Rich Agreement Research Articles

Agree, agreement dissociation and subject ellipsis. Towards a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter

Abstract This paper offers a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). I contend that the NSP must be modeled referring to two main properties of the Agree/agreement systems: (i) presence/absence of abstract Agree, and (ii) presence/absence of agreement dissociation at PF. The first property results in the division between radical argument ellipsis languages of the Japanese type and consistent null subject languages of the Spanish type, including languages like Central Trentino, i.e., languages with some obligatory clitic subjects but with rich agreement and free inversion. The second property results in the division between consistent null subject languages and consistent non-null subject ones. The agreement dissociation hypothesis also accounts for the partial null subject type, which characterizes languages like Brazilian Portuguese that have impoverished agreement expansion at PF (perhaps, only for number features). From a theoretical point of view, this study focuses on the agreement dissociation property showing why abstract Agree cannot guarantee subject ellipsis even in those perplexing cases in which it produces enough agreement distinctions at PF. The reason is that only an expanded agreement morpheme adjoined to the T0 node can serve as a licit antecedent for ellipsis of a subject D0 head at PF. Therefore, the theory derives the bimorphemic principle in Koeneman and Zeijlstra (Koeneman, Olaf & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2021. Pro-drop and the morphological structure of inflection. Ms. Available at: https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio) without further ado, i.e., the observation that null subject properties correlate with a bimorphemic T0 node expressing tense and agreement separately.

Subject-verb agreement in Arabic

Agreement in grammar refers to formal relationship between elements, whereby a form of one word conforms to the form of another. The preservation of agreement between a controlling phrase and a controlled phrase under various conditions provides a clear indication that agreement relations are sensitive to linear or directional properties, otherwise, we would expect agreement to be affected by word order changes. In this paper I shall work on subject-verb agreement in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) whose rich inflectional agreement system is fascinating. I intend to examine its rich agreement patterns in the minimalist framework and find out the structural mechanism of the assignment system followed by a detailed study of the three phi- features in Arabic, i.e. person, number, and gender. This paper will address the following issues of subject-verb agreement in Arabic: a) why the verb in VSO order does not show the person and number agreement and only shows gender agreement with the post-verbal subject and b) the ambiguity of the first person in Arabic that is unspecified.

한국수어의 영논항

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the distribution and characteristics of null arguments in Korean Sign Language (KSL). Languages such as Spanish and Italian, which have a rich system of overt morphological agreement, allow subject-drop but not object-drop. For this reason, it has been said that the null arguments are licensed by rich verbal morphology. On the other hand, languages such as Korean and Chinese do not have a rich agreement system like Spanish and Italian. Thus, the verbs are used with the same ending regardless of person, number, and gender features. In this paper, we show that KSL is different from those languages like Korean and Chinese in that arguments can be dropped with both agreeing and non-agreeing verbs. In some contexts, in addition, null arguments of non-agreeing verbs are not allowed, whereas null arguments of agreeing verbs are totally acceptable. Therefore, to solve these problems, in this paper, we suggest hybrid analysis in licensing null arguments in KSL.

On the properties of null subjects in sign languages: the case of French Sign Language (LSF)

AbstractThe typology of subject omission in simple declarative sentences ranges from languages that simply do not allow it like English and French to languages that allow it as long as a minimum degree of topicality is guaranteed like Chinese and Japanese. In between there are various languages in which subject omission is licensed, for example by rich agreement like in Italian and Spanish, or by a particular set of grammatical features like first and second person in Finnish, or tense like in Hebrew. In other languages subject omission is only limited to expletive sentences like in German. This rich typology observed in spoken languages is also attested across sign languages, with one important exception: there is no known sign language disallowing subject omission categorically. The goals of this paper are twofold: first, we apply syntactic and semantic tests to assess the boundaries of subject omission in French Sign Language and characterize it within the typology; second, we discuss in light of some particular aspects of grammars in the visual modality this apparent anomaly of sign languages.

EPP, Labeling and Word Order in Arabic

This paper looks at EPP and word order in Arabic in light of Chomsky’s Labeling Theory, proposed in POP and POP Extensions. In the current framework, EPP—the principle that SpecTP must be filled in—is eliminated. EPP-driven movement is reduced to labeling failure: if T fails to label the structure that arises after E-merge of the subject in Spec of vP [DP vP], then filling SpecTP becomes necessary in order to ‘strengthen’ (the labelability of) T. Chomsky postulates two types of T: Strong and weak. English-type languages, which show poor agreement inflection, have a weak T, and therefore impose the Fill-SpecTP requirement. On the other hand, NSLs, Chomsky claims, have a strong T which can label the TP structure, by virtue of having rich agreement inflection. This paper shows that Chomsky’s approach to EPP makes wrong predictions. Instead, a freezing effect account which also maintains a labeling system can explain the word order facts in Arabic. Crucially, the account proposed does not make resort to Chomsky’s parameter of strength or otherwise of T.

