Failure to agree is not a failure

φ-Agreement with post-verbal subjects in Hebrew

Omer Preminger | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Based on the patterns of phi-agreement with post-verbal subjects in Hebrew, I argue against the idea that failure to establish a phi-agreement relation between a phi-probe and its putative target (e.g., due to intervention) results in ungrammaticality, or a “crash”; at the same time, I demonstrate that phi-agreement also cannot be optional. At first glance, these two claims—that phi-agreement is neither optional, nor does its failure result in ungrammaticality—might seem contradictory. However, I argue that there is a third possibility, which is in fact the only one that can account for the data under consideration: phi-agreement must be attempted by every phi-probe; but if it fails (e.g., due to the presence of an intervener), its failure is systematically tolerated. tolerated.

Published online: 13 August 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.9.07pre

Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Baker, Mark

2012. In The End of Argument Structure? [Syntax and Semantics, 38], ► pp. 43 ff.

Baker, Mark C.

2012. On the Relationship of Object Agreement and Accusative Case: Evidence from Amharic. Linguistic Inquiry 43:2 ► pp. 255 ff.

Bhatt, Rajesh & Martin Walkow

2013. Locating agreement in grammar: an argument from agreement in conjunctions. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31:4 ► pp. 951 ff.

Deal, Amy Rose

2013. Possessor Raising. Linguistic Inquiry 44:3 ► pp. 391 ff.

Walkow, Martin

2014. In Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI [Studies in Arabic Linguistics, 2], ► pp. 135 ff.

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