The Rich Agreement Hypothesis Rehabilitated

Abstract

The generalization that V-to-I movement is conditioned by rich subject agreement on the finite verb (the Rich Agreement Hypothesis) has long been taken to indicate a tight connection between syntax and morphology. Recently, the hypothesis has been questioned on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Here, we demonstrate that the empirical arguments against this hypothesis are incorrect and that it therefore must be rehabilitated in its strongest form. Theoretically, we argue that the correlation between syntax and morphology is not direct (morphology does not drive syntax) but follows from principles of language acquisition: only if language learners are confronted with particular morphological contrasts do they postulate the presence of corresponding formal features that in turn drive syntactic operations.

The Morphological Trigger of V-to-T: The Case of Old English

“…As a result, the general opinion in the literature appears to be on the side of Icelandic as V-to-T. The account proposed here of the V-to-T phenomenon is different from Bobaljik & Thráinsson (1998) and also, despite the contrasts between the two, from Koeneman & Zeijlstra (2014), but it shares with these works the analysis of Icelandic as a V-to-T language. In Section 5.2 I deal in general terms with the account provided by Bobaljik & Thráinsson (1998) and by Koeneman & Zeijlstra (2014).…”

“…C. Castillo 8 son (1998) or also Bobaljik (2002) are in the former group, whereas Koeneman & Zeijlstra (2014) are to be found in the latter. At the centre of the controversy is not only what is understood by rich morphology but also, as noted above, the position that is adopted as regards the diagnostic tests employed to detect or verify V-to-T.…”

“…Bentzen et al (2007a, b), Wiklund et al (2007), and other references cited in Thráinsson (2010) or in Wood (2015: 39), both of whom actually criticise such a view, and see also Biberauer & Roberts (2005). Indeed, Thráinsson (2010) and prior to this Bobaljik & Thráinsson (1998), and also the more recent Koeneman & Zeijlstra (2014), which come to account for the V-to-T phenomenon from a different perspective than rich agreement morphology in the sense of the bare number of person/number morphemes relative to the number of persons, do use Icelandic as a case study of a V-to-T language. As a result, the general opinion in the literature appears to be on the side of Icelandic as V-to-T.…”

“…The RAH has not thus far nevertheless appeared to make precise the proper formulation of richness relative to V-to-T, and it has come to be criticised both on the grounds that there are languages with rich verbal morphology that appear to be V-in situ languages and on the grounds that there are languages with scarce verbal morphology that exhibit V-to-T movement. It must also be noted that accounting for the trigger of V-to-T movement is further complicated by the lack of consensus on the use of diagnostic tests in order to acknowledge a given language as V-to-T or V-in situ, as can be easily inferred among others from the works of Thráinsson (2010) or Koeneman & Zeijlstra (2014): such diagnostic tests are typically the ones postulated mainly since Pollock (1989), namely, the placement of negation or also of medial adverbs like always or often. Thus, the order V-Neg or V-Adv would arguably indicate that V-to-T movement has applied, whereas Neg-V or Adv-V would indicate just the opposite.…”

A Minimalist-Based Approach to Phrasal Verb Movement in North Hail Arabic

“…An intuitive conclusion thus far is that L-verb movement to Tº in overt syntax is restricted in the sense that Tº demands it or not. Put another way, L-verb movement is not self-driven but forced independently by morphological needs of Tº (see, Bobaljik, 2000;Koeneman & Zeijlstra, 2014). Using the Minimalist terms, L-verb movement to Tº is not triggered by Greed but rather self-enlightened (see Lasnik, 1995).…”