Abstract Cross-linguistically, the existence of ‘double case’ configurations (e.g., nom -subject and nom -object) presents an empirical challenge to theories of case where anti-identity, or distinctness between two NPs, plays a key role (e.g., Yip, Maling & Jackendoff 1987). This study investigates the factors that influence the distribution of nominative object constructions in Korean. In a novel acceptability judgment experiment, we find that sentences with nom -objects are rated less acceptable than those with acc -objects. In a corpus survey, sentences with nom -objects commonly have topic-marked subjects. We propose the Morphological-Thematic-Grammatical (MTG) Alignment Hypothesis, which posits that sentences are maximally acceptable when there is maximal alignment between morphological case marking, thematic role, and grammatical function. In nom - acc constructions, this alignment is achieved because the highest-ranked subject (Keenan & Comrie 1977) is marked with highest-ranked nominative case (Otsuka 2006) and functions as a higher-ranked agent or experiencer. The lower-ranked object, meanwhile, has lower-ranked accusative case and functions as a lower-ranked patient. In contrast, nom - nom (and dat - nom ) constructions fail to achieve this alignment. Our analysis treats the relevant constraints (e.g., distinctness, alignment) as interacting with each other to produce cumulative effects on acceptability.
Cho et al. (Tue,) studied this question.