Pro-drop and subject pronouns in Assamese

In recent years a considerable attention has been given to the study of control and pro-drop. Languages with rich agreement patterns allow for phonetically empty subject which is called “pro”. This paper deals with the pro-drop phenomena of Assamese. The main objective of the paper is to give a descriptive analysis of the subject pronouns and their nature in the pro-drop phenomena. The paper also aims to give a basic idea of this pro-drop phenomenon and shows how certain subject pronouns behave differently in Assamese. Pro drop in Assamese is a major linguistic characteristic of the language. The findings of the study revealed that we can drop most of the subject pronouns in Assamese. Though Assamese is considered as a pro-drop language, this phenomenon is not acceptable in written language. The sentences should be in a full structural representation in written language. In other words, we can say that pro-drop is used in our daily conversations; it is more or less like informal conversations.

Noun/pronoun asymmetry in Polish: Against the nominal perspective and the DP-hypothesis

AbstractThis paper argues that the Polish noun-pronoun asymmetry in which the intensifier sam ‘self’ precedes nouns and follows pronominals is not a simple case of configuration in the DP, whereby pronouns, unlike nominals, target D0 for referential reasons (cf. Rutkowski 2002, 2012). Such viewpoints, in the case of Polish, are unfortunate because they appear to underlyingly work on and draw from the syntax of nominal projections characteristic of English or Italian i.e., languages with articles. We show that the asymmetry pertains to various semantic interpretations of sam, the different semantic specification of nominals and pronominals, and the flexible word order property. What we need, therefore, is a broader clausal perspective coupled with necessary remarks on the abovementioned issues. Thus, rather than employing the DP-hypothesis, we assume two cornerstone phenomena i.e. flexible word order and rich agreement to be crucial here as they facilitate syntactic options like focalisation or topicalisation which manifest discourse information and in which sam functions as a focus or topic particle (cf. Constantinou 2014). These contexts are held typical of the asymmetry, thereby making it an interplay between semantic properties of nominal/pronominal expressions and organisation of discourse information that syntax makes available.

On the Rich Agreement Hypothesis and varieties of embedded V2

AbstractThis paper addresses the controversy between Koeneman & Zeijlstra (K&Z) (2014) and Heycock & Sundquist (2017) concerning the viability of K&Z’s strong version of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis in the light of apparent counterexamples from the diachrony of Danish. It makes the general point that establishing whether or not cases of putative V-to-I movement in subordinate clauses can be reanalyzed as V-to-C, i.e. as embedded Verb Second (EV2), depends on the EV2-type of a language. The empirical discussion concerns appositive relatives and conditional protases, with V-to-C in the former being in principle compatible with ‘narrow’ nEV2 as displayed by Modern Mainland Scandinavian languages, and V-to-C in the latter with Old Norse-style ‘broad’ bEV2. It is concluded that the critical stages of Danish need to be scrutinized more closely before the above dispute can be settled.

풍부한 일치가정과 범주지정매개변인

This paper offers a novel explanation in terms of the category specification parameter to the well-known Rich Agreement Hypothesis (RAH) that “rich” agreement causes V-to-I movement. In this paper we propose a new way of explaining the RAH by the so-called “category specification parameter” which states that T and V are specified or are not specified to category in syntax. In rich agreement languages, the finite verb which is merged as an inflected form has to move to T because T, which is specified to category, requires a full lexical category to be merged. On the other hand, in poor agreement languages like English the finite verb merged as a root in syntax cannot move to T because T is not specified to category. Thus it is concluded that the RAH does not have to be stipulated but can be derived from the category specification parameter in syntax.

A remark on Béjar & Kahnemuyipour 2017: Specificational subjects do have phi-features

In a number of languages, agreement in specificational copular sentences can or must be with the second of the two nominals, even when it is the first that occupies the canonical subject position. Béjar & Kahnemuyipour (2017) show that Persian and Eastern Armenian are two such languages. They then argue that ‘NP2 agreement’ occurs because the nominal in subject position (NP1) is not accessible to an external probe. It follows that actual agreement with NP1 should never be possible: the alternative to NP2 agreement should be ‘default’ agreement. We show that this prediction is false. In addition to showing that English has NP1, not default, agreement, we present new data from Icelandic, a language with rich agreement morphology, including cases that involve ‘plurale tantum’ nominals as NP1. These allow us to control for any confound from the fact that typically in a specificational sentence with two nominals differing in number, it is NP2 that is plural. We show that even in this case, the alternative to agreement with NP2 is agreement with NP1, not a default. Hence, we conclude that whatever the correct analysis of specificational sentences turns out to be, it must not predict obligatory failure of NP1 agreement.

