The central issue that is discussed in this study is the morphosyntactic development of Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and English, namely the loss of morphological case and the loss of V-to-I movement and stylistic fronting, with a focus on the role of IP-Spec.

The synchronic part of the study deals with two different constructions in present-day Icelandic. Firstly, it focuses on the analysis of constructions with dative subjects and nominative objects, i.e. the agreement relation between a verb and a nominative DP and how to account for the fact that oblique subjects cannot be inanimate and that nominative objects cannot be first or second person. Secondly, it provides an analysis of stylistic fronting.

The diachronic part of the study also focuses on the two constructions as there is a focus on showing that the older Scandinavian languages and English had dative subjects and that stylistic fronting existed in Old and Middle Danish. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to show that the loss of constructions with dative subjects and nominative objects followed a systematic process in these languages.

The two theoretical frameworks used in the thesis are Optimality Theory and the Minimalist Program.