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Polite Plurals and Adjective Agreement
Stephen Wechsler and Hyun-Jong Hahm
University of Texas at Austin
{wechsler, hahm}@mail.utexas.edu
1
Introduction: syntactic and semantic agreement
When an agreement controller such as a subject NP is a hybrid of contrasting syntactic
and semantic features, the choice of syntactic versus semantic agreement depends in
systematic ways on the type of agreement target (Corbett, 1979).1 Attributive modifiers
are the most likely to show syntactic agreement, pronouns are the most likely to show
semantic agreement and predicates lie in between:
(1)
The Agreement Hierarchy
attributive > predicate > relative pronoun > personal pronoun
For any controller that permits alternative agreements, as we move rightwards
along the Agreement Hierarchy, the likelihood of agreement with greater
semantic justification will increase monotonically (that is, with no intervening
decrease). (Corbett 2006:207)
1
We wish to thank Rajka Smiljanić, Larisa Zlatić, and an anonymous reviewer for help
with the Serbian/Croatian data, Alexandra Teodorescu for help with the Romanian data,
and the editors and reviewers for their very helpful comments.
Among the different part-of-speech categories of predicates, the following Predicate
Hierarchy emerges (Comrie, 1975; Corbett, 2006).
(2)
The Predicate Hierarchy
verb
> participle > adjective > noun
←syntactic agreement semantic agreement→
Corbett combined the two hierarchies as in (3), where ‘the claim for the monotonic
increase in semantic agreement then applies to each link of the combined hierarchies.’
(Corbett 2006, 233).
(3)
The Agreement and Predicate Hierarchies (Corbett 2006, 233)
noun
adjective
participle
attributive
predicate
verb
relative
pronoun
personal
pronoun
According to this combined hierarchy, attributive modifiers are more likely to show
syntactic agreement than verbs are, and verbs more so than participles, participles more
than predicate adjectives, and predicate adjectives more than predicate nouns.2
2
The combined hierarchy does not indicate a relative ranking between the non-verb
predicates (participle, adjective, noun) on the one hand, and the pronouns on the other.
2
This paper investigates one piece of the vast, fascinating puzzle of how and why
languages alternate between syntactic versus semantic agreement. We focus primarily on
number agreement, albeit with some mention of gender and person as well. We focus
primarily on two target types, namely verbs and adjectives; and on two trigger types,
namely polite second person plural pronouns and hybrid common nouns such as pluralia
tantum and singularia tantum nouns for which the notional and syntactic number features
differ. We consider a relatively small sample of languages with polite second person
plural pronouns, all of them in the Romance and Slavonic families. So our goal in this
paper is not complete typological coverage but rather to put forth a theoretical proposal
regarding syntactic and semantic agreement, and motivate that proposal on the basis of
complex data from a relatively restricted domain. Testing that proposal against more
languages, and more types of trigger and target, will be a task for future research.
Adjectives have an interesting status in the hierarchies above, because they can be
used both attributively and predicatively. Note that attributives appear at the extreme
‘syntactic agreement’ edge of the combined hierarchy in (3), while predicate adjectives
appear on the other side of the finite and participial verbs. In this paper we suggest that
all adjectives belong to the left of the verbs. Adjectives are more likely than verbs to
show syntactic agreement, as long as the controller is marked for the syntactic agreement
feature to which the adjective is sensitive. When the controller lacks the feature in
Corbett (2006, 233) notes that it would be wrong to lump all predicates types in the same
place relative to other items in the Agreement Hierarchy, since, for example, noun
predicates show semantically justified forms to a greater degree than relative pronouns.
3
question, then the target adjective defaults to the semantically justified form, a
phenomenon that we suggest follows from a general principle of agreement that we call
the Agreement Marking Principle.
Many examples of putative hybrid agreement
controllers (that is, subject NPs and other controllers that are hybrids of contrasting
syntactic and semantic features) should more properly be analyzed as lacking the
syntactic feature to which an adjectival agreement target is sensitive.
Hence, by the
Agreement Marking Principle, the adjective feature receives its semantic interpretation.
In particular, we claim that a polite plural pronoun (e.g. French vous ‘you’) lacks the
number feature to which adjective targets are sensitive, while a pluralia tantum common
noun (e.g. French ciseaux ‘scissors’) has the (plural) number feature to which adjective
targets are sensitive. The adjective is always a potential syntactic agreement target, but
agreement fails when the trigger lacks the feature, and that failure results in the semantic
interpretation of the adjective’s feature.
