Arguments and Agreement

This book explores the role of agreement morphology in the morphosyntactic realization of a verb's arguments. It examines the differences and parallels between configurational and nonconfigurational languages, languages that allow pronoun drop only in particular constructions, and languages which always require overt syntactic determiner phrases as arguments. These and related issues are explored in the context of a wide range of languages. The book will interest linguists at graduate level and above concerned with morphosyntactic theory, typology, and the interactions of syntax and morphology in different languages.

This book brings together new work by leading syntactic theorists from the USA and Europe on a central aspect of syntactic and morphological theory: it explores the role of agreement morphology in the morphosyntactic realization of a verb's arguments. The authors examine the differences and parallels between nonconfigurational, pronominal- agreement languages; configurational languages which allow pronoun drop (for example, "Is coming" for "He is coming"); languages that allow pronoun drop in particular constructions only; and languages which always require overt syntactic determiner phrases as arguments. The book considers whether the morphological properties of agreement play a role in determining which of these types a language belongs to and how far languages differ with respect to the argumental status of their agreement and syntactic determiner phrases. The authors explore these and related issues and problems in the context of a wide range of languages. Their book will interest linguists at graduate level and above concerned with morphosyntactic theory, linguistic typology, and the interactions of syntax and morphology in different languages.

1 - The Role of Agreement in the Expression of Arguments
2 - Economy, Agreement, and the Representation of Null Arguments
3 - Deriving the Diference Between Full and Partial Pro Drop
4 - Agreement, Pro, and Imperatives
5 - Uniform and Non-Uniform Aspects of Pro-Drop Languages
6 - Assymetrical Pro Drop
7 - Agreement Phenomena in Sign Language of the Netherlands
8 - "Arbitrary" Pro and the Theory of Pro Drop
9 - The Pronominal Argument Parameter
10 - On Zero Agreement and Polysynthesis

Peter Ackema is Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Issues in Morphosyntax (John Benjamins, 1999) and co-author with Ad Neeleman of Beyond Morphology (OUP, 2004). Patrick Brandt is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Linguistics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University. Maaike Schoorlemmer is Assistant Professor at the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics. Fred Weerman is Professor of Dutch Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of The V2 Conspiracy (Foris, 1989) and co-author with Ad Neeleman of Flexible Syntax (Kluwer, 1999).