Home Linguistics & Semiotics Agreement without agree: scattered, not distributed, agreement across modules
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Agreement without agree: scattered, not distributed, agreement across modules

  • Javier Ormazabal and Juan Romero EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 26, 2025
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

In this paper we present an approach to agreement where different agreement processes occur at different levels. We argue that φ-feature valuation is never the trigger of a checking relation between a head H and an NP, but the effect of a syntactic relation that must be triggered by some independent operation. We analyze in detail characteristic cases where agreement is not syntactic but induced in the morphological component or in processing. We also show that all these cases are indirectly determined by syntactic derivations where the φ-feature matrix in the head H is not fully specified, leaving room for additional, extra-syntactic, operations to tamper with agreement.


Corresponding author: Juan Romero, Department of Hispanic Philology, University of Extremadura (UNEX), Cáceres, Spain, E-mail:

Funding source: The Junta de Extremadura’s grant

Award Identifier / Grant number: HUM 022

Funding source: The Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

Award Identifier / Grant number: PID2021-123617NB-C41

Acknowledgements

The two authors, listed in alphabetical order, are equally responsible for the entire content of the paper. We are grateful to the members of the Basque Center for Language Research (HiTT) and the participants at the Linguistics Colloquia at the University of Ottawa, where we presented a previous version of this paper. Especial thanks to the editors of this volume, Arantzazu Elordieta and Laura Vela, and to Alejo Alcaraz, Ricardo Etxepare, Jairo Nunes, Dennis Ott, Francesc Roca, Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria, and two anonymous reviewers for many valuable comments.

  1. Research funding: This work was financed in part by the Junta de Extremadura’s grant HUM 022, and by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación grant PID2021-123617NB-C41 Microparameters and Networks in Romance Variation (MINERVA) to the second author.

References

Abe, Jun. 2018. How to probe ex pletives. Studia Linguistica 72. 76–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/stul.12057.Search in Google Scholar

Aissen, Judith & Jeffrey Runner. 1989. Spanish left conjunct agreement. Paper presented at the 64th Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Washington, D.C., December.Search in Google Scholar

Albizu, Pablo. 2001. Basque verbal morphology: Redefining cases. In Xabier Artiagoitia, Patxi Goenaga & Joseba Lakarra (eds.), Erramu boneta: Festschrift for Rudolf P. G. de Rijk (Supplements of ASJU 44), 1–19. Bilbao: University of the Basque Country Editorial Services. https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/ASJU/article/view/9626.Search in Google Scholar

Albizu, Pablo & Luis Eguren. 2000. An optimality theoretic account for “Ergative Displacement” in Basque. In Dressler, et al.. (eds.), Morphological analysis in comparison, 1–24. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.201.02albSearch in Google Scholar

Arregi, Karlos & Andrew Nevins. 2012. Morphotactics: Basque auxiliaries and the structure of spellout. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-3889-8Search in Google Scholar

Baker, Mark. 2008. The Syntax of Agreement and concord. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511619830Search in Google Scholar

Belletti, Adriana. 1988. The case of unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 1–34.Search in Google Scholar

Bello, Andrés. 1853. Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos. Madrid: Biblioteca Económica de Educación y Enseñanza.Search in Google Scholar

Bentivoglio, Paola & Mercedes Sedano. 1989. Haber: ¿un verbo impersonal? Un estudio sobre el español de Caracas. In José J. Montes Giraldo (ed.), Simposio sobre el español de América, 59–81. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Search in Google Scholar

Boeckx, Cedric. 2001. Scope reconstructions and A-movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19. 503–548. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010646425448.10.1023/A:1010646425448Search in Google Scholar

Boeckx, Cedric & Norbert Hornstein. 2005. A gap in the ECM paradigm. Linguistic Inquiry 36(3). 437–441. https://doi.org/10.1162/0024389054396926.Search in Google Scholar

Bonet, Eulalia. 1991. Morphology after syntax: Pronominal clitics in romance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Bonet, Eulalia. 1994. The person-case constraint: A morphological approach. MIT working papers in linguistics 22. 33–52.Search in Google Scholar

Bošković, Željko. 1997. Coordination, object shift and V-movement. Linguistic Inquiry 28. 357–365.Search in Google Scholar

Bošković, Željko. 2002. A–movement and the EPP. Syntax 5(3). 167–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9612.00051.Search in Google Scholar

Bošković, Željko. 2007. On the locality and motivation of Move and Agree: An even more minimal theory. Linguistic Inquiry 38(4). 589–644. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2007.38.4.589.Search in Google Scholar

Bošković, Željko. 2009. Unifying first and last conjunct agreement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 27. 455–496. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-009-9072-6.Search in Google Scholar

