The english genitive and double case

Double case is a widespread phenomenon in which a feature, typically a case feature which originates on a noun phrase A, is realised externally to a feature which originates on a noun phrase B which is a subconstituent of A. Although not included in the above collection, examples of the English phrasal genitive such as [the girl who invited [me's]] best friend and [a friend of [mine's]] mother, in which the genitive case marker is realised externally to a pronoun in the accusative or genitive case, fit this paradigm exactly. In this paper, I argue therefore that any analysis of the English genitive must be consistent with the constraints imposed by the general typology of double case. Having outlined an edge-feature analysis which satisfies these constraints, I further show that, in distinction to postlexical clitic analyses, it provides an account of Kruisinga's observation that the English phrasal genitive, as in *the queens of England's, is incompatible with (regular) plural marking. © The author 2009.