Finiteness, case and clausal architecture

This dissertation explores the phenomenon of finiteness as Nominative case and its significance for the theory of syntax. It questions the relevance of Tense and Agreement as a Nominative Case licensing feature within the Minimalist Framework. It discusses the syntactic feature(s) that license nominative and non-nominative subject-case particularly in Turkish clausal structures as well as other Turkic languages, i.e., Tuvan and Kazakh. Based on arguments particularly from Turkish data, it is proposed that (a) the feature licensing nominative subject case in finite clauses Turkish is a complex feature consisting of mood on Complementizer head and epistemic modality on Finiteness head, and it marks finiteness in Turkish, and possibly English, Catalan, European Portuguese, Japanese and Italian; (b) the feature licensing Genitive or Accusative case on subjects of non-finite (ECM) clauses is a feature on an external functional head, which licenses; a nominal functional feature on Determiner/Kase (D/K) licenses Genitive, a verbal functional feature on v licenses Accusative. Agreement in Turkish marks the presence or absence of a Mood feature on C in a clausal structure. It is also argued that subject case and clausal agreement mark syntactic (in)dependency of clauses in Turkish. This analysis predicts the lack of either epistemic modality or mood feature within ECM constructions. The major theoretical implication of this dissertation is the disassociation of Case and Agreement features in case licensing.