2
Hybrid pronouns versus hybrid nouns in mixed agreement languages
Agreement depends on the internal properties of the trigger. Pronoun triggers
differ from common noun triggers: predicate adjectives tend to show semantic agreement
with pronouns but syntactic agreement with common nouns. This pattern is found in
many languages, of which a few will be illustrated in this section.
We start with pronouns. Consider honorific second person pronouns in languages
where the use of such a pronoun to refer to one addressee triggers singular on a predicate
adjective but plural on the verb, as in the French example (4a).
4
(4)
French
a. Vous
you.PL
êtes
loyal.
be.2PL
loyal.M.SG
‘You (one formal male addressee) are loyal.’
b. Vous
you.PL
êtes
loyaux.
be.2PL
loyal.PL
‘You (multiple addressees) are loyal.’
With multiple addressees, the plural adjective loyaux ‘loyal.PL’ is used (4b). Hence the
adjective number indicates semantic cardinality of the subject denotation, which will be
called semantic agreement for convenience (see Section 3.1 below). 3
The verb,
meanwhile, is invariably plural. Languages exhibiting this split between verbs and
predicate adjectives with polite plural triggers will be called mixed agreement languages.
The mixed agreement languages discussed in this paper are French, Czech, Russian, and
Romanian.
3
Actually the second person plural can be used not just for multiple addressees, but also
for reference to a group that includes one addressee. However, phrases like ‘multiple
addressees’ will be used for simplicity in this paper.
5
Languages where polite plurals trigger plural agreement on both verbs and
predicate adjectives will be called uniform agreement languages. An example of a
uniform agreement language is Serbian/Croatian:4
(5)
Serbian/Croatian (Comrie 1975; Corbett 1983; Hahm 2006a)
Vi
ste
you.PL AUX.2PL
duhovit-i.
funny-M.PL
‘You (one formal addressee / multiple addressees) are funny.’
Uniform agreement languages are discussed in Section 4 below, with special reference to
Serbian/Croatian. The data presented in the remainder of this section of the paper
(Section 2) are from mixed agreement languages.
The mixed agreement pattern, in which a polite plural pronoun referring to a
single addressee appears with a plural finite verb but requires (or strongly favors; see
below) a singular predicate adjective, was documented for Czech, French, Italian,
Romanian, and Modern Greek by Comrie (1975, 410). Greville Corbett investigated this
issue for all the Slavonic languages, and found this mixed agreement pattern to be
favored in Macedonian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Ukranian, Belarusian,
and Russian (long form adjectives) (Corbett 1983, 56ff; 2000, 193-4; 2006, 230-2). On
4
Some Serbian/Croatian dialects accept a singular adjective (Corbett 1983, 49; Comrie
1975, 407). See Section 3.5 below for discussion. Also, our informants indicated that
they would use a feminine plural adjective for multiple female addressees.
6
the other hand, other languages studied by Comrie and Corbett showed uniform
agreement with polite plurals, that is, plural on both verbs and predicate adjectives.
Uniform agreement Slavonic languages included Serbian/Croatian, Slovene, and Russian
(short form adjectives). As noted above, this section of the paper focuses on data from
mixed agreement, while uniform agreement is discussed in Section 5.
It should be noted that variation in the data is common. Certain south-eastern
dialects of Polish, described by both authors, show number variation on both verbs and
adjectives when the subject is honorific wy ‘you’, and interestingly the variation
conforms to the Predicate Hierarchy, that is, we find all combinations except a singular
verb cooccurring with a plural adjective (Makarski 1973, cited in Comrie 1975 and
Corbett 1983, 46). Even in languages with more stable agreement patterns, the corpus
data cited by Corbett indicate that the patterns of predicate adjective agreement with
polite plurals described here are probably statistically significant but not always
categorical. For example, in a corpus study of Bulgarian polite plural triggers, the
predicate adjective appeared in singular 97% of the time (N = 163) (Dončeva-Mareva
1978, cited in Corbett 1983, 47-8). A meta-study of Russian corpora by Corbett found
the long form adjectives in singular 89% of the time (N = 37) (Corbett 1983, 53).
Nonetheless in this paper we will model these phenomena using a traditional discrete
formal grammar. Gradient or variable linguistic data of this kind have been modeled by
running probabilities over the elements of a discrete formal grammar, since ‘soft
probabilistic modeling can be done over rule systems and/or symbolic structures.’
