Agreement and its failures Omer Preminger £§u-£¶fhZ± o§Z± August ä, óþÕì – o ± o««uZ±u – to Saa Yaa Contents Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi Õ Introduction Õ ó Modeling the obligatoriness of φ-agreement ¢ ó.Õ A working denition of “agreement” .......................... ä ó.ó ree models for the obligatoriness of agreement .................. ß ó.ó.Õ e derivational time-bombs model ..................... ß ó.ó.ó e violable constraints model ......................... Õþ ó.ó.ì e obligatory operations model ........................ ÕÕ ó.ì Failed agreement, and why we should be interested in it ............... Õ¦ ì Agreement in the Kichean Agent-Focus construction: e facts Õß ì.Õ Some basic facts about Kichean and Agent-Focus .................. Õ ì.ó Agreement in Kichean Agent-Focus .......................... óó ì.ì eAFpersonrestriction ................................ ó ì.ì.Õ e phenomenon ................................. ó ì.ì.ó Against a purely morphological analysis of agreement in AF ....... óÉ ì.¦ e morpho-phonology of Kichean agreement markers ............... ìþ ¦ A derivational account of absolutive agreement in Kichean ì¢ ¦.Õ Background: e PCC, and Béjar & Rezac’s (óþþì) account of it .......... ì ¦.ó Relativized probing .................................... ¦É ¦.ó.Õ What’s good for [wh] is good for [plural] and [participant], too . ¢þ ¦.ó.ó Feature relativization in a feature-geometric approach ........... ¢¦ ¦.ó.ì Valuation in a feature-geometric approach .................. ¢É ¦.ó.¦ Summary ..................................... äó vi ¦.ì On the featural coarseness of clitic doubling ...................... äì ¦.¦ Applying Béjar & Rezac’s (óþþì) account to Kichean ................ äÉ ¦.¦.Õ e basic clause structure and derivation ................... äÉ ¦.¦.ó Licensing asymmetries in Kichean AF, and the AF person restriction .. ßÉ ¦.¢ Some alternative analyses, and their drawbacks .................... ¢ ¦.¢.Õ Multiple Agree .................................. ¢ ¦.¢.ó Feature percolation ............................... Éþ ¦.¢.ì A positional account ............................... Éó ¦.ä Absolutive agreement in regular transitives and intransitives ............ ɦ ¦.ä.Õ Intransitives .................................... ɦ ¦.ä.ó Transitives ..................................... Éä ¦.A Appendix: evidence from Tzotzil for the separability person and number in Mayan ............................................ Õþþ ¢ Derivational time-bombs: inadequate for deriving the obligatoriness of φ-agreement Õþ¢ ¢.Õ Failed number agreement in Kichean Agent-Focus .................. Õþä ¢.ó Failed person agreement in Kichean Agent-Focus .................. ÕÕä ¢.ì If not derivational time-bombs, then what? On obligatory operations and violable constraints ......................................... ÕÕÉ ¢.A Appendix: How did we get here? A historical interlude ............... Õóß ä Two more case studies in failed agreement ÕìÕ ä.Õ e conjoint/disjoint alternation and nominal augment morphology in Zulu . Õìó ä.Õ.Õ e conjoint/disjoint alternation ........................ Õìì ä.Õ.ó Nominal augment morphology ........................ Õì¢ ä.Õ.ì Halpert’s (óþÕó) analysis ............................ Õìß ä.Õ.¦ Tolerated failed agreement in the Zulu verb phrase ............. Õ¦þ ä.ó Basque unergatives .................................... Õ¦ì ä.ó.Õ e case for the implicit object conjecture .................. Õ¦¦ ä.ó.ó Tolerated failed agreement in Basque unergatives .............. Õ¢þ ä.ó.ì Summary ..................................... Õ¢¦ vii ß On ‘salience’ hierarchies and scales Õ¢ß ß.Õ Against ‘salience’ hierarchies/scales in the account of Kichean AF ........ Õ¢É ß.ó An argument from Zulu against ‘salience’ in Kichean AF .............. Õäó ß.ì Summary .......................................... Õäì Datives, defective intervention, and case-discrimination Õäß .Õ e inability of datives to value features on a φ-probe ................ ÕäÉ .ó e Dative Paradox: datives as ‘defective’ interveners ................ ÕßÕ .ì Existing treatments of the dative paradox ....................... Õߦ .ì.Õ e Activity Condition ............................. Õߦ .ì.ó Functional Shells ................................. Õß .ì.ì Case-discrimination ............................... Õä .ì.ì.Õ Bobaljik’s (óþþ) proposal ..................... Õß .ì.ì.ó Prospects for solving the dative paradox ............. ÕÉ¢ .¦ Intervention as failed agreement ............................ óþì .¢ Against a violable constraints alternative ........................ óóþ .ä Summary .......................................... óó¦ É Where’s φ? In syntax. óóß É.Õ e argument for morphological case and phi-agreement as post-syntactic operations .......................................... óìþ É.