In general, case-stacking describes the phenomenon whereby a single word may bear multiple cases reflecting its relation to a number of different syntactic elements.
This follows Evans's (1995) total concord principle, which states that case inflections are distributed over all sub-constituents regardless of the level they are originated from (i.e., the head or its dependents).
[5] A similar example can be illustrated: Maku-nthawoman-OBLyalawu-jarra-nthacatch-PAST-OBLyakuri-naa-nthafish-MABL-OBLdangka-karra-nguni-naa-nthaman-GEN-INST-MABL-OBLmijil-nguni-naa-nthanet-INST-MABL-OBLMaku-ntha yalawu-jarra-ntha yakuri-naa-ntha dangka-karra-nguni-naa-ntha mijil-nguni-naa-nthawoman-OBL catch-PAST-OBL fish-MABL-OBL man-GEN-INST-MABL-OBL net-INST-MABL-OBL'The woman must have caught fish with the man's net.'
For example, if the verb has the past suffixal inflection, all non-subject nouns will then bear the modal ablative case (MABL).
birangkarralong.timebi-l-da3-PL-NOMmardala-thapaint-ACTdangka-walath-i,man-a.lot-MLOCngimi-marra-ynight-UTIL-MLOCbirangkarra bi-l-da mardala-tha dangka-walath-i, ngimi-marra-ylong.time 3-PL-NOM paint-ACT man-a.lot-MLOC night-UTIL-MLOC'They have been painting the men for a long time, getting ready for (the dance) tonight.'
(Evans 1995: 109)[5]The modal locative (MLOC) marks two constituents as being in the scope of the (unmarked) "instantiated" verb category, whereas the utilitive case (UTIL) expresses an expected use.
The term "concord" is defined as "the morphological realization, on multiple words dominated by a syntactic node n, of a morphosyntactic feature value associated with n."[7] In this example, all three words are dominated by the matrix DP node, and all three bear a proprietive case (PROP).
This clearly illustrates the relationship of concord, where the sub-constituents of a syntactic node (i.e., matrix DP, in this example) carry the associating morphosyntactic features.
When a word carries more than one feature, its relative syntactic height generally corresponds to the linear order of its morphological realization.
NgadaIkangkasaymarun-iboy-ACCwere-thuru-Øthrow-FUT-ACCwangalk-uru-Ø.boomerang-FUT-ACCNgada kangka marun-i were-thuru-Ø wangalk-uru-Ø.I say boy-ACC throw-FUT-ACC boomerang-FUT-ACC'I told the boy to throw the boomerang.'
[10] 철수에게가Chelswu-eykey-kaChulsoo-DAT-NOM돈이ton-imoney-NOM필요하다phil-yoha-taneed-IN철수에게가 돈이 필요하다Chelswu-eykey-ka ton-i phil-yoha-taChulsoo-DAT-NOM money-NOM need-IN'Chulsoo needs money."
[12] In fact, case stacking is difficult for speakers to accept in most situations unless a particle such as man 'only' or kkaci 'even' intervenes between the dative and nominative case markers,[13] such as the following example: 나에게만이Na-eykey-man-iI-DAT-only-NOM뱀이paym-isnake-NOM무섭다mwuseptafearful나에게만이 뱀이 무섭다Na-eykey-man-i paym-i mwuseptaI-DAT-only-NOM snake-NOM fearful'Only I am afraid of snakes.'
(J. Yoon 1996: 110)Although case-stacking has been used in various inflectional suffixes in other languages, in Korean, it is ungrammatical to stack the negator before a predicate.
[15] dumusonturyounglugalkinggal~galgreatkalam.ak.ak.ene.rahomeland-GEN-GEN-PL-DATdumu tur lugal gal~gal kalam.ak.ak.ene.rason young king great homeland-GEN-GEN-PL-DAT'for the young sons of the great kings of the homeland' (Michalowski 2020)In the above example, the genitive NP [kalam] ("homeland") has been assigned multiple markers in reference to the head noun "sons", namely, the genitive marker -ak, the plural -ene, and the dative case -ra.
exclaimed one of the children"has the ergative (also called narrative) case -ma on ertma repeated in the modifying postpositional phrase, headed by -gan.
[11] Against the traditional approach, one of the hypotheses is made by Carson Schütze (2001)[13] states that: "Despite the initial plausibility, stacked case particles are not genuine case-markers.
Even unstacked Nominative and Accusative case-markers are ambiguous between marking case and discourse functions like Topic and Focus."
In fact, the NP that is lexically marked as dative by its predicate is not even eligible for an additional structural case (e.g., nominative or accusative).
The evidence against traditional claims proposed by Schütze are as follows: Evidence of ka as a focus marker One of more common models in case assignment is the Agree model, which states that structural case features are assigned to nominals by functional heads.