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Agreement and control in expletive constructions
... abstract: This article examines Appalachian English existentials, which employ they as the so-called " expletive " (e.g., They is a big creek yet). Given the morphological identity of expletive they with the third-person plural pronoun (e.g., They are happy), the question arises as to why the verb appears in the singular form in the existential despite the expletive's apparent plurality; this question arises in light of Cardinaletti (1997), who observes that cross-linguistically, Nominative Case–marked expletives trigger agreement. To explain the Appalachian contradiction, this work pursues the proposal that Appalachian expletive they is " weak, " lacking a value for its number feature. ...
... In section 2.3.2, I review additional Appalachian data, which are compared with German expletive constructions, a comparison that highlights further cross-linguistic variation in agreement in expletive constructions not considered in Cardinaletti (1997). In section 2.4, I discuss the relevance of cases of they-sentences with apparently plural verbs (e.g., They are another one down the street) to the theory put forth in this paper. ...
... As discussed in section 1 above, German expletive es, despite the fact that it is singular, does not trigger singular agreement with the verb. According to Cardinaletti (1997), this is because it is Case-vague (i.e., not specified for nominative or any other Case). Note, rather, that in the grammatical (3a) the verb is plural. ...
abstract: This article examines Appalachian English existentials, which employ they as the so-called “expletive” (e.g., They is a big creek yet).Given the morphological identity of expletive they with the third-person plural pronoun (e.g., They are happy), the question,arises as to why the verb appears,in the singular form,in the existential despite the expletive’s apparent,plurality; this question,arises in light of Cardinaletti (1997), who observes that cross-linguistically, Nominative Case–marked expletives trigger agreement. Toexplain the Appalachian contradiction, this work pursues the proposal that Appalachian expletive they is “weak,” lacking a value for its number feature. This allows us to maintain,the idea that the Appalachian,expletive does trig- ger agreement, despite appearances to the contrary. The article also explores (rarer) cases of Appalachian existentials with an apparently plural verb (e.g., They are another one down the street), and discusses three possible analyses of such grammars, where (1) the expletive might have a [+ plural] number feature, (2) the verb might actu- ally be singular (despite appearances to the contrary), or (3) in the case of a plural postverbal subject (They have been some fellows . . .), the “associate” might raise at LF to agree with the verb. In this paper I examine Appalachian,English existentials that employ,they
... The [t] encodes 3rd person plural agreement with the subject, which is triggered when the subject moves through SpecSubjP, while [a] encodes habitual aspect. The subject of the clause moves into a higher position, namely, SpecFinP (Rizzi 1997(Rizzi , 2001Cardinaletti 1997;Smith, forthcoming a). The articulated structure of a Mende subject marker the surfacing of a series of heads at the top of the middlefield. ...
... The [t] encodes 3rd person plural agreement with the subject, which is triggered when the subject moves through SpecSubjP, while [a] encodes habitual aspect. The subject of the clause moves into a higher position, namely, SpecFinP (Rizzi 1997(Rizzi , 2001Cardinaletti 1997;Smith Forthcoming a). ...
The distinction between weak and strong islands has been extensively explored in the literature from both a descriptive and analytical perspective. In this paper, I document and analyze island constructions and constraints in Mende, an understudied Mande language spoken in Sierra Leone. Mende has both weak islands (left branch and wh-islands) and strong islands (adjunct clauses, sentential subjects, and coordinate structures). Intriguingly, it has a third class of islands, that I call mixed islands which show a subject–non-subject asymmetry in allowing for movement out of relative clauses, only when they modify the subject. As such, subject-modifying RCs cannot be classified as (strong/weak) islands in Mende. This is the first systematic work on islands and island constraints in the Mande language family, and, as such, it brings novel data from an understudied language family to bear on our understanding of A-bar dependencies and the study of island escape in African languages. It also calls into question a neat paradigm of cross-linguistic island constraints. Importantly, this work also lays down a baseline for future research on island constraints in the broader Mande language family. In order to discuss island constraints, this paper also lays out the first analysis of relative clauses in Mende, while integrating new research on the left periphery, focus constructions, and wh-constructions.
... Since then, subject-verb agreement has often been treated as the reflex of a Spec-Head configuration. But this account fails to derive agreement with the postverbal subject in a straightforward manner: LF-movement of the postverbal subject is assumed in order to derive the necessary Spec-Head configuration for agreement between subject and verb (Chomsky 1995;Cardinaletti 1997). This account, however, has empirical as well as conceptual problems. ...
... Longenbaugh (2019) bases his analysis of PPA in Italian unaccusative inversion on two assumptions: firstly, Standard Italian disposes over a null expletive (Rizzi 1982;Sheehan 2006) that can satisfy the [D] feature on v° and T°; and secondly, the Italian null expletive does not carry a case feature, i.e. is not a case-competitor (as the English there expletive) contrary to the French expletive il (Rizzi 1982;Cardinaletti 1997). ...
In this paper, I will argue that some languages dispose over two kinds of expletives: a purely syntactic expletive and a ‘thetic expletive’ enumerated from the lexicon and triggering a thetic interpretation of the sentence. I will present data from two North-Eastern Italian varieties that exhibit a participle agreement alternation in inversion, a phenomenon that has received little attention until now. It will become clear that the information-structural status of the DP and the pragmatic force of the sentence are crucial for the obtainment of agreement in these varieties, ultimately expressing the thetic/categorical divide (Kuroda 1972; Ladusaw 1994; Sasse 1987). I will argue against subject-verb agreement as a mere reflex of a Spec-Head configuration. Instead, Longenbaugh’s (2019) account of past participle agreement in Romance will be adopted for the syntactic analysis of the agreement alternation in a Minimalist vein.
... Before we proceed to a step-by-step discussion of the spellout algorithm applied to negative markers, we need to discuss some further issues related to the tree structure in (325). Within a nanosyntactic system that makes use of phrasal syntax and that uses fine-grained featurally distinctions, the landing position for the subject will not be SpecTP, because 1) there will not be one TP, since tense will be decomposed into different types of tense and 2) TP spells out tense morphology on the verb (and is also a part of the spellout of a negative marker as we will discuss) and 3) subjects will also be decomposed, in line with ideas by McCloskey (1997), Cardinaletti (1997Cardinaletti ( , 2004, Rizzi (2004), ?), Rizzi & Shlonsky (2006), Rizzi (1981), Danckaert & Haegeman (2017) and hence give rise to dedicated positions of their own. Even though all this work has not yet been done in nanosyntax, and these topics constitute research projects on their own, it makes sense to argue that the subject will be attracted to dedicated subject positions in the syntactic tree, as illustrated informally in (325). ...
... Even though all this work has not yet been done in nanosyntax, and these topics constitute research projects on their own, it makes sense to argue that the subject will be attracted to dedicated subject positions in the syntactic tree, as illustrated informally in (325). In (325) the position proposed is SubjP (Cardinaletti 1997, Rizzi 2004, ?, Rizzi & Shlonsky 2006, Rizzi 1981, Danckaert & Haegeman 2017), a position for subjects of predication and the highest position in the TP-domain within cartographic accounts (325). Other possible landing sites for subjects can be thought off, as for instance RefP, a position for specific subject (?), and more subjects. ...
