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Non-canonical agreement in copular clauses1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2017

SUSANA BÉJAR  and
ARSALAN KAHNEMUYIPOUR
SUSANA BÉJAR*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
ARSALAN KAHNEMUYIPOUR*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto Mississauga
*
Author’s address:Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canadasbejar@chass.utoronto.ca
Author’s address: Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canadaa.kahnemuyipour@utoronto.ca
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Abstract

In this paper we investigate cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of copular clauses, focusing on agreement patterns in binominal structures [NP1 BE NP2]. Our starting point is the alternation between NP1 and NP2 agreement, which arises both within and across languages. This alternation is typically taken to be confined to specificational (i.e. inverted) clauses, and previous analyses have strongly identified NP2 agreement with the syntax of inversion. However, we show that NP2 agreement is attested in a broader range of contexts, specifically in (assumed identity) equative structures, suggesting that it should not be correlated with specificational syntax. We present contrasting data from two languages – Persian and Eastern Armenian – for which the syntax of copular clauses is understudied. Whereas in Persian we see NP2 agreement in specificational structures but NP1 agreement in assumed identity equatives, in Eastern Armenian both types of structure yield NP2 agreement. We argue that the contrast between Persian and Eastern Armenian supports an approach that takes the NP1–NP2 alternation to arise as a phi-sensitivity in the probe–goal mechanics of Agree in a minimalist framework. Under this view, NP2 agreement is independent of syntactic inversion and is the result of the probe structure being articulated in such a way that certain NPs fail to Agree.

Keywords

agreementArmeniancopular clausesequativesspecificational clauses
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , 01 August 2017 , pp. 463 - 499
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

[1]

We gratefully acknowledge funding from SSHRC grant # 410-2011-0975 and SSHRC grant #435-2013-1756. We would like to thank Caroline Heycock and Jutta Hartman for feedback and discussion, and four anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees for strengthening this work. We also thank present and past members of the Copular Agreement Project at the University of Toronto, including our co-investigator Ivona Kucerova and RAs Jitka Bartosova, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Cassandra Chapman, Julie Doner, Clarissa Forbes, Monica Irimia, Jessica Mathie, Kenji Oda, Will Oxford, Julia Su, Nicholas Welch, and Tomo Yokoyama. We also thank audiences at York University, the CLA, the Recife Agreement Workshop, the Bologna Workshop on Copular Clauses and the University of Toronto Syntax-Semantics Project. Finally, we are very grateful to the Persian and Eastern Armenian speakers who worked with us: Reza Savami (Persian), Ashot Karapet and John Nalbandyan (Eastern Armenian). Special thanks to Karine Megerdoomian for supplying Eastern Armenian judgments as well as additional help with transliteration.

Abbreviations used in the text are as follows: 1, 2, 3 $=$ 1st, 2nd, 3rd person; acc$=$ accusative; ez$=$ Ezafe; fut$=$ future; gen$=$ genitive; indef$=$ indefinite; loc$=$ locative; neg$=$ negation; nom$=$ nominative; pl$=$ plural; pres$=$ present; pst$=$ past; sg$=$ singular; sp$=$ specific; sup$=$ superlative. We capitalize ‘Agree’ when referring to the syntactic operation, but not when referring to the phenomenon.

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