The Morpho-Syntactic Ievel in Classical Arabic.

The topic explored in this study is a hierarchal intermediary level known in linguistics as Morpho-Syntactic level, to bridge Morphology and Syntax in languages. This level in Arabic language is examined here in two parts: part one considers Derivational and Inflectional morphologies in the language, and shows how they project into syntax. It also examines central grammatical properties needed in syntax such as aspect, mood, finiteness, agreement, etc. Part two is devoted to some syntactic structures and central syntactic concepts such as positions, heads, phrases, etc., adopted in this study to attest and verify universal principles posited by the universal Generalized Phrase Marker. The structure of the Noun Phrase category and the Verb phrase complex are considered. The syntactic distinction between Complement and Adjunct categories is established in terms of adjacency and distribution. This distinction is taken as an evidence for the existence of the intermediate X-bar level in the language. Arabic coordination structures provide a further distributional evidence in support of this distinction. Structural coordination facts suggest that Strict Adjacency Principle holds at all levels, and is extendable to all head categories in the language (Rakas 2017a). Extra-position, pre-posing and questioning structures show that Complements are X-sisters and Adjuncts are X-bar sisters. Furthermore, the pronoun waahid-u/a/i-n/ ‘one’ in Arabic is a pro-N-bar, rather than a pro-N form. In line with the pro-N-bar form, the verb complex citation form /fa‘ala ka-ðaalika/ ‘(he) did so’ is a pro-V-bar, rather than pro-V form. This N-bar and V-bar parallel structural behavior indicates that sentences in Arabic are structured out of phrases, and all phrase categories observe the principles posited by the Generalized Phrase Marker (Rakas ibid). Hence, the focus of this study is placed on three grammatical relations, linking the Arabic interacted morphology with syntax, i.e. (i) the rich agreement declension on nouns, (ii) the rich conjugation on verb complex, and (iii) the relation between the functional positions of sentences and the two intermingled morphologies in the language

Don’t Rush to Rehabilitate: A Remark on Koeneman and Zeijlstra 2014

Koeneman and Zeijlstra (2014) aim to rehabilitate the strong version of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis (RAH), according to which there is a bidirectional implication between “rich” agreement morphology in the verbal system and movement of the finite verb to a functional head above vP but below the C system (V-to-I movement). We show that one of the clearest empirical arguments raised in the literature against the strong RAH—the persistence of V-to-I movement in Early Modern Danish—is not addressed by any of the counterarguments raised by Koeneman and Zeijlstra and therefore still stands as evidence against the rehabilitated generalization and theory.

Parameters of Poor Pronoun Systems

The world’s smallest pronoun systems can eschew any of the following contrasts: (a) author-nonauthor, (b) participant-nonparticipant, (c) singular-nonsingular. This supports the view that features are mutually independent parameters ( Harbour 2011a , 2014a , 2016 ), but is problematic for Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s (2014) reworking of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis, which is predicated on the claim that (a)–(c) are universally obligatory. The facts necessitate revision of Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s proposal.

Verb‐second in embedded clauses in Faroese

AbstractThere has been considerable controversy in the linguistic literature about the nature of Vfin‐Adv (V2) order in subject‐initial embedded clauses in Faroese: Is it the result of a V‐to‐T movement, as is typically assumed for Icelandic, or is it a root phenomenon, i.e. V‐to‐C movement, as usually assumed for the standard Mainland Scandinavian languages. Heycock et al. (2012) argue that both kinds of Vfin‐Adv order can be found in Faroese embedded clauses and this paper provides further evidence for that claim. On the assumption that V‐to‐T is still a possibility in Faroese, some versions of the so‐called Rich Agreement Hypothesis (e.g. Bobaljik & Thráinsson 1998) predict that transitive expletives should also be possible in Faroese. This prediction is borne out. However, contrary to predictions regarding direct connection between verbal inflection on the one hand and verb movement and transitive expletive constructions on the other hand, it is demonstrated that speakers who distinguish tense and agreement morphemes most clearly in their speech are neither more likely to accept transitive expletives nor V2‐orders in various types of embedded clauses than speakers who do not distinguish tense and agreement morphemes as clearly. It is maintained that while Vfin‐Adv is on its way out in Faroese, presumably because of diminishing morphological support and partially ambiguous syntactic evidence, the language has not yet reached the Mainland Scandinavian state in this respect.

