On Case and Clauses: Subordination and the Spell-Out of non-terminals

The main idea suggested in this paper is that subordinate clauses need to be Case licensed (namely embedded under KPs) and that various patterns of "fusion" within a layered functional skeleton obliterate that process. I will provide two types of empirical support for this proposal. First, I will show that this proposal correctly allows for nominal elements to stand in for a whole embedded clause (using the mechanism of Phrasal Spell-Out, Starke 2009; Neeleman & Szendroi 2007). Second, I will show that a wide range of typologically unrelated languages overtly exhibit Case marking on complementizers. Also, direct evidence against the identity of relative pronouns and complementizers / subordinators, possibly suggested -prima facie- by the layered model proposed here, will be provided here with the aid of data from Akkadian, Germanic languages and West Iranian languages.