... Null subjects, although generated in Spec vP, have to move to Spec AgrSP in order to be licensed, as argued by Cardinaletti (1997). Thus, they enter into a Spec-Head relation with AgrS and check agreement for a second time, thus allowing the correction of attraction errors created during AGREE. ...
... It has been observed that there is a close relationship between agreement and overt nominative case (Schuetze, 1997). For example, in European Portuguese (Raposo, 1987) inflected infinitives have nominative subjects, and expletives morphologically marked with nominative case, such as the French il, determine agreement with the verb in construction with postverbal subjects in French, as in (22), whereas expletives, which do not overtly express nominative, such as ce, can or cannot agree with the verb, as shown in (23) (Cardinaletti, 1997). In some central varieties of Italian, agreement with a postverbal subject is not compulsory, as in (24). ...
The papers in this collection all deal with the concept of locality in syntactic theory and more specifically relate to the various contributions Luigi Rizzi has made in this connection over the past three and a half decades. The authors are all either former students of Rizzi’s or colleagues and friends who have collaborated with him closely over the years. Luigi’s influence on all our work, and on the development of syntactic theory as a whole, has been profound; this volume is a small attempt to recognise and show our gratitude for that influence.
... Null subjects, although generated in Spec vP, have to move to Spec AgrSP in order to be licensed, as argued by Cardinaletti (1997). Thus, they enter into a Spec-Head relation with AgrS and check agreement for a second time, thus allowing the correction of attraction errors created during AGREE. ...
... It has been observed that there is a close relationship between agreement and overt nominative case (Schuetze, 1997). For example, in European Portuguese (Raposo, 1987) inflected infinitives have nominative subjects, and expletives morphologically marked with nominative case, such as the French il, determine agreement with the verb in construction with postverbal subjects in French, as in (22), whereas expletives, which do not overtly express nominative, such as ce, can or cannot agree with the verb, as shown in (23) (Cardinaletti, 1997). In some central varieties of Italian, agreement with a postverbal subject is not compulsory, as in (24). ...
We investigate the production of subject and object who- and which-questions in the Italian of 4- to 5-year-olds and report a subject/object asymmetry observed in other studies. We argue that this asymmetry stems from interference of the object copy in the AGREE relation between AgrS and the subject in the Spec of the verb phrase. We show that different avoidance strategies are attempted by the child to get around this interference, all boiling down to a double checking of agreement: AGREE and Spec-Head. Then, we evaluate our approach from a cross-linguistic perspective and offer an account of the differences observed across early languages. Because our account seems to call both for a grammatical and a processing explanation, we end with a critical discussion of this dichotomy.
... Null subjects, although generated in Spec vP, have to move to Spec AgrSP in order to be licensed, as argued by Cardinaletti (1997). Thus, they enter into a Spec-Head relation with AgrS and check agreement for a second time, thus allowing the correction of attraction errors created during AGREE. ...
... It has been observed that there is a close relationship between agreement and overt nominative case (Schuetze, 1997). For example, in European Portuguese (Raposo, 1987) inflected infinitives have nominative subjects, and expletives morphologically marked with nominative case, such as the French il, determine agreement with the verb in construction with postverbal subjects in French, as in (22), whereas expletives, which do not overtly express nominative, such as ce, can or cannot agree with the verb, as shown in (23) (Cardinaletti, 1997). In some central varieties of Italian, agreement with a postverbal subject is not compulsory, as in (24). ...
... Th is is evident in object questions with a null subject, as in (13) Null subjects are generated in Spec vP, where they enter in the Agree relation with AgrS. Unlike overt subjects, they have to move to Spec AgrSP to be licensed (see Cardinaletti, 1997 ), and there they enter in the Spec-Head relation with AgrS and check agreement a second time, thus purging the errors originated during Agree. Questions featuring left dislocation of the NP subject in (6), with the representation in (14), are derived in a similar way as questions with null subjects: the null subject is located in Spec AgrSP, and the lexical subject is dislocated in the left periphery in a topic phrase. ...
This edited volume presents the first results of a long term research project, funded by the Italian Government, which aims at mapping out the fine functional structure of sentences, nominal phrases, and other major phrases making up sentences. Structural representations are seen to arise from the combinations of two kinds syntactic atoms: lexical elements (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and functional elements (determiners, complementizers and various kinds of inflections), the first expressing the descriptive content, the second providing the functional architecture of syntactic structures. This study focuses on the latter, exploring in particular the functional structure of dps (determiner phrases, noun phrases having a determiner as its head: thus, the old man would be a determiner phrase headed by the, headed in turn by man, as its dependent) and ips(inflection phrases, another syntactic category to describe clauses without complement clauses: e.g. she married him would be an ip without the complementizer since). These papers also examine the functional structure of sentences in both verbal and signed languages, uncovering a rich hierarchy of functional projections hosting different classes a adjectival phrases. one of the major collective research projects that has emerged from contemporary research in generative grammar, this volume is highly rigorous empirically and theoretically and provides linguists with a very important body of analysis that is likely to influence future research.
... Moreover, Wilson and Henry (1998, 11-12) argue that verbal -s and singular morphology with existential there are independent phenomena in Belfast English (given that the former seems to be disappearing while the latter is spreading). Non-agreement in existentials occurs independently of the NSR, and I will not consider it for the analysis on verbal -s in the remainder of the paper (see, e.g., Cardinaletti 1997;Schütze 1999;Witkoś 2004, i.a. for approaches to (non-)agreement in existential constructions). ...
North Eastern English differs from Standard English with respect to agreement: According to the Northern Subject Rule, 3sg agreement marking (verbal -s) occurs on verbs in clauses with non-3sg subjects provided that they are not personal pronouns adjacent to the verb. However, data from the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English shows that verbal -s also does not occur with non-adjacent personal pronouns subjects in contemporary North Eastern English. I argue that verbal -s with non-pronominal non-3sg subjects follows from two conceptual assumptions: firstly, the requirement to order feature-driven elementary operations and secondly, splitting up φ\upvarphi -Agree into two separate operations (i.e., person and number Agree). The difference in agreement between North Eastern English and Standard English stems from the different ordering of features on T. In Standard English, person and number probes are ordered before the structure building feature, which triggers movement. In the North Eastern English order, however, the structure-building feature intervenes between the two probe features. The full DP/pronoun split is explained by different kinds of movement: In the case of a full DP, subject movement to Spec/TP bleeds number agreement and verbal -s emerges, while pronominal subjects remain in the c-command domain of T because they head-move to T.
