Abstract
Abstract
This paper offers a new description and explanation of morphological agreement, argument-verb agreement in particular. The hypothesis explored is that argument-verb agreement is directly related to selection of arguments (s-selection), i.e. s-selectional features are in fact ф-features ([PERSON, NUMBER(, GENDER)], and that morphological argument-verb agreement mirrors this relation. Call this Selection Through Uninterpretable Features Theory, or STUF-Theory. The idea is that if X has uninterpretable ф, it selects a Lexical Item carrying ф from the Lexical Array with which it can agree. This
means that the distinction between structural and inherent case partly disappears and Case-Theory moves closer to θ-Theory. Still, STUF-Theory must permit some non-θ-related case as well, namely when X carries uф but the Lexical
Array has no more Lexical Item that can be inserted. Then, X instead probes its domain for a goal (in accordance with Chomsky 2004).
STUF-Theory entails that morphological argument-verb agreement cannot be an Agree-relation holding between T and some DP (since T does not s-select), but must rather be an Agree-relation between ν and some DP. For the
same reason, it should be V that assigns accusative case to some DP. The benefit with such an analysis is that agreement would no longer be seen as an imperfection in the Faculty of Language, but should rather be regarded as a vital component in the building of syntactic structures.
This paper offers a new description and explanation of morphological agreement, argument-verb agreement in particular. The hypothesis explored is that argument-verb agreement is directly related to selection of arguments (s-selection), i.e. s-selectional features are in fact ф-features ([PERSON, NUMBER(, GENDER)], and that morphological argument-verb agreement mirrors this relation. Call this Selection Through Uninterpretable Features Theory, or STUF-Theory. The idea is that if X has uninterpretable ф, it selects a Lexical Item carrying ф from the Lexical Array with which it can agree. This
means that the distinction between structural and inherent case partly disappears and Case-Theory moves closer to θ-Theory. Still, STUF-Theory must permit some non-θ-related case as well, namely when X carries uф but the Lexical
Array has no more Lexical Item that can be inserted. Then, X instead probes its domain for a goal (in accordance with Chomsky 2004).
STUF-Theory entails that morphological argument-verb agreement cannot be an Agree-relation holding between T and some DP (since T does not s-select), but must rather be an Agree-relation between ν and some DP. For the
same reason, it should be V that assigns accusative case to some DP. The benefit with such an analysis is that agreement would no longer be seen as an imperfection in the Faculty of Language, but should rather be regarded as a vital component in the building of syntactic structures.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2006 |
Publication series
| Name | Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 77 |
|---|
Bibliographical note
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015.The record was previously connected to the following departments: Swedish (015011001)
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Languages and Literature
Free keywords
- Icelandic
- Spec-head relation
- Agreement
- s-selection