For the Inuit language, it is often claimed that verbal agreement occurs in the CP-domain, as it is sensitive to clause type, and that absolutive case assignment is connected to verbal agreement, because one argument always bears this case in any verbal construction. These claims are strengthened by the fact that absolutive arguments are often assumed to move to the CP-domain, since they obligatorily take wide scope over sentence-level operators like negation, and are interpreted as sentential or aboutness topics. Yet, absolutive case is also assigned in certain nominalized clauses, which lack verbal agreement. In this article, we analyze gerund and participial constructions in Inuktitut to determine the contexts in which absolutive case is assigned. We argue that absolutive case is not assigned through verbal agreement but is nevertheless tied to the CP-domain. More precisely, we claim that absolutive case is assigned in any clause endowed with illocutionary force and hence projecting ForceP bundled with TopP, which we assume is responsible for absolutive case assignment. We conclude that the assignment of absolutive case is a root phenomenon in the language, as it requires the clausal left periphery.