Syntactic (dis)agreement is not semantic agreement
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Gabi Danon
Abstract
This chapter looks at two cases where subject agreement in Hebrew does not follow the morphosyntactic (phi) features of the subject: singular agreement with plural subjects, and plural agreement with singular group-denoting subjects. The paper argues that there are important differences between these two cases; in particular, it is argued that the former is not agreement but lack of agreement, whereas the latter involves (syntactic) agreement. Lack of agreement is tied to constraints on thematic role assignment. Neither case poses a real problem to current syntactic models of agreement.
Abstract
This chapter looks at two cases where subject agreement in Hebrew does not follow the morphosyntactic (phi) features of the subject: singular agreement with plural subjects, and plural agreement with singular group-denoting subjects. The paper argues that there are important differences between these two cases; in particular, it is argued that the former is not agreement but lack of agreement, whereas the latter involves (syntactic) agreement. Lack of agreement is tied to constraints on thematic role assignment. Neither case poses a real problem to current syntactic models of agreement.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of contributors ix
- List of abbreviations xi
- List of figures xiii
- Editors' note xv
- Preface xvii
- Introduction 1
- The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 13
- Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 61
- Syntactic (dis)agreement is not semantic agreement 95
- A Note on Oblique Case: Evidence from Serbian / Croatian 117
- The structure of null subject DPs and agreement in Polish impersonal constructions 129
- The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 165
- Possessives within and beyond NP 193
- On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 221
- Determiners and Possessives in Old English and Polish 247
- Agreement and definiteness in Germanic DPs 267
- Transparent free relatives 295
- Index 319
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- List of contributors ix
- List of abbreviations xi
- List of figures xiii
- Editors' note xv
- Preface xvii
- Introduction 1
- The overgeneration problem and the case of semipredicatives in Russian 13
- Polish equatives as symmetrical structures 61
- Syntactic (dis)agreement is not semantic agreement 95
- A Note on Oblique Case: Evidence from Serbian / Croatian 117
- The structure of null subject DPs and agreement in Polish impersonal constructions 129
- The feature geometry of generic inclusive null DPs in Hungarian 165
- Possessives within and beyond NP 193
- On pre-nominal classifying adjectives in Polish 221
- Determiners and Possessives in Old English and Polish 247
- Agreement and definiteness in Germanic DPs 267
- Transparent free relatives 295
- Index 319
