This remark argues for the Case-theoretic concept of Case as a syntactic licensing requirement of DPs related to their case morphology, against alternatives where DPs need no syntactic licensing, or where their case morphology is unrelated to it. The argument is made from constraints on combining exceptional Case marking (ECM) and the double object construction, where there is a single object Agree/Case locus for two DPs. The mechanisms and nature of Case are briefly examined. The appendix sketches an extension to wager -class ECM.

We propose that agreement displacement phenomena sensitive to person hierarchies arise from the mechanism of Agree operating on articulated φ-feature structures in a cyclic syntax. Cyclicity and locality derive a preference for agreement control by the internal argument. Articulation of the probe determines (a) when the agreement controller cyclically displaces to the external argument and (b) differences in crosslinguistic sensitivity to person hierarchies. The system characterizes two classes of derivations corresponding empirically to direct and inverse contexts, and predicts the existence and nature of repair strategies in the latter. The properties of agreement displacement thus reduce to properties of syntactic dependency formation by Agree.