EXCEPTIONAL CASE MARKING STRUCTURES IN ENGLISH: A PROPOSAL OF COMPUTATION

Preservation is a constraint on the computation of syntactic structures stating that, in the course of a computation, the interpretation of an inscription does not change. As for Exceptional Case Marking (ECM), it is an operation where a nominal receives Case feature not from one (01) but two (02) assigners: the second Case assigning is said to be exceptional because not conventional. Nevertheless, when considering some ECM constructions, it is noted that Preservation is violated in the sense that a nominal becomes eligible for two different interpretations during the computation. In addition, so-called infinitival to has always been assumed to occupy the head position of an IP; however, under the current assumption, to is rather the head of a phase. This paper is then intended to propose a different computation for ECM structures in English where there is no violation of Preservation, with so-called infinitival to being the head of a CP phase.