Castillo, Juan Carlos, John Drury & Kleanthes Grohmann. 1999. The status of the Merge over Move preference. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 8. 66–104.Search in Google Scholar

Castillo Lluch, Monica & Álvaro S. Octavio de Toledo. 2016. Habemos muchos que hablamos español: distribución histórica de la concordancia existencial en primera persona de plural. In Carlota de Benito Moreno & Álvaro S. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (eds.), En torno a haber: Construcciones, usos y variación desde el latín hasta la actualidad, 111–168. Bern: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language. New York: Praeger.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, 89–155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam. 2001. Derivation by phase. In Michael Kenstowicz (ed.), Ken hale: A life in language, 1–52. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/4056.003.0004Search in Google Scholar

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1988. On si constructions and the theory of arb. Linguistic Inquiry 19(4). 521–581. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178596.Search in Google Scholar

Claes, Jeroen. 2015. Competing constructions: The pluralization of presentational haber in Dominican Spanish. Cognitive Linguistics 26(1). 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2014-0006.Search in Google Scholar

de Benito, Carlota & Álvaro S. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (eds.). 2016. En torno a haber: Construcciones, usos y variación desde el latín hasta la actualidad. Bern: Peter Lang.10.3726/978-3-653-06099-7Search in Google Scholar

DeMello, George. 1994. Pluralización del verbo haber impersonal en el español hablado culto de once ciudades. Studia Neophilologica 66(1). 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393279408588132.Search in Google Scholar

Den Dikken, Marcel. 1995. Binding, expletives and levels. Linguistic Inquiry 26. 347–354.Search in Google Scholar

Emonds, Joseph E. 1986. Grammatically deviant prestige constructions. In Michael Brame, Heles Contreras & Frederick Newmeyer (eds.), Festschrift for sol saporta, 93–129. Seattle, WA: Noit Amrofer.Search in Google Scholar

Epstein, Samuel D. & T. Daniel Seely. 2006. Derivations in minimalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511550607Search in Google Scholar

Fernández, Beatriz & Pablo Albizu. 2000. Ergative displacement in Basque and the division of labour between morphology and syntax. In Arika Okrent & John P. Boyle (eds.), Papers from the 36th Regional Meeting, Chicago linguistic society, 103–118. Chicago, IL: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Fernández Soriano, Olga & Susana Táboas. 1999. Construcciones impersonales no reflejas. In Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds.), Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, 1723–1778. Madrid: Espasa.Search in Google Scholar

Gómez Molina, José Ramón. 2013. Pluralización de haber impersonal en el español de Valencia (España). Verba 40. 253–282.Search in Google Scholar

Hazout, Ilan. 2004. The syntax of existential constructions. Linguistic Inquiry 35(3). 393–430. https://doi.org/10.1162/0024389041402616.Search in Google Scholar

Hernández Díaz, Axel. 2019. Refunctionalization. First person plural of the verb haber in the history of Spanish. Languages 4(6). 59–90. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages4010006.Search in Google Scholar

Higginbotham, James. 1987. Indefiniteness and predication. In E. Reuland & A. ter Meulen (eds.), The representation of (In)definiteness, 43–70. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hornstein, Norbert. 1995. Logical form: From GB to minimalism. Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Hornstein, Norbert. 2009. A theory of syntax. Minimal operations and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511575129Search in Google Scholar

Johnson, Kyle. 1991. Object positions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9. 577–636. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00134751.Search in Google Scholar

Kany, Charles. 1994 [1945]. Sintaxis hispanoamericana. Madrid: Gredos.Search in Google Scholar

Krejci, Bonnie & Katherine Hilton. 2017. There’s three variants: Agreement variation in existential there constructions. Language Variation and Change 29(2). 187–204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394517000096.Search in Google Scholar

Laka, Itziar. 1993. The structure of inflection. In Jose Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (eds.), Generative studies in Basque linguistics, 21–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.105.02lakSearch in Google Scholar

Lasnik, Howard. 1992. Case and expletives. Notes toward a parametric account. Linguistic Inquiry 23. 381–405.Search in Google Scholar

Lasnik, Howard. 1993. Lectures on Minimalist syntax. UConn Working Papers in Linguistics, Occasional papers 1. Reprinted in Lasnik 1999, Minimalist Analysis, chapter 3. Oxford/Malden (MA): Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Lasnik, Howard. 1995. Case and expletives revisited. Linguistic Inquiry 26. 615–633. Reprinted in Lasnik 1999, Minimalist Analysis, chapter 4. Oxford/Malden (MA): Blackwell. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178916.Search in Google Scholar