(Manning 2003, 309).
‘Any probabilistic method is quantitative, and the actual
probabilities are continuous quantities, but most work using probabilities in syntax, and
7
in particular the large amount of related work in statistical NLP, has put probabilities
over discrete structures and values, of the kind familiar from traditional linguistics.’
(Manning 2003, 313)
In this paper we follow the traditional linguistic practice of
specifying rules systems and discrete symbolic structures, effectively idealizing to
categoricity while putting aside the probabilistic treatment of variable data. Statistical
variation in the data, where it is known, will be noted in footnotes.
French vous ‘you’ when used for a single addressee as in (4), is notionally
singular but grammatically plural. The same is true of a French pluralia tantum noun like
ciseaux ‘scissors’: when used for a single pair of scissors it is notionally singular but
grammatically plural. Yet in contrast to vous, pluralia tantum nouns always trigger plural
on the predicate adjective:
(6)
French (Wechsler 2004)
Ces
ciseaux
sont
géniaux!
(*génial!)
these.PL
scissors(PL)
are.PL
brilliant.M.PL (*brilliant.M.SG)
‘These scissors are cool!’
Thus accounting for the adjective in (4) above, where the trigger is a polite pronoun, is
not simply a matter of specifying the French predicate adjective for ‘semantic
agreement.’ It also depends on the type of subject trigger. This contrast between polite
plural pronouns and pluralia tantum common nouns is found in the other mixed
agreement languages that we have investigated, including Czech, Russian, and
Romanian.
8
Like French vous, the Czech polite plural vy determines the plural form on finite
verbs, but semantic agreement on predicate adjectives, as shown in (7). But the pluralia
tantum brýle ‘glasses’ takes plural on both verbal and adjectival targets, as shown in (8).
(7)
Czech (Comrie 1975; Corbett 1983; Hahm 2006a)
a. Vy
2PL
jste
čestný.
be.2PL
honest.M.SG
‘You (one formal male addressee) are honest.’
b. Vy
2PL
jste
čestní.
be.2PL
honest.M.PL
‘You (multiple addressees, not all female) are honest.’
c. Vy
2PL
jste
čestne.
be.2PL
honest.F.PL
‘You (multiple female addressees) are honest.’
(8)
Tyto
brýle
jsou
hezké
/
*hezká.
these
glasses.PL
be.PL
nice.F.PL / nice.SG
‘These glasses (one or multiple pairs) are nice.’
So Czech illustrates the same contrast between polite pronouns and common nouns as
triggers.
Russian adjectives appear in two forms, Long Form (LF) and Short Form (SF),
which differ in agreement behavior with polite plural Vy ‘you’. Based on a corpus
9
meta-study of subject Vy ‘you’ intended for one addressee, Corbett (1983; 2000, 194)
reports singular on LF adjectives 89% of the time (N = 37), as noted above, while SF
adjectives appear in plural 97% of the time (N = 145). The finite verb appears in plural.
Example (9) illustrates the LF adjective’s semantic agreement with Vy.
(9)
Russian long form adjectives. (Hahm 2006b; Hahm and Wechsler 2007; Corbett
1983; Corbett 2004)
a. Vy
2PL
byli / *byl
sčastlivyj
be.PST.PL/M.SG
happy.LF.NOM.M.SG
‘You (one formal male addressee) were happy.’
b. Vy
2PL
byli / *byl
sčastlivaja
be.PST.PL/M.SG
happy.LF.NOM.F.SG
‘You (one formal female addressee) were happy.’
c. Vy
2PL
byli / *byl
sčastlivyje
be.PST.PL/M.SG
happy.LF.NOM.PL
‘You (more than one addressee) were happy.’
In contrast, the pluralia tantum in (10) determines invariant plural on both the verb and
adjective.
(10)
Èti
otčki
krasivye
/ *krasivyj
these
glasses.PL
beautiful.LF.NOM.PL / *LF.NOM.M.SG
‘These glasses (one or more than one pair) are beautiful.’
10
Like French and Czech adjectives, Russian long form adjectives also illustrate the
contrast between pronoun and common noun triggers.
Romanian provides another example. With the Romanian polite second person
pronoun dumneavoastra as subject, the predicative adjective can be singular (as in (11a))
or plural. When it is plural the polite pronoun dumneavoastra refers to multiple formal
addressees (Avram 1986). Examples (11b,c), taken from the internet, illustrate singular
and plural adjectives, respectively (Alexandra Teodorescu, p.c.).