... 28 Più precisamente, oltre che del tedesco, un tratto delle «insular Scandinavian languages» (Mathieu 2009: 357 Belletti (1988) ha cercato di risolvere la questione del NP associato in frasi con verbi inaccusativi pensando alla capacità di questi verbi di assegnare caso (inerente) partitivo. D'altra parte, Cardinaletti (1997) ha mostrato come, secondo particolari condizioni, il verbo possa accordarsi di volta in volta sia con l'espletivo sia con l'associato. Come si è già visto, in afr. ...
Il soggetto espletivo caratterizza la sintassi dell’italiano antico, dell’antico fracese e dell’antico provenzale. Se ne trovano numerosi esempi anche nei volgari medievali dell’Italia Settentrionale. Dal momento che le lingue romanze sono continuazione di una lingua pro-drop, il latino, non stupisce di trovare fasi pro-drop nelle più antiche testimonianze delle stesse. Tuttavia, la non obbligatorietà del pronome soggetto espresso si organizza diversamente nelle varietà medievali, che manifestano una sintassi caratterizzata da pro-drop asimmetrico: comportamento pro-drop per le proposizioni principali, rispetto a una spiccata tendenza alla presenza del pronome soggetto nelle frasi subordinate. Questo fenomeno sembra collegato a una sintassi V2: il verbo si muove nella periferia (CP) e legittima un soggetto nullo. Il movimento a CP non è possibile o comunque molto limitato nelle dipendenti (CP è occupato dai subordinatori) e il soggetto deve essere espresso con un pronome. È con questa sintassi che si intreccia la storia del pronome soggetto espletivo in antico francese, anatico provenzale, italiano antico e volgari medievali dell’Italia settentrionale. La struttura V2 è indipendente dal carattere pro-drop della lingua, ma il soggetto obbligatorio mostra più chiaramente il fenomeno V2. Parole chiave: soggetto espletivo; Verb Second; pro-drop asimmetrico; periferia sinistra della frase; sintassi delle lingue romanze medievali.
... Like Bolognese, Fiorentino, Trentino, and others, it shows 3S on the tensed verb whether the pvS is S or P. (14c) reveals πrestrictions like those in Bolognese (56), and finally, as in Bolognese, it uses cRpvS for those πs that are forbidden in this other pvS construction (14d). Tortora (1999) uses early Minimalist mechanisms (Chomsky 1995, Cardinaletti 1997a, and proposes that the expletive checks the NOM(inative), 3, and S features of Agr, deleting all but the NOM feature (a point to which we return below). It should be noted that Agr is split in this account, with # above π, and NOM located in π. ...
This paper contrasts a Bolognese postverbal subject construction and other grammars with the common Romance one (also in Bolognese) that has longdistance full agreement of the tensed verb and the Case Licensed subject, with an expletive satisfying EPP. In the new Bolognese data, full agreement is absent, a special clitic occurs, and the postverbal subject is person restricted.
Lack of subject agreement also raises questions about its licensing.
The Minimalist proposal is that grammars like Bolognese can specify a feature set on the
expletive that checks EPP in this data, and that it is thus an independent second nominal
in the domain of the sole agreement and Case Licensing probe, T. This specified expletive
is shown to explain all the properties of this data. For the person restrictions and Case Licensing of the postverbal subject, it applies Cyclic/Multiple Agree, the elaboration of
Agree underlying PCCeffects, to the two nominals. The analysis is extended to other
grammars with similar but slightly differing data by simple manipulation of the featureset
on the specified expletive and of the clitic inventory of the grammar.
... The second construction involves VS(O) structures in Greek. Spyropoulos first argues that VS(O) structures cannot be analyzed in terms of Cardinaletti's (1997) analysis (which assumes there is an expletive pro merged in [Spec, TP]) for a number of reasons (mainly related to control), and proposes instead that the thematic subject stays within [Spec, vP] (agreeing in case and phi-features with T), while the EPP is satisfied by a nominal D element within V (which has risen to I -see Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998), or by a null subject clitic in [Spec, TP] (see Spyropoulos & Philippaki-Warburton 2002). The subject clitic agrees in phi-features and case with the DP-subject, giving rise to another multiple case assignment structure. ...
... 205 A esse respeito, Kato (2000a) nota que, como o PB ainda tem clíticos de primeira e segunda pessoas (me e te), a hipótese de uso de um clítico como redutor de argumentos prevê que construções com esses elementos deveriam permitir inversão. Segundo a autora, a hipótese é confirmada: Em relação ao PB, a autora mostra que uma sentença como (74) Cardinaletti (1997), para quem apenas expletivos inequivocamente nominativos podem controlar a concordância em construções expletivas. Os autores encontram dialetos em que o expletivo é ambíguo entre nominativo e acusativo, e ainda assim controla a concordância. ...
... Recall, for instance, (1a) and (3a) for 1 st person. 33 Following Cardinaletti (1997), German es and Icelandic það are generated in Spec, TP (IP) and moved to Spec,CP given that these do not invert with finite verbs (see also Sigurðsson 2008). Note also that any expletive assumed to be deictic (e.g. ...
This article argues for a dependency between structural Case and phasal domains and against Case values as intrinsic properties of (C)-T and (v*)-V. Rather, Nominative or Accusative values are derived compositionally from properties of the entire Probing domain: (i) Nom occurs whenever the Probing domain is specified as [uD, uf/p], while (ii) Acc is assigned if the Probing domain is specified as [uD]. The presence of a [uCase] feature is assumed on all DP arguments, whether null or overt. However, after Case valuation, DPs with inherent intensions and extensions will be lexicalized but variables, such as PRO, will not. The analysis focuses on DP subjects (both lexical and PRO) in non-finite CPs, and relies on availability of null expletive pro as a UG primitive. It assumes Chomsky’s Feature Inheritance Model (Chomsky 2007, 2008, Richards 2007), default Case as in Schütze (1997, 2001), as well as Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993, Embick 2007). It aligns with views where the Case Filter, while syntactically relevant (Legate 2008), is a PF constraint (Lasnik 2008, Sigurðsson 2008).
... Based on the conclusions of Cardinaletti (1997) and Lasnik (1999), I reject the feature movement analysis of CD, as there is no independent motivation for feature movement playing a role in binding. ...
This paper systematically investigates reconstruction properties of Greek clitic doubled objects, motivates an analysis, and shows how this new evidence distinguishes between the numerous existing analyses of Clitic Doubling (CD). It is shown that CD-ed objects are externally merged in argument positions, not adjunct (pace Philippaki-Warburton et al. 2004) and that they must undergo XP/X'max' movement, by contrast to non CD-ed objects, into the middle field between vP and TP, like A-scrambling (Sportiche 1996). Alternative analyses where the doubled object undergoes X0/X'min' movement (Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1997; Preminger 2019 i.a.) or feature movement (Anagnostopoulou 2003; Marchis & Alexiadou 2013) are shown to be unable to capture this data. Furthermore, the paper argues that CD-ed XPs undergo movement into the middle field in order to license a syntactic feature that relates to their interpretive properties. It also considers the interpretive properties of clitics, and shows that they are expletive determiners lacking semantic import. Lastly, it suggests that clitics can only be present if certain locality conditions are satisfied.
