Rreth Caktimit Të Rasës Emërore Në Shqipen E Sotme
On Nominative Case Assignment in Albanian Language

Summary/Abstract: Concentrating on the distribution of nominative case forms in Albanian, the author of this article tries to prove that Albanian language shares some of the same properties with other languages in regard to nominative case assignment of an NP in subject position. Based on the Theory of Case of generative grammar, Buxheli relates the distribution of nominative case form in subject position to other structural properties of the sentence. First, she thinks that nominative case of a NP in subject position must have a case assigner, but this case assigner can’t be a lexical unit. Second, the sentence has been seen as an inflectional phrase, whose head is the inflection (INFL). Third, this head is the case assigner of nominative case in subject position. Fourth, INFL must have the features [+AGR, +Tense] in order for the SE in subject position of the sentence to get nominative case: Petriti lexon. Finaly, it is impossible for an NP in subject position to get nominative case from INFL, if the inflection of a sentence has the features [+AGR, -Tense]: E pashë [*Petriti të vraponte]. The sentence “Petriti të vraponte” is ungrammatical, because NP Petriti, in subject position, can’t get nominative case from the head of the sentence. INFL in this sentence has the features [+AGR, -Tense]. The only way for the NP Petriti to get case is an exceptional way, that is through the transitive verb pashë of the maine clause, as a case assigner: E pashë [Petritin të vraponte]. Analysing the structures with perceptive verbs in regard to this issue, Buxheli gives her own arguments to prove why the sentece “Petritin të vraponte”, and not the NP Petritin, is the complement of the verb pashë (saw). She thinks that “Petritin të vraponte”, as a complement of the verb pashe, represents an object clause, whose subject is the NP Petritin in accusative case. According to the traditional albanian grammar the NP Petritin represents an object of the verb pashe, while të vraponte is an predicative sentence that reperesents, both, the complement of the verb pashe and the predicate of the NP Petritin. Exeptional case in albanian is one way of proving that un INFL[+AGR, -Tense] can’t be a case assigner for an NP in subject position.

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