(11)
Romanian (Hahm 2006a)
a. Dumneavoastră
2.POLITE
sînteţi
bun
be.2PL
good.M.SG
‘You (one formal addressee) are good.’
b. Când
when
si
clientul
dumneavoastră
este
mulţumit
client.DEF
2.POLITE
be.SG
satisfied.SG
dumneavoastră sunteţi
and 2.POLITE.NOM
be.2PL
mulţumit.
satisfied.SG
‘When your client is satisfied, you (one formal addressee) too are satisfied.’
11
c. Noi
we
suntem mulţumiti numai cand
dumneavoastră
be.PL
2.POLITE.NOM
satisfied.PL only
sunteţi
mulţumiţi.
be.PL
satisfied.PL
when
‘We are satisfied only when you (multiple formal addressees) are satisfied.’
In (11b) the adjective mulţumit ‘satisfied.SG’ appears in singular, indicating one
addressee, while in (11c) it appears in plural, indicating more than one addressee. As in
the other languages, in Romanian the plural form of the adjective is used with a pluralia
tantum noun like ochelarii ‘glasses’:
(12)
Ochelari-i
tai
sunt
glasses-DEF.M.PL
your.M.PL be.3PL
draguti.
pretty.M.PL
‘Your glasses (one/more than one pair) are pretty.’
Summarizing the data from French, Czech, Russian, and Romanian: In all of these mixed
agreement languages, pluralia tantum common nouns trigger plural on adjectives as well
as verbs. Polite plural pronouns, meanwhile, trigger plural on a verb but semantic
agreement on an adjective. In fact, we are unaware of a single attested mixed agreement
language where a notionally singular but grammatically plural common noun behaves
like the polite plural pronouns, triggering plural on a verb but the semantically justified
12
form on a predicate adjective. In sum, hybrid common nouns (such as pluralia tantum
nouns) systematically contrast with hybrid pronouns (such as polite second person plural
pronouns) in mixed agreement languages.
It is occasionally suggested that pluralia tantum nouns like scissors, pants and
glasses are notionally plural, not singular, even when referring to a single item: perhaps
they are duals, referring to the two blades of the scissors, the two legs of the pants, or the
two lenses of the eyeglasses. Indeed, the classification of such nouns is not entirely
arbitrary, in the sense that the denotation is typically related in some way to the semantic
notion of plurality. English nouns like scissors and pants are inherent grammatical duals
in the sense that they use the count classifier pair, as in a pair of scissors/pants/glasses
(Copestake 1992; Copestake 1995), and they have a bipartite physical structure consisting
of two legs, blades, or lenses. But one blade of a pair of scissors is not called a scissor,
nor is a pant leg referred to as a pant (*I got a mustard stain on my left pant), and
moreover, not every noun with similar meaning is a pluralia tantum noun, e.g. brassiere
and underwear also have a bipartite structure but the former is an ordinary count noun,
the latter a mass noun. Moreover, most pluralia tantum nouns are morphologically plural
as well, bearing the plural -s suffix in English. The lexical classification of such nouns as
inherently plural may have a semantic motivation, but it seems clear that the formal
grammar of agreement must be directly sensitive to the plural feature and not necessarily
sensitive to the semantic motivation for that feature.
For the purpose of investigating predicate agreement, there is an even more
important reason for treating such plurals as notionally singular when used to refer to a
single pair of glasses, etc. The number feature of a predicate nominal correlates strongly
13
with the notional number of its subject (Comrie 1975, 410; Corbett 2006, 233). For
example, in the following Russian example the predicate nominal appears in singular or
plural depending on whether the subject refers to one pair of glasses (as in 13a) or more
than one pair (as in 13b).
(13)
Russian
a. Èti
očki
these glasses
special'nyj
instrument
special.SG
tool.SG
čtoby
smotret'
so.that
to.watch
fil'm
film
‘These glasses (one pair) are a special tool to watch a (e.g. IMAX) movie.’
b. Èti
očki
these glasses
special'nye
instrumenty čtoby
special.PL
tool.PL
smotret'
fil'm
so.that to.watch film
‘These glasses (more than one pair) are special tools to watch a movie.’
