The Rise of Agreement

A formal approach to the syntax and grammaticalization of verbal inflection

Author
Eric Fuß | Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027228055 | EUR 145.00 | USD 218.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027294142 | EUR 145.00 | USD 218.00
 
Google Play logo
This book investigates the historical paths leading from pronouns to markers of verbal agreement and proposes a unified formal account of this grammaticalization process. In opposition to beliefs widely held in the literature, it is argued that new agreement formatives can be coined in a multitude of syntactic environments. Still, the individual paths toward agreement are shown to exhibit a set of underlying similarities which are attributed to universal principles that govern the reanalysis of pronominal clitics as exponents of verbal agreement across languages. It is claimed that syntactic principles impose only a set of necessary conditions on the reanalysis in question, while its ultimate trigger is morphological in nature. More specifically, it is argued that the acquisition of inflectional morphology is governed by blocking effects which operate during language acquisition and promote the grammaticalization of new markers if this change serves to replace ‘worn-out’, underspecified forms with new, more specified candidates.
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 81] 2005.  xii, 336 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“This is the first empirically detailed, theoretically informed study of the historical development of agreement marking in the context of a generative approach to syntactic change. As such it represents a major contribution to the field, and deserves a very wide readership.”
Cited by

Cited by 69 other publications

Ackema, Peter & Ad Neeleman
2013. Person features and syncretism. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31:4  pp. 901 ff. DOI logo
ACUÑA-FARIÑA, JUAN CARLOS
2012. Agreement, attraction and architectural opportunism. Journal of Linguistics 48:2  pp. 257 ff. DOI logo
Alqassas, Ahmad
2017. Gender and number polarity in Modern Standard Arabic numeral phrases. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 62:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Arregi, Karlos & Andrew Nevins
2018. Beware Occam’s Syntactic Razor: Morphotactic Analysis and Spanish Mesoclisis. Linguistic Inquiry 49:4  pp. 625 ff. DOI logo
Ashby, William J.
2023. The drift of French syntax. In On Spoken French [Studies in Language Companion Series, 226],  pp. 181 ff. DOI logo
Auger, Julie
2022. Chapter 1. Picard subject clitics. In Points of Convergence in Romance Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 360],  pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Barriere, Isabelle, Géraldine Legendre, Blandine Joseph, Sarah Kresh, Prince Fleurio Guetjen, Thierry Nazzi, F. Neveu, G. Bergounioux, M.-H. Côté, J.-M. Fournier, L. Hriba & S. Prévost
2016. Le statut linguistique des pronoms du créole haïtien et du français : une étude de corpus. SHS Web of Conferences 27  pp. 14006 ff. DOI logo
Beuls, Katrien, Luc Steels & Ricard V. Solé
2013. Agent-Based Models of Strategies for the Emergence and Evolution of Grammatical Agreement. PLoS ONE 8:3  pp. e58960 ff. DOI logo
Bohnacker, Ute
2013. Null Subjects in Swabian. Studia Linguistica 67:3  pp. 257 ff. DOI logo
Bousquette, Joshua & Michael T. Putnam
2020. Redefining Language Death: Evidence From Moribund Grammars. Language Learning 70:S1  pp. 188 ff. DOI logo
Cruschina, Silvio & Melanie Rinollo
2013. Between Subject Enclitic and Agreement Marker: The Second Person Endings in Sicilian. Transactions of the Philological Society 111:3  pp. 259 ff. DOI logo
Diercks, Michael
2013. Indirect agree in Lubukusu complementizer agreement. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31:2  pp. 357 ff. DOI logo
Duarte, Inês
2018. Comments on complementation in Portuguese. In Complement Clauses in Portuguese [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 17],  pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Farasyn, Melissa & Anne Breitbarth
2016. Nullsubjekte im Mittelniederdeutschen. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 138:4  pp. 524 ff. DOI logo
Fertig, David
2019. Morphological Change Through Phonological Analogy: 2nd Person Singular -s→ -stand Related Developments in Germanic. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 31:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Fonseca-Greber, Bonnie B.
Fuß, Eric
2007. Elly van Gelderen, Grammaticalization as Economy Amsterdam: John Benjamins (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 71), 2004, pp. xvi, 320. ISBN 90 272 2795 0. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 10:1 DOI logo
Fuß, Eric
2014. Complementizer agreement (in Bavarian). In Bavarian Syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 220],  pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Günhan, N. Evra
2016. Verbal functional categories in the speech of a Turkish speaking child with autism. In The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 20],  pp. 341 ff. DOI logo
Haig, Geoffrey
2018. The grammaticalization of object pronouns: Why differential object indexing is an attractor state. Linguistics 56:4  pp. 781 ff. DOI logo
Haig, Geoffrey & Diana Forker
2018. Agreement in grammar and discourse: A research overview. Linguistics 56:4  pp. 715 ff. DOI logo
Haig, Geoffrey L.J.
2020. Chapter 5. The pronoun-to-agreement cycle in Iranian. In Advances in Iranian Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 351],  pp. 85 ff. DOI logo
JARRAH, MARWAN
2019. Record your Agree: A case study of the Arabic complementizerʔinn. Journal of Linguistics 55:1  pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Jarrah, Marwan
2020. Complementizer Agreement and the T0‐Φ Parameter in Jordanian Arabic. Studia Linguistica 74:1  pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
Jarrah, Marwan
2023. Morphological case, ɸ-agreement, and overt movement interactions in Arabic grammar. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIV [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 12],  pp. 105 ff. DOI logo
Jarrah, Marwan, Rasheed Al-Jarrah & Ekab Al-Shawashreh
2022. No case tampering once transfer domain is formed!. The Linguistic Review 39:2  pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Klævik-Pettersen, Espen
