics), whereas accusative case is assigned independently, to the lower of two nominals in the same domain. The relationship between case and agreement can thus vary parametrically.

The Ibibio language displays an antiagreement effect (AAE), in which φ-feature agreement on the verb is suppressed in subject questions, even when the wh -phrase remains in situ. I discuss why this fact is problematic for existing theories of the AAE. I then suggest that the AAE arises when the deletion process that applies to copies in a movement chain removes the φ-features of a copy along with its semantic features. This formulation applies equally well to overt and covert wh -movement. It also generalizes to explain why quantified subjects do not trigger an AAE in Ibibio, whereas subjects in negative clauses do.

Standard views about the factors that determine verb position and subject position predict that there should be Subject-Verb-Object languages in which tense and aspect are indicated by a particle or auxiliary that comes before the subject. Julien's (2000) large-scale survey of the languages of the world, however, indicates that this word order is never found. This striking gap suggests that the theory of how verbs are related to tense needs to be rethought. I suggest that the gap can be explained by abandoning Chomsky's (1993, 1995) checking theory, in which the relationship between the T node and the inflected verb can be established abstractly. The correct word order typology follows if the computational system of human language can combine tense and verb only by overt head movement (Baker 1988, Pollock 1989) or by the PF merger of morphemes under adjacency (Marantz 1988, Bobaljik 1994).