If očki ‘glasses’ were always notionally plural then the contrast between the singular
predicate nominal in (13a) and the plural in (13b) would be mysterious. The singular
form could be explained neither as syntactic agreement (since očki ‘glasses’ is
syntactically plural) nor as semantic agreement (since, by assumption, očki ‘glasses’
would be semantically plural). But if očki ‘glasses’ is notionally singular when referring
to a single pair of glasses then these facts follow straightforwardly.
More generally, as indicated in the Predicate Hierarchy (2 and 3 above), predicate
nominals strongly favor semantically justified number values, regardless of the trigger
type. Russian polite plurals are an example:
14
(14)
Russian
a. Vy
you.PL
byli
geroem.
be.PST.PL
hero.INST.SG
‘You (one formal addressee) were a hero.’
b. Vy
you.PL
byli
gerojami.
be.PST.PL
hero.INST.PL
‘You (multiple addressees) were heroes.’
Indeed, predicate nominals favor number forms that reflect the semantics of their subject
noun phrases, even in languages where all other predicates show syntactic agreement
(Comrie 1975, 410; Corbett 2006, 233). Comrie’s (1975) study of polite plural triggers
with single addressees found singular NP predicates in all the languages he considered.
Even in the uniform agreement language Serbian/Croatian, ‘only noun phrases are
singular with the polite plural, while verbs, participles, and adjectives are plural’ (Comrie
1975, 407-8; examples 9-10). That is the basis for placing nouns at the far right edge of
the Predicate Hierarchy in (2).
Comrie and Corbett resist the hasty conclusion that predicate nominals are
universally prohibited from showing true agreement: ‘A stronger claim than that made
here would be that noun phrases are never assigned number by predicate agreement, but
always in accordance with their real-world number. However, there is evidence that this
stronger claim is incorrect, i.e. that the possibility of assigning number to noun phrases
by predicate agreement must be allowed by the theory of universal grammar.’ (Comrie
1975, 410) Comrie cites as exception certain Hungarian numeral phrases. Similarly,
15
Corbett (2006, 233) stops short of ‘excluding the predicate nominal as being totally
determined by the semantics’, noting ‘rare examples which show that it is potentially an
agreement target’ (see Corbett 2006, 233 for references).
In any case, as noted already, the singular number on a predicate nominal with a
pluralia tantum subject, such as special'nyj instrument ‘special instrument’ in (13a), must
reflect the notional number of the subject. It cannot be explained as syntactic agreement
since the subject is syntactically plural. This confirms the assumption that such pluralia
tantum nouns can be semantically singular but syntactically plural, just like polite plurals.
This reinforces the legitimacy of the central question addressed in the following section:
why pluralia tantum common nouns and polite plural pronouns differ in the agreement
features that they trigger on adjectives in mixed agreement languages.
Summarizing the data presented so far, we have looked at four languages showing
mixed agreement with polite plural pronouns, namely syntactic agreement (plural) on
verbs but the semantically justified form (singular, if there is only one addressee) on
adjectives. We showed that in those languages, pluralia tantum common nouns trigger
syntactic agreement (plural) on both verbal and adjectival predicates. Table I presents a
summary of the data above:
16
Table I. Agreement on selected targets for 2nd person polite plural and pluralia tantum
triggers in selected mixed agreement languages (French, Czech, Russian, Romanian).
target→
trigger↓
polite 2PL pronoun
ex. French vous
‘you.PL’
hybrid common
noun
ex. French ciseaux
‘scissors’
finite verb
predicate adjective
PL
semantic
PL
PL
Notes: ‘Polite 2PL pronoun’ refers to a grammatically plural pronoun used for polite
(formal, honorific) address. ‘Hybrid common noun’ refers to a common noun that is
grammatically plural but notionally singular.
Table I shows the agreement pattern of a mixed agreement language. In a uniform
agreement language, the upper right cell would be ‘PL’ instead of ‘semantic’.
Let us focus now on that upper right cell, representing the semantic agreement
observed in a mixed agreement language when the trigger is a polite plural pronoun and
the target is a predicate adjective. Looking along each of the three dimensions, that
semantic agreement contrasts with (i) the syntactic agreement found with common noun
triggers (the vertical dimension); (ii) the syntactic agreement found with verbal targets
(the horizontal dimension); and (iii) the syntactic agreement found in uniform agreement
languages (the cross-linguistic dimension).
addressed in turn in the remainder of this paper:
17
This raises three questions, which are
(15)
a. Question 1. Consider the right-most column of Table I. Why do polite plural
pronouns and pluralia tantum common nouns, respectively, differ systematically
in the agreement features that they trigger on predicate adjectives? (§3)
b. Question 2. Consider the first row of Table I. Why do finite verbs and
predicate adjectives, respectively, differ systematically in the agreement features
they register when the trigger is a polite plural pronoun? (§4)
c. Question 3.