ó e missing evidence: Non-quirky-subject languages ................ óì¢ É.ì Case-competition in syntax ............................... óìÉ É.ì.Õ Case assignment in Sakha (Baker & Vinokurova óþÕþ, Levin & Preminger to appear) ......................... ó¦þ É.ì.Õ.Õ Accusative in Sakha as dependent case .............. ó¦Õ É.ì.Õ.ó Genitive and nominative in Sakha ................. ó¢þ É.ì.Õ.ì Sakha: A summary .......................... óäþ É.ì.ó A syntactic case calculus ............................ óäÕ É.¦ Summary .......................................... óäß É.A Appendix: case assignment and case-discrimination in the Kichean Agent-Focus construction ........................................ óäÉ viii Õþ Extensions & Outlook óߢ Õþ.Õ e logic of φ-agreement as an exemplar of syntactic computation ........ óßä Õþ.Õ.Õ Object Shi .................................... óßß Õþ.Õ.ó e Deniteness Eect ............................. óì Õþ.Õ.ì Long-distance wh-movement ......................... óÉÕ Õþ.ó Outlook: What is le for ‘uninterpretable features’? ................. óÉ Conclusion ìþß References ìÕÕ Acknowledgements is work was only made possible because a number of people lent sometimes staggering amounts of their own time to help me with it. First and foremost among these are Sabine Iatridou, David Pesetsky, and Norvin Richards. It is not an exaggeration to say this book would not have existed without them. Special thanks also go to Maria Polinsky, who meticulously read through an earlier version of this work and oered copious advice on both substance and organization that I found indispensable; and to Jessica Coon, whose infectious love of Mayan languages is what got me working on them in the rst place, and who has been a friend, collaborator, and inspiration to me in my own work. And thank you to the reviewers, who have challenged me and helped me rene and improve various aspects of the theory presented here. Various portions of this work have beneted greatly from discussions, emails exchanges, and hallway conversations over several years with Karlos Arregi, Andrew Nevins, and Milan Rezac, on issues of syntax and morphology (both in and outside of Basque). Robert Henderson, who has always been willing to give of his time and expertise, has been a great help on all things Mayan, and on Kichean in particular. ere remain a great many people who have, at some point or another, given comments, had discussions, or otherwise contributed to this work or its logical precursors. A non-exhaustive list includes Judith Aissen, Elena Anagnostopoulou, Rajesh Bhatt, Bronwyn Bjorkman, Sandy Chung, Jeroen van Craenenbroeck, Marcel Den Dikken, Ricardo Etxepare, Claire Halpert, Stephanie Harves, Itziar Laka, Idan Landau, Pedro Mateo Pedro, Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson, and Hedde Zeijlstra. x I owe special thanks to those who have shared data and judgments from their native languages with me: Ana López de Mateo (Kaqchikel); Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson (Icelandic); and Ricardo Etxepare, Aritz Irurtzun, and Itziar Laka (Basque). I would also like to thank those who have generously shared the results of their own eldwork, both data and analyses, with me: Robert Henderson (Kaqchikel, K’ichee’) and Claire Halpert (Zulu). And though they were not involved in this work directly, I feel I cannot but thank Tal Siloni and Julia Horvath, who I learned so much from, and whose inuence on me as a linguist pervades all of my work. is book is no exception. Finally, I would like to thank those who did not contribute directly to the scholarly side of this work, but without whom I cannot even fathom having completed it. Diesel Cafe (Somerville, MA) and Recess Coee (Syracuse, NY), where many of the keystrokes that went into these pages occurred, and who supported the eort with Lattes and just the right amount of background noise. My dear friend Lauren. Little Spike. And Gillian, who deserves the kind of thanks that I could not t into these paragraphs if I tried. Abbreviations Zf« absolutive Zhh accusative Zh± active voice Zoê adverbial Z Agent-Focus Z§ aorist Z£ antipassive Z§± article Z¶ augment Z¶ì auxiliary fu benefactive hZ¶« causative h clitic h classier h completive h conjoint oZ± dative ou demonstrative ou± determiner o« disjoint u§ ergative uêo evidential uìh exclusive uì£ expletive u feminine ¶± future u genitive Zf habitual xii £ imperfective h incompletive h inclusive h locative Z«h masculine nominative ñ nominalization f oblique £Z«ê passive £h particle £u§ perfect pl/£ plural £«« possessive £§u£ preposition £§u« present £§ê perfective £§± participle § relational noun «h small-clause sg/« singular Chapter Õ Introduction e central question investigated in this book is how the obligatory nature of predicate-argument agreement (henceforth, φ-agreement) is