Phases beyond

It is agued that there is crosslinguistic variation regarding what counts as a phase in the traditional Noun Prase (TNP) which tracks independent crosslinguistic variation regarding the categorial status of the TNP assumed under the DP/NP parameter, on which languages without articles lack DP. In particular, it is argued that DP is a phase in DP languages, and NP is a phase in NP languages. However, in a few cases where an additional phrase is projected above NP in NP languages, this additional phrase becomes a phase instead of the NP. The real source of the parametric variation in question then concerns the amount of structure projected in a TNP, not phasehood, since the highest projection in a TNP always counts as a phase. The tests for phasehood developed for the TNP are also applied to APs and PPs, leading to the conceptually appealing conclusion that all major phrases, NP, AP, PP, and VP, project phases, with the exact phasal projection depending on the amount of functional structure above the major phrases. Many of the diagnostics for the locality of movement that are used in the paper are crucially affected by the structural/inherent case distinction, inherent case being less constrained than structural case with respect to a number of movement phenomena. Based on this it is argued that the inherent/structural case distinction has a structural reflex, i.e. that inherent case and structural case should be treated in a different manner structurally.