Table I represents mixed agreement languages; in uniform
agreement languages, the upper right cell would be replaced by ‘PL’. What
crucial distinction between the grammars of these two types of language is
responsible for that observed difference in the agreement adjectives show when
the trigger is a polite plural pronoun? (§5)
Questions 1, 2, and 3 are addressed below in Sections 3, 4, and 5, respectively.
3
Predicate adjective agreement across different triggers
Question 1 specifically concerns predicate adjectives: Why do polite pronouns
and pluralia tantum common nouns in mixed agreement languages differ systematically
in the agreement features that they trigger on predicate adjectives? Because of the
complexity of the phenomena under consideration here, this section (§3) focuses on
predicate adjectives to the exclusion of other target types. We beg the reader’s patience
18
in postponing all consideration of agreement by verbs and other targets until subsequent
sections.
3.1
Semantic and syntactic agreement
Let us consider in more general terms the nature of syntactic and semantic
agreement, and the conditions that give rise to them. Syntactic agreement, first of all,
arises when the trigger is grammatically marked for a feature to which the target is
sensitive. Suppose the English noun clothes bears the feature [NUM pl] (for NUMber
plural) while the noun clothing bears the feature [NUM sg]. Determiner-noun agreement
is observed in the following examples because the demonstrative determiner (this/these)
is sensitive to the NUM feature of the common noun that it introduces.
(16)
a. These(/*This) clothes are(/*is) dirty.
b. This(/*These) clothing is(/*are) dirty.
The finite verb (is/are) is sensitive to the NUM feature of its NP subject. In the example
above, the NP subject is marked with the NUM feature because that feature is projected
from the head noun:
(17)
NP[pl]
Det
|
these
N[pl]
|
clothes
[NUM pl]
19
When the subject NP in English is a normal endocentric (i.e. headed) nominal, and its
head is a noun marked with a number feature, then the result is normally syntactic
agreement on the finite verb.5 Thus there are two prerequisites for syntactic agreement in
this case: (i) the head noun of the trigger must be marked for the feature to which the
target is sensitive; and (ii) that feature must project from that head noun to the NP node.
As understood here, so-called semantic agreement is really a side-effect of
semantic composition. The agreement trigger and target specify semantic information
about a single referent and so that information must be mutually consistent.6 Semantic
agreement is our name for situations in which the agreement feature of the target receives
its semantic interpretation, and that interpretation is applied to the denotation of the
trigger. That semantic content is latent in the target but can be blocked when the
grammar forces syntactic agreement, as it does in (16) above, because in those contexts
the process of syntactic agreement provides speakers and hearers with an alternative
grammatical explanation for the presence of the target feature. The plural features of the
targets these and are in (16a) are grammatically justified on the basis of the formal
[NUM pl] feature of the trigger clothes. So those plural features of the targets are not
semantically interpreted. On the other hand, in grammatical contexts where the grammar
of syntactic agreement fails to force syntactic agreement, then there is no alternative
syntactic explanation for the presence of those target features.
As a consequence,
5
An exception, complex NPs, is discussed below.
6
Wechsler and Zlatić (2000, 2003) call this type pragmatic agreement.
20
semantic agreement arises, that is, the semantic interpretation of the target feature is
applied to the denotation of the trigger.
There are various situations where the grammar of syntactic agreement fails to
force syntactic agreement onto the target. This situation arises in the absence of either
one of the two previously mentioned prerequisites for syntactic agreement: (i) the head
noun of the trigger must be marked for the feature to which the target is sensitive; and (ii)
that feature must project from that head noun to the NP node. An example of an NP that
fails to meet condition (i) is the sheep in (18a). An example of an NP that fails to meet
condition (ii) is the coordinate NP in (18b). A coordinate NP lacks a unique head noun,
so unless the language has a special syntactic agreement mechanism for coordinate NPs,
or a coordinate stucture resolution mechanism to project a feature to the coordinate NP
node (see below), such an NP fails to meet condition (ii): the feature does not project
from the head noun to the NP node. Consequently the number on the verb receives its
semantic interpretation (Farkas and Zec, 1995; King and Dalrymple, 2004; Wechsler,
2004; 2008; to appear).