Lasnik, Howard. 2001. A note on the EPP. Linguistic Inquiry 32(2). 356–362.10.1162/ling.2001.32.2.356Search in Google Scholar

Lasnik, Howard & Mamoru Saito. 1991. On the subject of infinitives, Reprinted in 1999, Minimalist Analysis, chapter 1. In Papers from the general Session at the 27th regional meeting of the Chicago linguistic society, 324–343. Oxford/Malden (MA): Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Marušič, Franc, Andrew Nevins & William Badecker. 2015. The grammars of conjunction agreement in Slovenian. Syntax 18(1). 39–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/synt.12025.Search in Google Scholar

Marušič, Franc, Andrew Nevins & Amanda Saksida. 2007. Last-conjunct agreement in slovenian. Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 15. 210–227.Search in Google Scholar

McCloskey, James. 1991. There, it and agreement. Linguistic Inquiry 22(3). 563–567.Search in Google Scholar

McCloskey, James. 1996. On the scope of verb movement in Irish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14. 197–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133403.Search in Google Scholar

Milsark, Gary. 1974. Existential sentences in English. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Miyagawa, S. 2009. Why agree? Why move? Unifying agreement-Based and discourse-configurational languages. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/8116.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Morgan, Jerry. 1972. Some problems of verb agreement. Ms. University of Illinois.Search in Google Scholar

Nevins, Andrew. 2011. Multiple agree with clitics: Person complementarity vs. omnivorous number. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29. 939–971. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9150-4.Search in Google Scholar

Nevins, Andrew & Pilip Weisser. 2019. Closest conjoint agreement. Annual Review of Linguistics 5. 219–241. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011718-012708.Search in Google Scholar

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2007. The object agreement constraint. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 25. 315–347. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-006-9010-9.Search in Google Scholar

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2013. Object clitics, Agreement and dialectal variation. Probus: International Journal of Latin and Romance Linguistics 25. 301–344. https://doi.org/10.1515/probus-2013-0012.Search in Google Scholar

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2019. The formal properties of non paradigmatic SE. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 8. 55–84. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.8.1.4704.Search in Google Scholar

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2024a. Deconstructing SE-Constructions: Number agreement and post-syntactic variation. Linguistic Inquiry 55(3). 445–488. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00476.Search in Google Scholar

Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero. 2024b. In the beginning was a to-phrase. Linguistic Inquiry. On-line early. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00534.Search in Google Scholar

Palmović, Marijan & Jana Willer-Gold. 2016. Croatian mixed-gender conjoint agreement: An ERP study. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 24(1). 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsl.2016.0000.Search in Google Scholar

Pato, Enrique. 2016. La pluralización de haber en español peninsular. In Carlota de Benito Moreno & Álvaro S. Octavio de Toledo y Huerta (eds.), En torno a haber: Construcciones, usos y variación desde el latín hasta la actualidad, 357–391. Bern: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar

Preminger, Omer. 2014. Agreement and its failure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262027403.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Real Academia Española/Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (RAE/ASALE). 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa. https://www.rae.es/gramática/. (Last view 17 December 2024).Search in Google Scholar

Riordan, Brian. 2007. There’s two ways to say it: Modeling nonprestige there’s. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 3(2). 233–279. https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt.2007.013.Search in Google Scholar

Runner, Jeffrey. 1992. Expletives, ‘replacement’, and economy. In Catalan working Papers in linguistics, 281–317. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. https://raco.cat/index.php/CatalanWP/article/view/74017. (Last view 17 December 2024).Search in Google Scholar

Safir, Kenneth. 1982. Syntactic chains and the definiteness effect. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Safir, Kenneth. 1987. What explains the definiteness effect? In E. Reuland & Alicia ter Meulen (eds.), The representation of (in)definiteness, 71–97. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Schütze, Carlson. 1999. English expletive constructions are not infected. Linguistic Inquiry 30(1). 467–484. https://doi.org/10.1162/002438999554156.Search in Google Scholar

Sheehan, Michelle. 2016. Subjects, null subjects, and expletives. In Susan Fisher & Christoph Gabriel (eds.), Manual of grammatical interfaces in Romance, 329–361. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110311860-014Search in Google Scholar

Sobin, Nicholas. 1997. Agreement, default rules, and agrammatical viruses. Linguistic Inquiry 28. 318–343.Search in Google Scholar

Walker, James A. 2007. There’s bears back there: Plural existential and vernacular universals in (Quebec) English. English World Wide 28(2). 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.28.2.03wal.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2025-09-26
Published in Print: 2025-10-27

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 17.1.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/tlr-2025-2011/html
Scroll to top button