1 No Nominative Case in Spanish * Ricardo Etxepare (IKER – CNRS) & Ángel J. Gallego (UAB) Abstract This paper argues that NP subjects are not Case-licensed through Nominative in languages of the Spanish type. We put forward the idea that subjects can be licensed by other surface structure-based strategies, which could in turn account for many of the properties displayed by null subject languages. The scenario we sketch does not question Chomsky’s (2000, 2001) arguments for φ-feature valuation, the moment φ- features and structural Case do not go hand in hand, but it does yield a more complex parametric picture, one where accusative-languages can deploy features that are typically attributed to East Easian languages. If the approach we explore in this paper is correct, it has obvious (and non-trivial) consequences for the nature of T, the functional category responsible for nominative Case assignment. 1. The basic Probe-Goal approach to structural Case Nominative-Accusative languages license two structural Cases in regular transitive sentences. In a system like Chomsky’s (2000 et seq.), each of these Cases is assigned in a different domains: Nominative is assigned by C’s φ-features, whereas Accusative is by v*’s φ-features. For Chomsky (2000, 2001), the phase heads C and v are lexically endowed with φ-features, which make them act as Probes upon introduction in a derivation. After these features are valued (when the match a local Goal), the matching NP receives structural Nominative and Accusative, as can be seen in (1): * Acknowledgments to be added.