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Complementizer agreement (in Bavarian). Feature inheritance or feature insertion?

  • In recent minimalist work, it has been argued that C-agreement provides conclusive support for the following theoretical hypotheses (cf. Carstens 2003; van Koppen 2005; Haegeman & van Koppen 2012): (i) C hosts a separate set of phi-features, a parametric choice possibly linked to the V2 property; (ii) feature checking/valuation is accomplished under (closest) c-command (i.e. by the operation Agree, cf. Chomsky 2000 and subsequent work). This paper reviews the significance of C-agreement for syntactic theory and argues that certain systematic asymmetries between regular verbal agreement and complementizer agreement suggest that the latter does not result from operations that are part of narrow syntax. The case is based on the observation that at least in some Germanic varieties (most notably Bavarian), the realization of inflectional features in the C-domain is sensitive to adjacency effects and deletion of the finite verb in right node raising and comparatives. The fact that C may not carry inflection when the finite verb has been elided is taken to suggest that complementizer agreement does not involve a dependency between C and the subject, but father between C and the finite verb (i.e. T). More precisely, it is argued that inflectional features present in the C-domain are added postsyntactically via a process of feature insertion (cf. e.g. Embick 1997; Embick & Noyer 2001; Harbour 2003) that creates a copy of T’s (valued) <J)-set. It will then be shown that this account can also capture phenomena like first conjunct agreement (FCA) and external possessor agreement, which are often presented as crucial evidence of the syntactic nature of complementizer agreement (cf. van Koppen 2005; Haegeman & van Koppen 2012).

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Metadaten
Author:Eric Fuß
URN:urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-50692
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1075/la.220
ISBN:9789027257031
Parent Title (English):Bavarian Syntax. Contributions to the Theory of Syntax
Series (Serial Number):Linguistik aktuell (220)
Publisher:Benjamins
Place of publication:Amsterdam
Editor:Günther Grewendorf, Helmut Weiß
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2014
Date of Publication (online):2016/07/14
GND Keyword:Bairisch; Deutsch; Kongruenz <Linguistik>; Mundart; Nebensatz
First Page:51
Last Page:82
Note:
Dieser Beitrag ist aus urheberrechtlichen Gründen nicht frei zugänglich. 
Due to copyright reasons the full-text of the article is not freely accessible.
DDC classes:400 Sprache / 410 Linguistik
Open Access?:nein
Licence (German):License LogoUrheberrechtlich geschützt