... It seems useful, then, to look for a better definition of expletive. Much of the literature in theoretical linguistics is either restricted to specific languages or language families (Platzack, 1987;Bennis, 2010;Cardinaletti, 1997) or to specific constructions (Vikner, 1995;Hazout, 2004). A theory-neutral and general definition can be found in Postal and Pullum (1988): ...
... Such a feature on 'there' is in conflict with the NOM which must be assigned to it in SPEC-T, so such a derivation fails due to conflicted Case assignment. (Note 16) Contrary to the analysis in Sobin 2014, this approach to 'there' is compatible with the claim that NOM Case assignment and -agreement with T always involve the same DP (George & Kornfilt 1981;Cardinaletti 1997;Chomsky 2000Chomsky , 2001. ...
The Problems of Projection (POP) approach to minimalist syntax (Chomsky 2013, 2014, 2015) offers no account of the basic facts of short movement, agreement, and Case in expletive sentences, and involves certain derivational mechanisms of some complexity which, if eliminated, would simplify the overall theory. The present paper addresses these issues. It is argued that Inheritance is an unnecessary complication of the theory, that each head serves as a phase head (simplifying the inventory of possible head types), and that short movement is due to the argument structure requirements of functional verbal heads rather than to labeling deficiencies, as claimed in the POP literature cited above.
... 95 The agreement patterns under discussion are found in contexts other than verbal agreement morphology (e.g., internal to DP's or PP's as shown by Hornstein et al. 2005: 119). As a consequence, an analysis of verbal agreement paradigms contingent on expletive subjects (Cardinaletti 1997b), though relevant, is not general enough to capture the paradigm. Another alternative approach to the agreement paradigms under consideration is to reject LDA and adopt a generalized Spec,H analysis of (all) agreement configurations (Koopman 2003;cf. ...
The focus of this dissertation is syntactic movement and its relationship to surface semantics, morphology, and licensing relations in syntax, with an emphasis on Spanish and English.
Chapter 2 argues that Herburger’s (2000) Neo-Davidsonian approach to the semantics of focus, as syntactically implemented by Uriagereka (2005), allows for a unified treatment of new information focus and contrastive focus (focus movement to
the left periphery and in situ focus) in Spanish. The diverse positions that the focused element can take in the sentence are claimed to be determined by contextual anchoring mechanisms of Raposo and Uriagereka (1995). This entails a remnant movement approach in cases of new information focus in Spanish (Ordóñez 2000). It is suggested that these processes take place covertly in English, contra Kayne (1998).
Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 focus on the relationship between syntactic movement and surface semantics by looking at the syntax of preverbal subject in Spanish and English, respectively. According to Chomsky (2001, and subsequent work) and Uriagereka (2008) a.o., movement yields (at least) scopal and discourse-related properties. Movement to Spec,TP in so-called ‘flexible word order’ languages, like Spanish (contra Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1998, a.o.), and in so-called ‘strict’ word order languages, like English, provides the testing ground for this
hypothesis. It is argued here that both Spanish and English show surface semantics effects correlating with movement into Spec,TP, in keeping with the idea that syntactic movement has an effect on semantics.
Chapter 5 explores a number of challenges for the phase-based system dispensing with grammatically significant Spec,H relations. It is proposed here that under a mixed system adopting phases and Long Distance Agreement and, crucially,
a Multiple Spell-Out system (Uriagereka 1999), conceptual arguments against Spec,H relations can be circumvented. This is shown to solve a number of problems that the phase-based framework faces.
... (14) Italian Dialect of Ancona (Cardinaletti 1997a Assuming that such a computation of overt Agreement is incremental and that Spec,Head relations can indeed exist in the cases under discussion, we can derive the mentioned Agreement Asymmetries within the LDA framework (Chomsky 2000, etc.). 13 Going back to the observation in (1)-(3), the present approach suggests the following ranking among Agreement patterns, from the most advantageous system in terms of Incrementality to the less advantageous one. ...
Recent developments in syntactic theory posit the existence of a Long Dis-tance Agreement mechanism, arguing that there is no such thing as a gram-matically significant Spec,Head configuration (e.g., Chomsky 2004, 2005a, etc.). This claim is a hallmark of phase-based syntax and, consequently, its evaluation is relevant to our understanding of this framework. The issue is particularly interesting in light of recent arguments in the opposite direction (e.g., Koopman 2006; or Franck, Lassis, Frauenfelder and Rizzi 2006, a.o.). For instance, there is a crosslinguistic tendency for moved elements to trig-ger agreement, as opposed to in situ ones, a fact that calls for an explana-tion within this framework (Chomsky 2005a). Furthermore, the issue of how subject Specifiers check their theta-roles under the assumption that these are features (e.g., Bošković 1994, Bošković and Takahashi 1998, Hornstein 2003 and Lasnik 1995) remains unexplained in a system that dispenses with grammatically significant Spec,Head configurations. In view of these and related facts, here it is argued, that conceptual arguments against Spec,Head relations (e.g., Chomsky (2005a) can be circumvented and that Spec,Head relations exist in the system, though not in the traditional guise. In particular, it is argued that under a Multiple Spell-Out system (Uriagereka 1999 and 2008), when combined with the phase-based system, there can be checking relations in the Spec,H configuration, though not probing of the Spec by the Head under m-command. This is shown to solve the problems that the phase-based framework faces. With regard to morphological agreement, the resulting framework pre-dicts that some languages may sanction Spec,H relations as the domain of morphological agreement. Nonetheless, it is not clear why there appear to be very few cases in natural language where Long-Distance agreement is sanctioned as said domain. It is argued that within the above framework which adopts grammatically significant Spec,Head configurations, perform-ance factors conspire to achieve this result. In particular, the differences in agreement morphology found across languages, depending on whether the Probe Goal relation is established locally (cf. the Spec,Head relation) or via 88 Iván Ortega-Santos a Long-Distance Agreement, are argued to be related to the workings of so-called Incrementality (cf. Barlow 1992). Section 1 presents the relevant crosslinguistic generalizations concern-ing agreement paradigms and previous approaches to these generalizations within the phase-based system. Section 2 develops the current proposal concerning Spec,Head relations. Section 3 focuses on the role of Incrementality in agreement paradigms across languages.
... That is, the model involves no clear functional distinction between the process retrieving number morphemes and the process transmitting features to agreement targets. Linguistic theory provides arguments for the independence of the syntactic component of agreement from its morphological realization (e.g., Cardinaletti 1997;Schütze 1997;Guasti and Rizzi 2002; see also Baker 2011). Psycholinguistic models also typically implement a distinction between syntactic representations and morphological representations (e.g., Bock and Levelt 1994;Garrett 1980). ...
