Hybrid Licensing #

@cite{kalin-2018} @cite{coon-keine-2021} @cite{marantz-1991} @cite{baker-2015}

A theory of nominal licensing that decouples which nominals need licensing from where the licensers live. Following @cite{kalin-2018}'s analysis of differential object marking (DOM) in the Neo-Aramaic language Senaya, every clause carries

an obligatory primary licenser (always merged), plus
zero or more secondary licensers that merge only when their inactivity would cause some nominal to remain unlicensed — essentially a global last-resort economy condition on functional structure.

Independently, languages parameterize which nominals need licensing in the first place. Some make every nominal need licensing (no DOM); others restrict the licensing requirement to nominals carrying certain structural/featural components (e.g., [+specific], [+definite], [+animate]) — yielding DOM as the visible signature of secondary licensers being activated.

Feature-Theoretic Implementation #

@cite{kalin-2018} cashes "needs licensing" as carrying an uninterpretable, unvalued [Case] feature in the @cite{pesetsky-torrego-2007} framework: licensing is feature valuation via Agree with an active licenser. Nominals without the unvalued feature are not active for licensing — they are interpretable in situ. The needsLicensing flag on LicensedNP is the Boolean abstraction of this feature; the caseFeature accessor returns the NP's licensing-relevant case state (valued by lexical case, valued by a licenser, or unvalued).

Why "Hybrid" #

The architecture is hybrid in two senses:

Licensers: primary (obligatory) + secondary (last-resort) coexist in the same clause. This contrasts with Agree-based theories (@cite{marantz-1991} as a foil; classical Minimalism) in which case is assigned by a fixed set of functional heads, and with dependent case (Dependent.lean, @cite{baker-2015}) in which configuration alone determines case without a head-based licensing requirement.
Marked vs. unmarked objects: under hybrid licensing, marked objects are not structurally distinguished from unmarked ones in the usual sense (they don't necessarily occupy a high position or escape pseudo-incorporation); the difference is that they triggered activation of a secondary licenser.

Two Parameters #

A language's licensing system is determined by:

needsLicensing : NPFeatures → Bool — which nominals require licensing
the inventory of Licensers, of which exactly one is primary and the rest are secondary

DOM patterns fall out from the interaction. A nominal is unmarked if the primary licenser suffices; marked if convergence required activating a secondary licenser. Non-DOM languages either (a) license every nominal via the primary head (no secondary licenser ever activates) or (b) make every nominal need licensing so that secondary licensers always activate uniformly.

Relation to Other Case Theories #

Dependent case (Dependent.lean, @cite{baker-2015}): configural, no head-based licensing requirement. Hybrid licensing is largely orthogonal — the two can in principle coexist in a single language, with dependent case assigning the morphological exponent and licensing determining whether a secondary licenser had to merge to host a given nominal.
Voice-based case (Phenomena/Case/Studies/Scott2023.lean): case is keyed to argument position via Voice. Both frameworks use designated functional heads as case assigners; whether secondary licensers in a particular language are best identified with Voice flavors is a language-specific question this file does not adjudicate.
Feature gluttony (@cite{coon-keine-2021}): an alternative to licensing-based accounts of hierarchy effects (PCC, dative-nominative configurations). @cite{coon-keine-2021} argue that hierarchy effects are not due to failures of nominal licensing but to a probe participating in too many Agree dependencies. Hybrid licensing applies to DOM patterns that feature gluttony does not target; the two are adjacent debates rather than competing analyses of the same data.

Bridge to the Case Filter #

§ 7 connects this module's LicensingOutcome to the Chomskyan Case Filter formalized in Theories/Syntax/Minimalism/CaseFilter.lean: an outcome that values Case (any of .byPrimary, .bySecondary, or .byLexical) satisfies the Case Filter, while .unlicensed does not. Kalin's framework thus derives the Case Filter as the convergence condition on hybrid licensing rather than stipulating it.