On disjunctive case realization in Eastern Kabardian

In this thesis, I document and analyze case valuation and case realization patterns in Kabardian. The typical case alignment pattern in Kabardian singles out subjects of transitives, marking subjects of intransitives and objects of transitives alike. Hence, I argue that Kabardian exhibits ergative case, analyzed as upward dependent case under the assumptions of Dependent Case Theory. Furthermore, Kabardian exhibits an inverse pattern where the special case marker that is identified as the ergative case in the language appears on objects of some transitive verbs. I argue that these verbs assign a lexical case to their complement, which happens to be syncretic with ergative. I show that this type of disjunctive case realization is fully predicted under Dependent Case Theory, further testing the predictions in causativization structures. I additionally show that caseless nouns in Kabardian are a result of an obliteration rule that applies post-syntactically in specific environments. Overall, the thesis brings further support to the idea that the case calculus is not performed contemporaneously, yet in steps determined by the nature of the case being assigned.