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Finiteness Matters: On finiteness-related phenomena in natural languages
Edited by Kristin Melum Eide
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 231] 2016
► pp. 171–188

Agreement is not an essential ingredient of finiteness

Evidence from impersonal sentences in Norwegian dialects and in English

| Norwegian University of Science and Technology

I argue in this article that agreement is not an essential ingredient of T/finiteness. Using the mechanism of valuation of unvalued features, I argue that unvalued agreement features in T only exist if there is visible subject – verb agreement in the language/dialect. Correspondingly, I argue that unvalued agreement features in participles only exist if there is visible subject – participle agreement. The likelihood that these assumptions are correct is demonstrated through a comparative analysis of expletive subjects and agreement relations in impersonal constructions in Norwegian dialects and in English.

Keywords: agreement, expletive subject, impersonal construction, participle, passive
Published online: 25 August 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.231.06afa
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