The three preceding chapters have explored in detail the schema for dependent case assignment repeated in (1). Instantiations of this schema characterize what undergoes this type of structural case assignment, and where it must be relative to a case competitor in order to do so.

(1) If XP bears c-command relationship R to ZP in local domain WP, then assign case V to XP.

However, (1) does not say anything explicitly about when in the course of a complex derivation a given XP receives dependent case. That is something one should try to be clearer about, and this chapter takes up the matter.

Indeed, there already have been controversies about this issue in the literature on dependent case assignment. Marantz’s original version was linked to the idea that morphological case is determined at PF, after the syntax – a view also adopted by Bobaljik (2008: 150). However, Legate (2008: 85–91) criticizes this view, asking (among other considerations) why movement such as scrambling the object past the subject does not affect which argument gets accusative or ergative case, if case is assigned at PF. For this and other reasons, Baker and Vinokurova (2010) claimed that dependent case was assigned in the syntax; indeed, we assumed that dependent case assignment happened immediately, as soon as a relevant configuration is created by merging an NP into a domain that already contains another NP. See also Preminger (in press: ch. 9) for similar arguments and conclusions. Given these disagreements, we should consider the timing of dependent case assignment within the broader empirical context considered here, together with the related question of how case assignment interacts with movement.