LINGUIST List 17.1983

Fri Jul 07 2006

TOC: Leiden Papers in Linguistics 3/2 (2006)

Editor for this issue: Maria Moreno-Rollins <marialinguistlist.org>

Directory         1.    Martin Salzmann, Leiden Papers in Linguistics Vol 3, No 2 (2006)
Message 1: Leiden Papers in Linguistics Vol 3, No 2 (2006)
Date: 07-Jul-2006
From: Martin Salzmann <m.d.salzmannlet.leidenuniv.nl>
Subject: Leiden Papers in Linguistics Vol 3, No 2 (2006)


Publisher: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
http://www.lucl.leidenuniv.nl/

Journal Title: Leiden Papers in Linguistics Volume Number: 3 Issue Number: 2 Issue Date: 2006


Subtitle: Agreement phenomena in a generative framework


Main Text:

A special issue of the Leiden Working Papers in Linguistics has just appeared.This special issue results from an Agreement Workshop organized on the occasionof Marjo van Koppen's PhD-defence at Leiden University in April 2005.The main question raised at this workshop was how agreement phenomena should beanalyzed within a generative framework. The three contributions in this specialvolume address exactly this question. The Leiden Working Papers in Linguisticsare found at http://www.lucl.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=7&c=294.

Contents

Jonathan David Bobaljik (University of Connecticut): Where’s Φ? Agreement as apost-syntactic operation. Leiden Papers in Linguistics 3.2, 1-23.

This paper develops an argument that agreement (in particular NP-predicateagreement) is a morphological and not a syntactic phenomenon. Narrowly, I argueagainst the proposition that the configurational/positional licensing of NPs(what was considered to be the domain of Case Theory in the LGB framework of the1980s) involves checking/matching/valuing of Φ-features (person, number, gender)in the syntax. To the extent that verbs show morphological agreement with an NP,the copying or sharing of features occurs in the morphology, after the syntax.

Marjo van Koppen (Utrecht University): One Probe, Multiple Goals: the case ofFirst Conjunct Agreement. Leiden Papers in Linguistics 3.2, 25-52.

In this paper I discuss the first part of my thesis, namely variation concerningagreement with coordinated subjects in Dutch dialects. I show that a verb or acomplementizer in some variants of Dutch agrees with the first conjunct of acoordinated subject and in other variants with the coordinated subject as awhole. I argue that the locus of this micro-variation should be attributed tothe post-syntactic lexicon. The syntactic derivation in these varieties isidentical. The analysis is extended to the typologically unrelated languagesIrish and Arabic.

Jan-Wouter Zwart (University of Groningen): Complementizer agreement anddependency marking typology. Leiden Papers in Linguistics 3.2, 53-72.

The paper considers the status of complementizer agreement from a theoreticaland typological point of view. Theoretically, the phenomenon is strange becauseno semantic or syntactic relation between the complementizer and the subjectseems to be underlying it. A probe-goal analysis is rejected, as it wouldrequire positing ad hoc agreement features in C. Typologically, it looks likecomplementizer agreement would be a rare instance of ‘nondependent-marking’. Thepaper concludes that complementizer agreement should not be described in theterms employed for subject-verb agreement, but should instead be analyzed as theresult of analogical change, as proposed by Goeman (2000) and Kathol (2001).


Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics                             Syntax
Subject Language(s): Dutch (nld)