A Minimalist analysis of possessor advancement. Baker (1988) revisited

In this paper, we show how Baker’s (1988) account of noun incorporation, which was formulated in a Government & Binding framework, can be transferred to a modern Minimalist grammar. We argue that the Minimalist theory of noun incorporation does not only have conceptual advantages over a GB analysis — since it requires a smaller number of stipulations — but also empirical ones. The crucial assumption our account is based on is that noun incorporation is triggered by a special kind of case feature on the incorporating noun. This assumption is shown to have major impacts on derivations which involve noun incorporation.