In their paper Reaching Agreement, Bock and Middleton (2011) review a vast array of psycholinguistic experiments on semantic influences in agreement which they argue provide critical empirical evidence to the longstanding debate about the role of meaning in syntax. The authors propose to unify these findings within the Marking and Morphing model, the reference framework for many psycholinguistic studies of agreement production. In this commentary, I discuss four concerns about the approach advocated by Bock and Middleton: (1) the pervasive confusion with respect to the definition of agreement, and its conceptual consequences on the debate about the role of meaning in syntax, (2) the infelicitous comparison between pronouns and verbs providing the empirical foundations of Marking and Morphing, (3) the existence of a set of experimental findings invalidating the assumption of the model with respect to the relation between feature transmission and morphology, (4) the lack of assumptions of Marking and Morphing with respect to the process of feature transmission, hence its inability to account for the structural effects on attraction. In response to these concerns, I present an alternative model, Selection and Copy, and sketch a line of research that explores the workings of the Copy component. I then address the criticisms raised by Bock and Middleton against this research and question the explanatory force of Marking and Morphing as a model of agreement defined as a core syntactic process.
... Th is is evident in object questions with a null subject, as in (13) Null subjects are generated in Spec vP, where they enter in the Agree relation with AgrS. Unlike overt subjects, they have to move to Spec AgrSP to be licensed (see Cardinaletti, 1997 ), and there they enter in the Spec-Head relation with AgrS and check agreement a second time, thus purging the errors originated during Agree. Questions featuring left dislocation of the NP subject in (6), with the representation in (14), are derived in a similar way as questions with null subjects: the null subject is located in Spec AgrSP, and the lexical subject is dislocated in the left periphery in a topic phrase. ...
... 9. This radical difference is not expected under Cardinaletti's (1997) account of agreement. ...
This paper examines the strategies native speakers of American English and German employ in resolving number conflicts in subject-verb agreement. These conflicts are created by the competition of syntactic and semantic principles. Significant differences are found between the two groups of subjects. The English speakers tend to follow the semantic principle in certain lexical items and in "N(sg) of NP(pl)" constructions but the syntactic principle in sentences with subject complements, in clefts, and, to a lesser extent, in pseudoclefts. The German speakers do almost exactly the reverse. These inconsistencies notwithstanding, semantic arguments are claimed to prevail in English and syntactic arguments in German agreement decisions. The cross-linguistic differences may be put down to the fact that the morphology and the word-ordering component are impoverished in English but not in German. This weakens the syntactic force in the former though not in the latter language. The semanticity of English and the syntacticity of German appear to extend beyond the realm of agreement. Evidence from other areas provides preliminary support for the hypothesis that the semantic slant is a more general characteristic of English and the syntactic slant a more general characteristic of German.
... There is independent support for the partitive Case analysis of expletive structures. Cardinaletti (1997) claims that there is a cross linguistic correlation between agreement and control in these constructions. In English, Italian, and German a copula or unaccusative verb with an expletive subject agrees with its post-verbal NP complement and allows this NP to control the subject of an adjunct clause. ...
... A questão do Caso dos expletivos puros, que tem sido bastante controversa (cfr. em especial, Lasnik 1992, Cardinaletti 1997, Groat 1999), não vai ser aqui desenvolvida. Assume-se, para os aspectos relevantes, que os expletivos puros não têm propriedades de verificação de Caso (Chomsky 1995). ...
... That is, a DP that has overtly moved to Spec-IP 20 (and subsequently perhaps further) is expected to trigger fuller agreement than one that is below that position at Spell-Out. Guasti & Rizzi cite numerous cases of adult languages/dialects that display this contingency, which include Fiorentino and Trentino (Brandi & Cordin 1989) and Anconetano (Cardinaletti 1997), as shown in (7): (7a) demonstrates that in Verb-Subject order, number agreement with the subject is not found, while (7b) shows that in Subject-Verb order it is. On the other hand, there are numerous languages that allow various positions for the subject but do not show any changes in agreement morphology correlating with them, such as Standard Italian (8) (i) by proposing that learners of English at the relevant stage have not (i.e., not fully or not with certainty) set the agreement parameter to its adult value (compulsory); as a result, they waver-'-features are always present in the syntax, 21 but sometimes they are morphophonologically realized, other times not, yielding alternations like (1). ...
This paper examines two issues concerning nonagreeing don't in child English, e.g., He don't fit. (1) Do children know that don't consists of auxiliary do plus sentential negation, or do they misanalyze it simply as negation? I argue that the former claim yields both empirical (distributional) and conceptual advantages, while the latter does not explain what it was designed to explain. (2) If it is not misanalyzed, why does this form fail to agree? I consider two accounts that assume it is part of the Root Infinitive stage—one based on a misset parameter involving how agreement is spelled out (Guasti & Rizzi 200221.
Guasti , Maria Teresa and Rizzi , Luigi . 2002 . “ Agreement and tense as distinct syntactic positions: Evidence from acquisition. ” . In Functional structure in DP and IP: The cartography of syntactic structures Edited by: Cinque , Guglielmo . Vol. 1 , 167 – 194 . Oxford : Oxford University Press . View all references), and the other based on underspecification of Infl features in syntax (my alternative proposal)—and explore their divergent predictions. I argue that the underspecification approach requires fewer stipulations about how children differ from adults, particularly for capturing do-omissions in “medial neg” environments.
... This material is based upon work supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. 1 For (standard) English especially, see the reference list provided by Levin (1993: 88), as well as Lasnik (1992), Williams (1994), Chomsky (1995, 2001), den Dikken (1995), Groat (1995), Rothstein (1995, Runner (1995: §8.2), Basilico (1997), Moro (1997, Frampton and Gutmann (1999), Law (1999), Richards (1999), Schütze (1999), Sabel (2000, Hale and Keyser (2000), Bobaljik (2002), Bošković (2002), Bowers (2002), Hazout (2004, Kuno and Takami (2004: ch 2), Sobin (2004), Richards and Biberauer (2005), Rezac (2006; on other languages and varieties of English see Thráinsson (1979), Platzack (1983, Travis (1984: ch. 5), Burzio (1986), Maling (1988), Demuth (1990), Vikner (1995, Bobaljik and Jonas (1996), Toribio (1996), Cardinaletti (1997), Moro (1997, Koster and Zwart (2000), Holmberg and Nikanne (2002), Taraldsen (2002), Vangsnes (2002), Sells (2005, Henry and Cottell (2007), among many many others. of particular languages. The present work focuses on there, one expletive in one language, in the hopes of contributing a detailed case study to the general question of expletive typology in the framework of Principles and Parameters, presently instantiated as the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995 et seq.). ...
