Abstract
I argue in this paper that agreeing past participles are merged externally in the derivation in V endorsed with a feature [+resultative], whereas non-agreeing past participles are bound to value a feature [+perfective] against the have-auxiliary. Phi-agreement on the former kind of participle occurs since the meaning [+resultative] denotes a property of the logical object, which happens to merge in the position of sister to V-en. As postulated in standard frameworks, phi-agreement consists in that the V-en form values uninterpretable phi-features against the DP object. In contrast with agreeing past participles, non-agreeing past participles are merged externally in the form of V and they get their –en suffix in v valued against the have-auxiliary once the latter enters the derivation. The meaning or interpretation of this –en suffix is [+perfective] or [+anterior]. No phi-agreement occurs between these V-en forms marked [+perfective] and their logical object (whenever they select for one) since [+perfective] is a property of the event or situation as a whole, and not of the object. It is further suggested that the specific Agree relation that is phi-agreement appears not to be subject to configurations of asymmetric c-command, but to just occur on external Merge of the DP that bears the corresponding valued, interpretable phi-features.
Highlights
Phi-agreement (φ-agreement), that is, agreement in person and/or number and/or gender, used to be a widely-discussed topic in the generative literature of the Government & Binding (GB) period, and it can be considered to be one of the centres of interest in the literature of the minimalist period
From a conceptual or theoretical point of view, the interest of minimalist syntax in phi-agreement lies in an important way in the place that is allocated to morphology in the system, whether in narrow syntax or in the phonological component, and secondly, in case morphology is considered to be a narrow syntax issue, in the kind of configuration in which phiagreement occurs or, in other words, in the ordering of the operation Agree relative to Merge as regards phi-features (φ-features)
The study of past participle agreement in the GB period focuses on a pattern that is observed in Romance languages like French or Italian, whereby participles selecting for a logical object or internal argument agree overtly with the latter whenever this does not follow the participle: let us observe the contrast between the passive structures in (1) and the unaccusative structures with movement verbs in (2) on the one hand, which are repeated below with the same numeration, and those in (7) on the other
Summary
Phi-agreement (φ-agreement), that is, agreement in person and/or number and/or gender, used to be a widely-discussed topic in the generative literature of the Government & Binding (GB) period, and it can be considered to be one of the centres of interest in the literature of the minimalist period. Other sentence-types like reduced relative clauses, as in (3), or absolute small clauses, as in (4), will be relevant for the discussion, though I must emphasize that the goal is precisely the phenomenon of phi-agreement (or lack thereof) and not the sentence-types in question. This means that no comprehensive analysis is provided of passives as in (1) –for instance, of the differences between so-called eventive passives and adjectival passives (see Section 4.1)– or of any of the other sentence-types.
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