Case Marking of NPs in Accusative Constructions in Hawrami:Structural and Morphological Approaches

Case marking has always been a challenging issue to account for in various versions of the generative enterprise. Among the several available approaches seeking to theoretically deal with case marking, two approaches have been significantly highlighted: the first one, entitled as the syntactic approach, is advocated by Chomsky in the basic versions of minimalist program and the second one, which is generally described as the morphological or dependent approach to case marking, was first proposed by Marantz and subsequently elaborated on by Baker, among others. Focusing on the accusative alignment in present-tense transitive constructions in Hawrami, the present paper attempts to compare the explanatory adequacy of these approaches. It is indicated that none of these approaches can comprehensively account for the case-marking patterns in the accusative constructions in Hawrami. Although the syntactic approach can explain the bilateral relationship between the case-marking properties of the subject and its agreement with T, it fails to come up with a plausible analysis for the case-making of the object, in which case the dependent approach is more theoretically equipped to account for. Therefore, in line with previous studies in this regards, it is recommended that employing an eclectic approach, in which the theoretical apparatus of both syntactic and dependent frameworks are being used, can result in a more logical scenarios for the minimalist analysis of case-marking patterns in syntactic structures.