While expletive there has primarily been studied in the context of the existential construction, it has long been known that some but not all lexical verbs are compatible with there-insertion. This paper argues that there-insertion can be used to diagnose vPs with no external argument, ruling out transitives, unergatives, and also inchoatives, which are argued to project an event argument on the edge of vP. Based on the tight link between there-insertion and low functional structure, I build a case for low there-insertion, where the expletive is first merged in the specifier of a verbalizing head v. The low merge position is motivated by a stringently local relation that holds between there and its associate DP; this relation plays a crucial role in the interaction of there with raising verbs, where local agreement rules out cases of “too many theres” such as *There seemed there to be a man in the room. An account of these cases in terms of phase theory is explored, ultimately suggesting that there must be merged in a non-thematic phasal specifier position. Linguistics Accepted Manuscript
... At the theoretical level, the inclusion of the transmission of agreement features and their morphological realisation within the single process of Morphing contradicts a number of arguments in the linguistic literature. One of these is that agreement has been shown to be a condition for nominative case assignment (e.g., Cardinaletti, 1997; for psycholinguistic evidence in language development see Schutze, 1997, andGuasti &Rizzi, 2002). Hence, the existence of languages that assign case without expressing agreement in the morphology (e.g., the past tense in English) suggests that agreement has been realised syntactically, independently of morphology. ...
We report four cross-linguistic experiments (in Spanish, Italian and French) testing the influence of morphophonological gender marking in the subject noun phrase on the production of gender agreement. Agreement errors are elicited using a methodology in which participants are required to complete, with a predicative adjective, a sentence preamble. Results confirm a role for morphophonological gender marking in agreement. More precisely, we show that this role varies with two factors of different nature. The first factor is structural and has to do with the position of the marker in the noun phrase (article vs. noun). The second factor is distributional and has to do with the validity of the marker in the language. A model of agreement production is proposed in which two functionally distinct processes are identified: Feature selection, the locus of the morphophonological influences, and Feature copy, operating under strict syntactic guidance.
South Asian languages license control into adjuncts known as conjunctive participle clauses. At the same time, these languages allow exceptions to adjunct control. These exceptions have received very few, mainly semantic, analyses in the literature. This paper focuses on one South Asian language, Telugu, and offers a syntactic analysis. It shows that the so-called exceptions to adjunct control are non-exceptions and that they are instances of Expletive Control that involve two unaccusative predicates. The proposal is not without challenges. One challenge comes from English that does not allow Expletive Control. The article spells out the English details and shows that they do not create a problem for the Telugu data.
This chapter deals with two main topics: constituent order (focusing on the interaction between subject positions and interpretation), and null subjects. Both issues relate to case, agreement and expletives. The chapter discusses what motivates and licenses verb-subject orders in Romance non-wh sentences and identifies focalization, theticity and non-degree exclamatives as unifying factors across Romance languages. Focalization of the subject derives VOS order, whereas theticity and nondegree exclamatives display VSO order. On the topic of null subjects, the chapter offers a critical review of the assumption of a pro-drop parameter (also called the Null Subject Parameter) for Romance, considering different types of null subject languages (consistent and partial pro-drop languages). It provides evidence that the pro-drop parameter cannot be maintained as originally formulated since the richness of grammatical variation between Romance languages requires a more intricate, fine-grained parametrization.
This highly original and innovative analysis focuses on the morphosyntax of dialects comprising Italy, Corsica and the Italian and Romansch-speaking areas of Switzerland. The empirical base used in the book includes a wealth of previously unknown or understudied data from a variety of Romansch dialects, whilst the theoretical framework is extremely sophisticated and up-to-date. Linguists of all genres will be fascinated by Manzini and Savoia's radical conclusion: they claim that their work suggests a unification of morphology and syntax. © 2007 M. Rita Manzini and Leonardo M. Savoia. All rights reserved.
The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism provides a complete assessment of the achievements and challenges of the Minimalist Program. Established fifteen years ago by Noam Chomsky, with the aim of making all statements about language as simple and general as possible, linguistic minimalism is now at the centre of efforts to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and manifests itself in languages. In the book, researchers from all over the world explore the origins of the program, the course of its sometimes highly technical research, and its connections with other disciplines, such as parallel developments in fields like developmental biology, cognitive science, computational science, and philosophy of mind. The authors examine every aspect of the enterprise, show how each part relates to the whole, and set out current methodological and theoretical issues and proposals. The various articles in the book trace the development of minimalist ideas in linguistics, highlight their significance and distinctive character, and relate minimalist research and aims to those in parallel fields. They focus on core aspects in syntax, including feature, case, phrase structure, derivations, and representations; and on interface issues within the grammar. The articles also take minimalism outside the domain of grammar to consider its role in closely related biolinguistic projects, including the evolution of mind and language, and the relation between language and thought. © editorial matter and organization Cedric Boeckx 2011.
Rizzi (1997) postula que o sistema CP contem varias categorias, a saber, ForceP, TopicP, FocusP e FinP. Nesse trabalho citamos o sistema CP do portugues brasileiro mostrando as diferencas estruturais existentes entre construcoes de Foco e Topico e o paralelismo que existe entre as construcoes interrogativas Wh e focais. Onde existe quebra desse paralelismo, ela se da por razoes estruturais como as propriedades de selecao do verbo matriz.
This article provides additional evidence for the universality of Rizzi's (1990) anaphor agreement effect, under which the ungrammaticality of nominative anaphors in English, Italian, and Icelandic is due to the presence of agreement. Languages without agreement are shown to allow nominative anaphors. Objective anaphors cannot be associated with agreement, unless the agreement is a special anaphoric form. Superficial counterexamples to Rizzi's proposal are shown not to be problematic. The relative merits of two formal accounts outlined by Rizzi (1990) are discussed. Finally, it is suggested that the anaphor agreement effect can be a diagnostic for the presence of covert agreement.
Recent accounts of existential sentences (ES) within the government-and-binding/Minimalist Program tradition (Chomsky 2000, 2001; Deal 2009) claim that nominative Case valuation and ϕ-agreement take place in ES (directly or indirectly) between T and the associate DP, essentially the same as between T and “subject” in non-ES. However, the surface facts of Case and ϕ-agreement in ES run contrary to such claims (e.g., There is only me in that picture/*There am only I in that picture; There is/?*are a boy and a girl at the door). Furthermore, such accounts leave unexplained the short-movement phenomenon (including Milsark's [1974] “Leftmost be Condition”) found in ES (e.g., There is someone being arrested/* There is being someone arrested or There is a train arriving/*There is arriving a train). Following claims of Richards & Biberauer (2005) and Deal (2009) that merger of there in ES is low, I explore the possibility that “short movement” in ES, as well as the ban on multiple instances of there, is accounted for via Extended Projection Principle features of the relevant verbalizing functional heads that are articulated into their Agree and Merge components. Furthermore, an analysis of Case and ϕ-agreement is presented that accounts directly for the broad range of ϕ-agreement forms (including “frozen” forms and first-conjunct agreement), the necessarily accusative Case form of pronominal associates allowable ES, and the ban on ϕ-agreement with pronominal associates in ES.
this paper investigates the acquisition of a language when two distinct va - lues of a same parameter together in the same input. this variation seems to cause a
The literature on the three concepts named in the title of this book is vast. In this introduction, I simply provide a sketch (in §1.1-1.3) of the issues that set the scene for the papers in the volume. My discussion is judiciously larded at appropriate points with brief references to those papers, and each paper is summarized in §1.4. In §1.5, I discuss the papers in relation to each other, and then summarize some of their shared assumptions. 1.1. Subjects The subject occupies a precarious position in generative linguistics; on the one hand it is an indispensable concept at a descriptive level, and is accorded basic sta - tus as a primitive notion in some frameworks (along with other grammatical rela - tions); on the other hand it has defeated all attempts at a cross-linguistically valid definition and a substantial part of the field takes it to be no more than a descrip - tive label for an epiphenomenal collection of properties (cf. McCloskey 1997 for a clear overview of the issues).
