edited by Michael Barlow and Charles A. Ferguson
Although grammatical agreement or concord is widespread in human languages, linguistic theories have generally treated agreement phenomena as secondary or even marginal. Widespread interest in a general theory of agreement or a universal framework for describing agreement has appeared only in the last ten years. This upsurge in interest arises in part from a recognition of the challenges agreement offers to all current syntactic theories. This interest arises also from new language data that either extend previous notions of agreement or reveal unexpected constraints on its operation.
Agreement in Natural Language is a collection of fifteen papers on the topic of grammatical agreement. The papers, contributed by distinguished scholars in linguistics, represent theoretical, descriptive, functional, historical, and developmental approaches to agreement. They grew out of presentations made at an international conference held at Stanford University, cosponsored by the Department of Linguistics and the Center for the Study of Language and Information. Although the papers represent highly diverse approaches, they all report on intensive research either on general theoretical issues or on problems of description.
This unique collection of papers on a hitherto neglected area of linguistic research will stimulate linguists of various persuasions to rethink such matters as the relation of anaphora to agreement or the role of morphological categories in syntax. In some instances, it may lead them to reexamine basic assumptions of linguistic theory construction.
Micheal Barlow is a graduate student in
the Department of Linguistics, Stanford University. Charles A. Ferguson is professor of linguistics at Stanford University.
- Preface
- Contributors
- 1 Introductions
Charles A. Ferguson and Michael Barlow
- 2 Agreement: A Partial Specification Based on Slavonic Data
Greville G. Corbett
- 1 Basic Requirements
- 2 Controller Problem
- 3 Target Problems
- 4 Feature Problems
- 5 Agreement Choices
- 6 Conclusion
- 3 On the Function of Agreement
Christian Lehmann
- 1 The Notion of Agreement
- 2 Internal and External Agreement
- 3 The Source of Agreement
- 4 The Function of Agreement
- 5 External Agreement and Case Marking
- 4 Toward a Unified Theory of Agreement
Steven G. Lapointe
- 1 Problems with the TGA Account
- 2 Types of Morphosyntactic Cooccurrences
- 3 Linking Controllers and Controllee
- 4 Markedness and Morphological Features
- 5 Conclusion
- 5 Agreement and Markedness
Edith A. Moravcsik
- 1 Agreement and Markedness—the Logical Fit
- 2 Agreement and Markedness—the Empirical Fit
- 3 Conclusions
- 6 Agreement in Arabic, Binding and Coherence
Abdelkader Fassi Fehri
- 1 The Affix Identification Problem
- 2 An Agreement Typology and the Domain Problem
- 3 F-Structure, Binding, and Agreement
- 4 Conclusion
- 7 Agreement vs. Case Marking and Direct Objects
William Croft
- 1 The Markedness of Direct Objects
- 2 Agreement, Case Marking, and Possession
- 3 Conclusion
- 8 Case Agreement in Lithuanian
Alan Timberlake
- 1 Preliminaries
- 2 Predicate Complements in Lithuanian
- 3 Case Agreement in Inifinitive Complements
- 4 Passive
- 5 Conclusion
- 9 On the Complementarity of Subject and Subject-Verb Agreement
Edit Doron
- 1 The Pro Account of Celtic
- 2 An Analysis of Hebrew Agreement
- 3 An Analysis of Celtic Agreement
- 4 Conclusion
- 10 Extensions of Brother-in-Law Agreement
Judith L. Aissen
- 1 Some Proposed Universals of Agreement
- 2 Primary vs. Secondary Agreement Controllers
- 3 Secondary Controllers
- 4 Conclusion
- 11 Asymmetric Feature Distribution in Pronominal ‘Coordinations’
Linda Schwartz
- 1 Plural Pronoun Constructions
- 2 Verb-Coded Constructions
- 3 Conclusion
- 12 Agreement with Gaps in Chamorro and Palauan
Sandra Chung and Carol Georgopoulos
- 1 WH-Agreement in Chamorro
- 2 WH-Agreement in Palauan
- 3 WH-Agreement in Domains
- 4 Agreement Systems
- 5 Morphology of Unbounded Dependencies
- 6 Conclusion
- 13 ‘Agreement’ and Syntactic Composition: The Luiseño Single-Possessive Condition
Susan Steele
- 1 Background
- 2 The Analysis
- 3 The Condition
- 4 Explanation
- 5 Conclusion
- 14 Noun Phrase Internal Case Agreement in Russian
Leonard H. Babby
- 1 Some Basic Notations
- 2 Quantified Noun Phrases
- 3 Discontinuous Agreement
- 4 Prequantifiers and Discontinuous Case Agreement
- 5 Case Marking and Postposed Modifiers
- 6 Conclusion
- 15 Noun Classes and Agreement in Sesotho Acquisition
Katherine A. Demuth
- 1 Bantu Noun Class and Agreement System
- 2 The Data Base
- 3 Noun Class Markers
- 4 The Agreement System
- 5 Discussion
- 16 Noun Classes and Agreement Systems in Kru: A Historical Approach
Lynell Marchese
- 1 Noun Class Systems in Kru
- 2 Agreement Systems in Kru
- 3 The Future of Noun Class Systems
- 4 Concluding Remarks
- Language Index
- Name Index
- Subject Index
3/31/88
