1.

February 1

What is agreement? A typology of agreement facts

0. Introduction

    0.1. Features

    0.2. Agree

    0.3. Agreement domains

    0.4. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives

1. Is this agreement?

    1.1. No agreement/loss of agreement     

    1.2. Spreading    

Readings

§         class notes [Blackboard-BB]

§         Corbett, G. Agreement, CUP. Chapter 1

2.

February 8

Phi features and syntactic agreement

0. What are features?

1. One step back: Jakobson & Halle

2. Featural accounts of agreement

    2.1. Infl

    2.2. Rich agreement and verb movement

3. The structure of feature bundles-Morphological agreement

    3.1. φ-feature inventory

    3.2. Morphosyntactic feature geometry

    3.3. Agreement in a feature-geometrical system

4. Nanosyntax

Readings

§         class notes [BB]

§         Adger, D. (2003) Core Syntax, OUP. Chapter 2

§         Belletti, A. (2001). ‘Agreement projections’. In Baltin & Collins (eds), The Handbook of Syntactic Theory’. Blackwell [BB]

Jakobson & Halle (1956) [BB]

§         Harbour, Adger & BéjarPhi Theory. Chapter 1 (‘Why Phi?’) [BB]

§         Harley, H & E. Ritter (2002) ‘Structuring the bundle: A universal morphosyntactic feature geometry’. In H. Weise and H. Simon, eds. Pronouns: Grammar and Representation, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 23-39. [BB]

§         Starke, M. (2002). ‘Nanosyntax. A short primer to a new approach to language’. Ms. CASTL [BB]

3.

February 15

Phi theory and syntactic agreement continued/Agree

0. Spec/Head agreement

    0.1. Why Spec/Head?

    0.2. Agreement projections

1. The Minimalist program

    1.1. Feature checking

    1.2. The lexicon

    1.3. Match

2. MP 2.0. Chomsky (1995, Chapter 4)

     2.1. Why Spec, TP and not Agr?

     2.2. Subject-verb agreement in Later Early MP

Readings

§         class notes [BB]

§         Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist program. Chapter 3.

§         Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist program. Chapter 4.

§         Kayne, R. (1989) [2000]. ‘Facets of Romance Past Participle Agreement’. In Benincà, P. (ed.), Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar. Dordrecht: Foris, 85-103; reprinted in Kayne, R. (2000). Parameters and Universals. OUP.

§         Gallego, A. (2010). Phase Theory. John Benjamins. Chapter 1. The Framework (in particular, section 2.2.)

4.

February 22

Agree

0. Agree

    Minimalist Inquiries

    0.1. Match + Agree

    0.2. Case and active features

    0.3. Defective Intervention Effect

    0.4. Participial Agree

1. Derivation by Phase

    1.1. Phases

    1.2. The PIC

2. Agreement without movement. A case study

    2.1. Analysing pp agreement

    2.2. The condition on morpho-phonological realisation of agreement

Readings

§         class notes [BB]

§         Chomsky, N. (1998) [2000]. Minimalist Inquiries, ms., MIT. Published as ‘Minimalist Inquiries: The framework’. In: Martin, R, D. Michaels & J. Uriagereka (eds) (2000), Step by Step. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 89-156.

§         Chomsky, N. (1999) [2001]. Derivation by Phase, ms. MIT. Published as   ‘Derivation by Phase’. In Kenstowicz, M. (ed.) Ken Hale: A life in language. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1-52.[BB]

§         D’Alessandro, R. & I. Roberts (2008). ‘Movement and agreement in Italian past participles and defective phases’. Linguistic Inquiry 39(3), 477-491.  [BB]

5.

March 1

Verb-argument agreement. Three case studies

1. Italian pp agreement without object movement. How it works.

   1.1. Transitive vP

   1.2. Intransitive vP

   1.3. Passives

   1.4. Reflexives/impersonals

   1.5. Object clitics

2. Past participle agreement in Abruzzese

    2.1. The data

    2.2. The analysis

3. Food for thought.Agreement mismatch in Ripatransone

    3.1. Agreement with transitive verbs

    3.2. ‘Contagious’ agreement

    3.3. Trying to analyze these data

    3.4. Chomsky DbP Probe-Goal Agree

Readings

§         class notes

§         D’Alessandro, R. & I. Roberts (2008). ‘Movement and agreement in Italian past participles and defective phases’. Linguistic Inquiry 39(3), 477-491. [BB]

§         D’Alessandro, R. & i. Roberts (2010). Past participle agreement in Abruzzese: Split auxiliary selection and the null-subject parameter. Natural Language            and Linguistic Theory 28: 41-72. [BB]

§         Kayne, R. (1988). ‘Romance Se/Si’. Paper presented at the GLOW Colloquium, Budapest, GLOW Newsletter 20.

§         Chomsky, N. (2005) [2008]. ‘On Phases’. Ms, MIT. Appeared as ‘On Phases’. In Freidin, R., C. P. Otero & M. L. Zubizarreta (eds), Foundational Issues in Linguistic Theory. Essays in Honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 133-166. Chapter 6. [BB]

6.

March 8

Deriving Agreement Mismatch

0. Agreement mismatch configurations

    0.1. Concord or feature checking?

1. Multiple Agree

    1.1. Cyclic Agree

    1.2. Dominance

2. RT agreement explained

    2.1. Feature hierarchy

    2.2. How it works

    2.3. Split vP and Case

Readings

§         class notes

§         Béjar, S. & M. Rezac. 2009. ‘Cyclic Agree’. Linguistic Inquiry 35-73.

§         Ouali, H. 2008. ‘On C-to-T Phi-Feature Transfer: the nature of Agreement and Anti- Agreement in Berber’. In D’Alessandro, R. Fischer, S. & G. H.            Hrafnbjargarson (eds) Agreement restrictions. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [BB]

§         Müller, G. 2004. ‘Argument encoding and the order of elementary operations’. Paper presented at GLOW 2004, University of Thessaloniki. [BB]

§         Müller, G. 2010. ‘On deriving CED effects from the PIC’. Linguistic Inquiry.[BB]

7.

March 15

Tentamen