Suffixaufnahme, oblique case and Agree

The present contribution focuses on a set of phenomena which are unified by the typological literature under the label of Suffixaufnahme. The theoretical focus of the contribution is the minimalist rule of Agree and the notion of case, specifically oblique case. We question the necessity of [interpretable] and [valued] features for the formulation of Agree. We suggest that more primitive syntactic notions underlie the descriptive label ‘oblique’, specifically that of an elementary relator with a part/whole content. Thus, the DP embedded under a genitive case/adposition is interpreted as a possessor/whole with respect to a local superordinate DP (the possessum/ part). We argue that case/agreement stacking corresponds to the presence of a partial copy of this second argument within the phrasal projection of the relator. In §2 we apply this analysis to linkers, using Albanian as a case study; we then go on to case/agreement stacking in Punjabi (§3) and in the Australian languages (e.g. Lardil), which are often taken as the core instantiation of the phenomenon