Weak Dative Case In Norwegian Dialect Syntax

Abstract

A remarkable fact about dative case in Norwegian dative dialects is that it bears all the marks of being a non-structural (lexical, inherent) case as to the nature of its in situ generation, but still it is not preserved under A-movement, which makes it a structural case according to the favoured diagnostic tests in generative grammar. We discuss the relevant data and argue that dative case in Norwegian should be classified as what we call a weak non-structural case. Furthermore, we hypothesize that accusative and dative are more alike than previously thought, both being non-structural cases, and in a development of Woolford (2006) we propose that all cases that are licensed inside vP should be counted as lexical or inherent non-structural cases. © The authors 2012. © The Editorial Board of Studia Linguistica 2012. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.