Chapter 1 introduces the work. It presents the modular architecture of cognition, and the organization of the language faculty into the modules of syntax and its interfacing systems of realization
(PF) and interpretation (LF). Phi-features are a common alphabet shared by these systems, permitting investigation of their
distinctive characteristics and of their interactions. Among the phi-features of syntax, some are illegible to its interfacing
systems: the uninterpretable phi-features of agreement dependencies. The chapter examines the nature of (un)intepretability, agreement, and syntactic
versus morphological phi-phenomena. Syntactic features uninterpretable to PF/LF must be eliminated through the formation of
syntactic dependencies. This requirement is extended to the new type of dependency studied in this work: last-resort phi-Agree
to repair illegible syntactic structures.
Este trabalho argumenta que há razões tanto conceptuais quanto empíricas para se abandonar a distinção entre apagamento e rasura que Chomsky (1995) propõe para dar conta de diferentes possibilidades de checagem. Como alternativa, o squib esboça uma análise baseada somente em apagamento.This paper argues that the distinction between deletion and erasure proposed by Chomsky (1995) to account for different checking possibilities should be abandoned on both conceptual and empirical grounds. As an alternative, the paper outlines an analysis based solely on deletion.
The article establishes a novel generalization concerning the placement of arguments by Spell-Out. It centers on the principles that force arguments to leave the VP across languages. The empirical domain consists of constructions where subject movement is not required for reasons that have to do with the Extended Projection Principle. In these environments and whenever a sentence contains both a subject and a direct object, one of the arguments must vacate the VP. We argue that argument externalization is related to Case. It is forced because movement of both arguments to a single head T0 that contains two active Case features in the covert component is banned.
Addressing current generative concerns over the Left Periphery of clause structure, this paper proposes a categorial distinction, based on the choice of value for the feature [±FINITE], between two functional heads, C° and Top°, which project into CP and TopP, respectively. The choice is responsible for a principled distinction between structural (TopP) and rhetorical (CP) topicalization. Primary data are Det-clefts, Hv-clefts and so-called sikke-expressions in Danish. The latter are peripheral to the core of Danish grammar, but are nevertheless a mine of evidence for the distinction argued for. Criterial evidence is a conjunction of three diagnostics: lack of V2 word order, so-called complementizers and the syntactic behaviour of expletive der. It is argued that normal (left) movement principles cannot account for the sharing of information between the Specifier and the Complement of Top°. Instead, two possibilities for interpretation are tentatively explored, involving various kinds of Right Periphery phenomena. Since the Specifier and the Complement of Top° each provides the structural basis for independent, clause-like utterances, TopPs are seen as clear cases of BREAKSTRUCTURES.
Chomsky (2000) proposes a key shift in the analysis of φ-agreement. In Chomsky 1995, agreement is the displacement of a pronounlike terminal containing interpretable φ-features to the agreeing head, or D-agreement. In Chomsky 2000, agreement becomes the valuation of uninterpretable φ-features on an independent terminal, Agree. Here, a new argument for the Agree model is developed from floating quantifiers. The argument permits directly contrasting agreement with minimal pronouns: clitics and pro. Agree is the right analysis for φ-agreement alone, and D-agreement for clitics, pro, and clitic doubling.
In Chomsky 1995:272-276, φ-agreement moves, from an agreeing argument to a target such as T0, a minimal X0 containing the argument's interpretable φ-features and other formal features, (1a). This X0 should have properties similar to those of a pronoun at LF, such as the ability to control and bind (p. 272). Here this is called D-agreement. It reflects a common diachronic origin and synchronic shape of agreement morphology (Fuß, to appear). In Chomsky 2000: 119, 146n71, movement of interpretable material is eschewed, and agreement reflects the valuation of uninterpretable features on T0 via Agree, (1b). Being uninterpretable, these features are deleted prior to LF and thus have no effect there.
(1)
a.
b.
The empirical motivation for the shift from D-agreement to Agree is Den Dikken's (1995) and Lasnik's (1999) demonstration that φ-agreement is invisible for syntax and interpretation. In (2b), if agreement were a pronounlike φ-set on the verb, it would be expected to license the anaphor, (1a), much like the A-moved (pro)noun in (2a). It does not. This follows if agreement is uninterpretable and deleted after Agree, so that it cannot bind at LF: (1b).
(2)
a. Some linguistsi/Theyi seem to them(selvesi) to have been given good job offers.
b. There seem to them(*selvesi)/*each otheri to have been some linguistsi given good job offers.
The same inertness of agreement for binding has been found in Icelandic (Jónsson 1996:206), Italian (Cardinaletti 1997a:526n7, Chomsky 2000:147n71), and Tsez (Polinsky and Potsdam 2001:620, 2006:178), which differ with respect to pro-drop, expletives, and the definiteness effect. φ-agreement lacks the binding capacity of pronouns. Agree predicts it: agreement is syntactic φ-feature transmission deleted by LF.1
This section adds a new diagnostic for the inertness of φ-agreement in the Agree model: its failure to license floating quantifiers (FQs). It extends evidence beyond expletive constructions to other subject "inversions," permitting a direct contrast with pronouns of the poorest kind, which do license FQs: clitics and pro.
FQs are licensed by (pro)nouns in c-commanding A-positions (see section 3 for the mechanism). Agreement by itself fails to license them. An instantiation of this generalization is the expletive construction in (3). The underlined FQ all is licensed by the c-commanding subject in (3a), but not in (3b), where only agreement with the subject c-commands the FQ. The paradigm is part of Baltin's (1978) argument that FQs are anaphoric. It also follows from it that agreement, unlike (pro)nouns, does not license FQs.2
(3)
a. the portraits of Picasso had hung.3PL over the fireplace.
b. There had <*all> hung.PL over the fireplace the portraits by Picasso.
In English and French, the FQ diagnostic can be applied to other "inversion" constructions, with an agreeing subject below the FQ. Baltin (1978:28) finds that FQs are not licensed in French stylistic inversion, (4), and later work concurs (Déprez 1990:56, Hulk and Pollock 2001:8, Kayne and Pollock 2001:157n77, Lahousse 2006:437, 445). Culicover and Levine (2001:301) find the same for English locative inversion, (5).
