Genetive Case

Genitive Case
The genitive case in Spanish syntax is a noun modifying another noun or showing a close link between two nouns without saying that they are the same thing. For instance, “El carro de Alex.” shows a close link between “Alex” and “el carro”, but it does not say that they are the same thing. This example shows possession, but the genitive case shows more than just possession.Genitive is the case assumed by the subject of a noun phrase, and is marked mostly by the preposition “de” with a non-pronominal or pronominal form. Structures of a pronominal form pertain to two types, pre-nominal and post-nominal. Genitive pronominals agree in number and gender with the possessed noun. The argument of these pronominal genitive case forms regards to whether the pre-nominal genitiveforms are weaker morphologically than the post-nominal genitive form.
Pre-nominal possessive pronouns are morphologically ‘less complex’ than the post-nominal ones. Cardinaletti claims that, “Spanish pre-nominal possessives exhibit the properties of true clitics such as mi, mio, etc.” (Cardinaletti, 2002). This proves that the Spanish possessive forms may not be the main focus, which providessupport for the idea that the pre-nominal possessive elements used clitics in order to obtain the genitive case in the Spanish language. For example, “de Maria mis amigos” contains “mi” in order to fulfill the pre-nominal form in the phrase. Pre-nominal forms may be accompanied with an article which would be consistent with the idea that the forms occupy the D position. However, as Cardinalettiobserves, this fact alone does not establish that they are clitic (D) forms. (Cardinaletti, 2002) She suggests that they may, in fact, occupy a high spec (below D) position. This point is seen in the tree illustrated below:

DP
Spec D’
D AgrP
de Spec Agr
Maria Agr NP
PP N
Mis amigosI claim that the possessive prenominal clitic “mis” in Spanish rises to D to give case to “amigo.” Longobardi states that,” it is a natural assumption to make sure of the features of D are checked by either a head in D (definite article, clitics possessive pronoun) or through specifier-head agreementwith a ‘weak’ possessive pronoun in Spec,DP.” (Longobardi, 1994) This demonstrates why in the tree “mis” is moved to D and Maria is moved to the spec, DP. The DP is the internal agreement assumed for the pre-nominal possessives through a functional head NP. In this section, I have adopted Cardinaletti’s (1998) idea that the pronominal possessive pronouns in Spanish are clitics and rise to D toallow “amigo” to receive case. This is consistent with the fact that these forms are often morphologically defective and resist coordination and emphasis.
On the other hand, comparing “de María su amigo” with “su amigo de María” as proper sentences will have many native speakers choosing “su amigo de María” as a proper sentence. The reason for this would be that “de María su amigos” is notgrammatical in its appearance of the definite article duplicating the proper name. This is because it isn’t clear what would block the appearance of the definite article in “de María su amigo”. Athough, the underlying word is given in the sentinental order of “su amigo de María, which is grammatical in standard varieties of Spanish. Examples of trees below for each sentence:

DP DP
SpecD’ Spec D’
pro D AgrP DP NP
Spec Agr PP N’
Agr NP su N DP
PP N amigo de Maria
su amigo

At first glance, “de Maria su amigo” looks similar like the previous example “de Maria mis amigos” which does...