2019. What is Germanic and what is not about Old French V2. Linguistic Variation 19:1  pp. 141 ff. DOI logo
Kuteva, Tania, Bernd Heine, Bo Hong, Haiping Long, Heiko Narrog & Seongha Rhee
2019. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization, DOI logo
Lavidas, Nikolaos
2013. Null and cognate objects and changes in (in)transitivity. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 60:1  pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. Building on the Tradition. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 64 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. How Language Change is Investigated. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. Introduction. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. Tempo and Mora in Phonological Change. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 238 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. Inverted Operations. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 205 ff. DOI logo
Miller, D. Gary
2010. Vowel Shifts and the Middle English Vowels. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 270 ff. DOI logo
Nevins, Andrew
2011. Multiple agree with clitics: person complementarity vs. omnivorous number. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 29:4  pp. 939 ff. DOI logo
NISHIYAMA, KUNIO
2010. INTRODUCTION: FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES, DIRECTIONALITY, AND GRADUALNESS IN SYNTACTIC CHANGE. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 27:2  pp. 364 ff. DOI logo
Rezac, Milan
2010. Modularity, Phi-Features, and Repairs. In Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of Language [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 81],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Rezac, Milan
2010. Phi in Syntax and Phi Interpretation. In Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of Language [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 81],  pp. 279 ff. DOI logo
Rosenkvist, Henrik
2010. Null Referential Subjects in Övdalian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 33:3  pp. 231 ff. DOI logo
Samo, Giuseppe
2022. Criterial V2: ModP as a Locus of Microvariation in Swiss Romansh Varieties. Probus 34:1  pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Schnell, Stefan
2018. Whence subject-verb agreement? Investigating the role of topicality, accessibility, and frequency in Vera’a texts. Linguistics 56:4  pp. 735 ff. DOI logo
Schnell, Stefan & Danielle Barth
2020. Expression of anaphoric subjects in Vera'a: Functional and structural factors in the choice between pronoun and zero. Language Variation and Change 32:3  pp. 267 ff. DOI logo
Seržant, Ilja A.
2021. Cyclic changes in verbal person-number indexes are unlikely. Folia Linguistica 55:s42-s1  pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Stark, Elisabeth
2014. Réanalyses dans la graphie : ‘l'écrit spontané' dans les SMS et le statut des pronoms clitiques du français contemporain. Langages N° 196:4  pp. 131 ff. DOI logo
STARK, ELISABETH, CHARLOTTE MEISNER & HARALD VÖLKER
2014. Introduction to the special issue: ‘Negation and Clitics in French: Interaction and Variation’. Journal of French Language Studies 24:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Steels, Luc & Katrien Beuls
2017. How to Explain the Origins of Complexity in Language: A Case Study for Agreement Systems. In Complexity in Language,  pp. 30 ff. DOI logo
van Gelderen, Elly
2018. Problems of Projection: The Role of Language Change in Labeling Paradoxes. Studia Linguistica 72:1  pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
van Gerven Oei, Vincent W.J.
2018. Subject Clitics: New Evidence from Old Nubian. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1 DOI logo
van Koppen, Marjo
2012. The distribution of phi-features in pronouns. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30:1  pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
van Koppen, Marjo
2017. Complementizer Agreement. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition,  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
van Koppen, Marjo
2020. Complementizer Agreement. In The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics,  pp. 313 ff. DOI logo
van Rijn, Marlou
2016. The grammaticalization of possessive person marking: a typological approach. Transactions of the Philological Society 114:2  pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Weiß, Helmut
2015. When the subject follows the object. On a curiosity in the syntax of personal pronouns in some German dialects. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 18:1  pp. 65 ff. DOI logo
Willis, David
2007. Specifier‐to‐head reanalyses in the complementizer domain: evidence from Welsh. Transactions of the Philological Society 105:3  pp. 432 ff. DOI logo
Wolfe, Sam
2019. Redefining the typology of V2 languages. Linguistic Variation 19:1  pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Wratil, Melani
2014. The rise and fall of double agreement. In Bavarian Syntax [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 220],  pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Zingler, Tim
2022. Circumfixation: A semasiological approach. Word Structure 15:1  pp. 55 ff. DOI logo
Zingler, Tim
2023. A functional approach to the formal mismatches of indexation markers. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 42:2  pp. 373 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Bibliographical Abbreviations. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. xxix ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Dating and Other Conventions. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. xv ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Primary Sources: Texts and Editions. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 293 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Copyright Page. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. iv ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Abbreviations. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. xvii ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Special Phonetic Symbols. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. 288 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2010. Preface. In Language Change and Linguistic Theory, Volume I,  pp. xii ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CF: Linguistics

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2005049336 | Marc record