Revisiting the loss of verb movement in the history of English

Most of the discussions of the loss of verb movement in the history of English have focused on data related to the rise of do-support. In this paper, we extend the empirical basis to evidence from adverb placement. Our analysis of the distribution of finite main verbs with respect to adverbs in a range of prose texts in the history of English shows that the decline of V-movement in English starts in the middle of the 15th century and that verb movement past adverbs is lost to a large extent around the middle of the 16th century. These observations differ considerably from what data involving the sentential negator not indicate. According to that evidence, the loss of verb movement is a rather long process starting in the 16th century and coming to completion over 200 years later. In order to reconcile the conflicting diachronic evidence from adverb placement and the syntax of negation, we propose that the loss of verb movement in English is not a single event but occurs sequentially. In a first phase, verb movement to T is lost while movement to a lower inflectional head is maintained. In a second phase, verb movement starts being lost completely. We show that the Rich Agreement Hypothesis, which has been very prominent in accounts of variation with respect to verb movement, cannot capture these developments in a satisfactory way. Instead, it is verbal morphology more generally that will be argued to play a role in connection with the occurrence of verb movement. However, we do not postulate a strong correlation between morphology and syntax and propose that the loss of verb movement in English is the result of a combination of factors: changes in the verbal morphosyntax (loss of subjunctive, rise of periphrastic forms), an acquisitional bias towards simpler structures, the decline of the subject-verb inversion grammar found in early English, and effects of dialect contact.

Poor pronoun systems and what they teach us

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>The world’s smallest pronoun systems can eschew any of the following contrasts: (i) author–nonauthor, (ii) participant–nonparticipant, (iii) singular–nonsingular. This supports the view that features are mutually independent parameters (Harbour 2011a, 2014a, 2014b), but is problematic for Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s (2014) recent reworking of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis, which is predicated on the claim that (i)–(iii) are universally obligatory. </span></p></div></div></div>

The Rich Agreement Hypothesis Rehabilitated

The generalization that V-to-I movement is conditioned by rich subject agreement on the finite verb (the Rich Agreement Hypothesis) has long been taken to indicate a tight connection between syntax and morphology. Recently, the hypothesis has been questioned on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Here, we demonstrate that the empirical arguments against this hypothesis are incorrect and that it therefore must be rehabilitated in its strongest form. Theoretically, we argue that the correlation between syntax and morphology is not direct (morphology does not drive syntax) but follows from principles of language acquisition: only if language learners are confronted with particular morphological contrasts do they postulate the presence of corresponding formal features that in turn drive syntactic operations.

How variational acquisition drives syntactic change

Although language acquisition is frequently invoked as a cause of syntactic change, there has been relatively little work applying a formal model of acquisition to an actual case of language change and testing its predictions empirically. Here we test the model of Yang (Language Variation and Change 12: 231–250, 2000) on the historical case of the loss of verb movement to Tense (V-to-T) in Faroese and Mainland Scandinavian, using quantitative data from a number of corpora. We show that the model straightforwardly predicts the historical data, given minimal and uncontroversial assumptions about Scandinavian syntax. In contrast to a number of previous attempts to explain this repeated pattern of change, it is not necessary to appeal to any bias against learning structures involving V-to-T—a welcome result, given current evidence from acquisition. The newer V-in-situ parameter setting overcomes the original V-to-T grammar because it is more learnable in a language that also has embedded verb-second (EV2). Finally, we argue that the course of the diachronic change is evidence against a strong version of the “Rich Agreement Hypothesis” (RAH), but that under this account the stability of V-to-T in Icelandic provides evidence for the weaker version (cf. Bobaljik, Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 6: 129–167, 2002).

The syntax–morphology relation

We review and discuss some issues to do with the relation between morphology and syntax which have played a prominent part in generative linguistic research in the past three decades. Focusing on verbal inflection, we first discuss the relation between inflection and verb placement, with special attention given to verb-initial languages. We then discuss the relation between pro-drop and agreement, where we articulate a partly new understanding of Huang's (1989) generalization that pro-drop is characteristic of languages with rich agreement and languages with no agreement, but not languages that are in-between. We then present and discuss the Mirror Principle, one of the most significant findings in recent linguistic research. We pay special attention to the Mirror Principle as it applies in head-final languages, in the context of a model adopting Kayne's (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom. The idea is to show how fairly complex aspects of clausal syntax, including word order and the possibility of phonetically silent arguments of a predicate, may be correlated with readily observable and, in themselves, rather simple properties of verbal inflection, and to show how, given a restrictive theory of Universal Grammar, this follows from the fact that inflections are syntactic categories, albeit realized as parts of words.

The Rich Agreement Hypothesis and the Loss of Verb Second in English

The Rich Agreement Hypothesis and the Loss of Verb Second in English