(Morpho)syntactic Variation in Agreement: Specificational Copular Clauses Across Germanic

Abstract

In this paper we bring together the results of our research into agreement in copular clauses in four different Germanic languages-Dutch, German, Faroese, and Icelandic-in order to provide an overview of the results. These cases present a particularly interesting window into how verbal agreement operates, since there are two potential controllers of agreement, which may disagree in person and/or number (The source of the rumor BE the neighbors/you-sg/you-pl). We will show that there is variation at all levels in which nominal controls agreement: cross-linguistic, inter-speaker within a single language, and intra-speaker. We argue that our data support the following claims: (1) "Downward" agreement for person, as well as number, with a nominal that is not in the canonical subject position is possible and in some cases preferred; (2) The agreement patterns observed in Icelandic and Faroese support the hypothesis that in these languages there are distinct Number and Person heads; (3) "Downward" agreement from a high position in the left-periphery is a grammatically distinct phenomenon from agreement when the verb remains in a lower position in the clause; (4) In some languages and some configurations, speakers show a significant degree of indeterminacy in their judgments and production, suggesting that speakers use more than one grammar. We relate our findings to current discussions in the generative literature on subject agreement and in particular differences between number and person agreement, and possible connections to restrictions on object clitics; we also discuss questions that remain open, and invite new, cross-disciplinary research.

Person effects in agreement with Icelandic low nominatives: An experimental investigation

“…4.2.1, however, there is evidence that this cannot be the case. In fact, for the type of analysis proposed in Hartmann and Heycock (2016, 2019b there is an additional reason to reject the hypothesis that in these SCCs DP2 can remain in a position inaccessible to agreement.…”

“…In this case the assumption in (29a) would still hold. However, in Hartmann and Heycock (2016, 2019b it is argued that DP2 agreement in specificational copular clauses arises if/when DP1 moves directly to a position above the φ-probe, so that it never intervenes between the probe and DP2. DP1 agreement, on the other hand, arises if/when DP1 moves initially to a position between the φ-probe and DP2, as shown schematically in (34), assuming for the moment that the agreement probe is located in T:…”

Minority language maintenance and the production‐prescription interface: Number agreement in New York Yiddish

“…Number agreement is known to be variable in other non‐English Germanic languages, but studies have largely focused on the formal mechanisms of deriving agreement patterns rather than the quantitative constraints on inter‐ or intraspeaker variation (e.g., Hartmann & Heycock, 2020, p. 24). Goschler (2014) has claimed that in German, subjects always agree with verbs in person and number features unless they are made up of coordinated NPs.…”

Agree and the subjects of specificational clauses

“…What is the difference between systems like Persian, in which SSCs fail to agree, and those like English, where they agree like regular subjects? Recent years have seen renewed interest in this question (Heycock 2012, Bejar & Kahnemuyipour 2017, Shlonsky & Rizzi 2018, Den Dikken 2019, Keine et al 2019, Hartmann & Heycock 2020). SSC nonagreement is of interest because it challenges standard assumptions about agreement operations.…”