(4)
a. Je voudrais savoir ce que les hommes I would.like know what that the men ont mangé. have.3PL eaten 'I would like to know what (all) the men have (all) eaten.'
b. Je voudrais savoir ce qu' ont <*tous> mangé les hommes.
(5) Into the cafeteria have.3PL <*both> gone <both (of)> the students, I think...
Starting point: Arguments are visible to A-relationships, a property of which the computational system is aware, or else it wouldn't engage them. So they must have some specific property convenient only to the syntactic component and inconvenient to other levels of representation. As such, Spell-Out must ensure satisfaction of this property or else the derivation will crash. This visibility property is typically correlated with Case, so I will assume that arguments are endowed with [uCase]. 1 Case values are equivalent to engaging in an A-relationship (c)overt status of argument has no bearing on Case checking and valuation In effect, the A-relationship guarantees interaction with specific properties/features of some Probe. This feature complex guarantees a certain morphological instantiation of the vocabulary item inserted post-Spell-Out, as follows: NOMINATIVE value, iff the Probe is specified as [uD, uπ] ACCUSATIVE value, iff the Probe is specified as [uD] default, iff no Probe Syntax then "has no case features" (Sigurðsson 2007, 2008a), but A-relations in syntax enable specific Case values. 2 1 This is somewhat reminiscent of Chomsky's (1981) reduction of the Case Filter to the theta-criterion, where he states that a Caseless argument will violate the θ−criterion. However, given that non-arguments are also Case-marked (e.g. nominal predicates, adverbials, left dislocated constituents, aso), and that clauses (at least in some languages) are Case-resistant, [uCase] is perhaps best viewed as a property of some head (say, D), rather than locus of structural insertion (i.e., as argument, adjunct or predicate). Nonetheless, the focus here is not on all instances of Case marking (much of which is probably default, à la Schütze 1997, 2001, Sigurðsson 2008b). 2 A line of reasoning that is hugely indebted to the work of Marantz (2000). 2 phi-features are NOT compulsory for structural Case valuation, but the phase head is; T lacks an intrinsic NOM value; whether lexical subjects have NOM or ACC values is strictly dependent on the presence of a phi-Probe; this phi-Probe (uφ) may be encoded on a verbal head (e.g., T, Aspect) or a nominal head (i.e., null expletive pro); null expletive pro is a parametrized UG primitive with a role in Case valuation; No argument engaged in an A-relationship has 'default' Case; PRO participates in Case-checking mechanisms on a par with any argument 1. Phi-features (agreement) as a Case prerequisite Standard since George & Kornfilt (1981) and Chomsky (1981, et seq.).
This article provides additional evidence for the universality of Rizzi's (1990) anaphor agreement effect, under which the ungrammaticality of nominative anaphors in English, Italian, and Icelandic is due to the presence of agreement. Languages without agreement are shown to allow nominative anaphors. Objective anaphors cannot be associated with agreement, unless the agreement is a special anaphoric form. Superficial counterexamples to Rizzi's proposal are shown not to be problematic. The relative merits of two formal accounts outlined by Rizzi (1990) are discussed. Finally, it is suggested that the anaphor agreement effect can be a diagnostic for the presence of covert agree-ment. Rizzi (1990) proposes that the reason why anaphors are barred from the subject position of tensed clauses in examples such as (1) is that anaphors cannot agree. (1) *They think that each other are nice. According to Rizzi, this anaphor agreement effect ''holds quite systematically in natural lan-guages'' (1990:26). (2) The anaphor agreement effect Anaphors do not occur in syntactic positions construed with agreement. Rizzi supports his claim with Italian and Icelandic examples involving nominative subjects and nominative objects, showing that with both, the presence of agreement precludes a nominative anaphor. In this article I provide additional evidence for the universality of the anaphor agreement effect. Further, I show that there is one well-defined class of exceptions not discussed by Rizzi: anaphors can agree when there is a special anaphoric form of agreement. If Rizzi's hypothesis is correct, the ungrammaticality of nominative subject anaphors has nothing to do with the fact that they have nominative Case (contra Brame 1977, Koster 1978, Anderson 1982, Maling 1984, Everaert 1991) and nothing to do with the fact that the anaphor is I would like to thank for very helpful discussions of the issues in this article. I would also like to express my appreciation to Kathryn Carlson and Pat Deevy for proofreading and commenting on an earlier draft. Finally, I want to thank the anonymous LI reviewers for their valuable comments.
yields new insights into the basic building blocks of DPs, the way these are combined, the movement processes that apply within DPs, and the agreement patterns that result. Simple nouns in Maasai are at least bi-morphemic, and according to standard practice would either be selected from the lexicon fully inflected, or be derived in the syntax through head movement. I will depart from standard practice and argue that Maasai Nouns are neither selected in their full forms, nor derived by head movement. Instead they are derived syntactically through (remnant) XP movement. This position is consistent with much recent work that has shown that head movement is either not an option allowed by UG, or is a severely restricted option (see section 2) and follows the line of research I pursued in previous work with Anna Szabolcsi (Koopman and Szabolcsi 2000). Since the analysis of agreement patterns plays an important role in the argumentation, I will spell out my assumptions about the theory of agreement in (section 3), and defend the Spec head analysis of agreement over Agree (Chomsky, 1998).
This paper develops an argument for the copy theory ofmovement based on consideration of Holmberg's Generalization [HG], a well-documented constrainton object shift in the Germanic languages. A particular formulation of HG is presented,tying it to verb movement, and this is defended against the alternative formulation presented inHolmberg (1999). It is argued that HG is the result of a morphophonological constraint on verbinflection, requiring merger under PF-adjacency,support for which comes from differences betweenVO and OV languages. The account of HG is related to PF-merger proposals fordo-support, and a theory of adverb ordering within the Spell Out component is sketched,accounting for the apparent invisibility of adverbs, problematic on earlier approaches. On thestandard model, the characterization of HG presented here requires invocation of a PF filter;the copy theory permits an alternative with more local evaluation. By treating the overt/covertdistinction as an effect of which copy is pronounced, the copy theory allows satisfaction of the PFadjacency constraint for merger to be a PF matter. Moving to a model in which both LF and PF have theability to privilege either the higher or lower position in a non-trivial chain predicts theexistence of a range of phenomena in which the lower position is privileged by both LF and PF. It isargued that such phenomena are attested, and further implications of the copy theory are explored.
In this paper we argue that variation in subject-verb agreement in Belfast English and Appalachian English bears on a number of issues that are relevant to current syntactic theory, including clause structure and subject positions, case, the syntax of negative polarity items and negative concord and the structure of the DP. We show that while the nature of the subject plays a role in determining subject-verb agreement in the two varieties (in different ways), subject position is the overt structural manifestation of the differing properties of the subject, independent of which properties are relevant in the variety in question. Our proposal on subject positions, which goes beyond what Henry (1995) proposed for Belfast English, is able to capture clusters of properties not discussed by Henry, and thus more fully accounts for the range of micro-parametric variation we find. This paper thus provides support for a configurational approach to subject-verb agreement.
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