(18)
a. The sheep is / are grazing. (is: 1 sheep / are: more than 1 sheep)
b. His lifelong companion and the editor of his autobiography is / are at his
bedside.
(is: 1 person / are: 2 people)
The conjoined subject in example (18b) refers to a single individual when the singular
verb is used: the companion is the editor. On the other hand, it refers to two different
individuals when the plural verb is used.
21
Why does the verb’s number feature receive its semantic interpretation in (18),
but not in (16)? As noted already regarding the subject NPs in (16), the grammar of
English has a mechanism for projecting the syntactic number value from the head nouns
(clothes, clothing) up to the subject NP node. But no such syntactic number value exists
for sheep in (18a), and no such mechanism exists for projecting a syntactic number
feature to the coordinate NP node in (18b). The singular nouns companion and editor
each bear the feature [NUM sg], and that feature is projected up to each respective
conjunct NP, as shown in (19). But the higher NP node for the subject as a whole
remains unmarked for NUM because no rule of English grammar exists for projecting the
NUM feature from a conjunct to the coordinate NP:
(19)
NP
NP[sg]
conj
NP[sg]
his lifelong companion[sg]
and
the editor[sg] of his autobiography
The target verb fails to find any [NUM] feature on its subject, and so the verb’s number
feature is semantically interpreted, resulting in the facts observed above.
This proposal leads us to expect syntactic agreement in situations where the
grammar of a language includes a mechanism for projecting a syntactic feature to the
coordinate NP node.
Such may be the case, for example, in grammatical gender
agreement when a gender resolution rules applies to a coordinate NP (Corbett 1991, ch.
9; Wechsler 2008a).
Syntactic agreement is also possible if the agreement mechanism
itself distributes over the conjuncts, as is very common for determiner agreement with
22
coordinate nouns in many languages, including English: this [boy and girl]; these
[glasses and binoculars] (King and Dalrymple 2004).
A third source of syntactic
agreement with a coordinate structure is single conjunct agreement, where the target
looks at only one of the conjuncts (usually the closest one) and ignores the others
(Corbett 2006, 168-170; Johannessen 1998; Badecker 2007; Kuhn et al. 2007). But in the
absence of any such syntactic mechanism, the target phi feature is semantically applied to
the denotation of a coordinate NP trigger.
Subject verb phrases and infinitivals also lack heads with number features,
leading to semantic interpretation of the target number:7
(20)
a. To err is human, to forgive divine. (Alexander Pope).
b. To err and (to) forgive are equally/both human.
c. To start a war and (to) blame the enemy is hypocritical.
d. To eat your cake and (to) have it is not possible.
Conjoined verb phrases trigger plural agreement when the predicate is ‘distributive’ as in
(20b), that is, when the meaning distributes over the individual conjuncts of the subject so
that, for example, (20b) entails that ‘to err is human’ and that ‘to forgive is human’. But
a non-distributive predicate as in (20c) does not allow a plural verb under the intended
7
This discussion is taken from Wechsler (2008b). The idea of using the word equally to
force plural agreement with a clausal or infinitival subject as in (20b) is borrowed from
McCloskey (1991).
23
interpretation: (20c) does not entail that ‘to start a war is hypocritical’, nor that ‘to blame
the enemy is hypocritical’. Instead, hypocrisy is attributed precisely to the conjunction of
the two. The semantics of number is a complex area (Chierchia 1998; Krifka 1995; Link
1983, inter alia). But the point is simply that the syntax of the subjects in (20a-d) is
essentially the same: a conjoined infinitive verb phrase. These subjects do not seem to
differ appreciably in grammatical form.
Apparently it is the meaning that determines
verb agreement.
Summarizing the logic of the above account, the following informally stated
principle is operative in determining the variation between syntactic and semantic
agreement:
(21)
Agreement Marking Principle.
An agreement target checks the trigger for a syntactic phi feature, assigning that
feature’s semantic interpretation to the trigger denotation if no syntactic feature is
found.
This principle indicates what will happen when a target that is marked for a feature fails
to ‘find’ that formal feature in the trigger: the target feature gets interpreted semantically.
As explained above, the internal structure of the trigger NP determines whether that
feature exists at all and if so, whether it is accessible to the target (whether it can be
‘found’).
To recapitulate: Example (16) is a clear case in which the target finds a formal
number feature on the trigger, projected to the NP node from the head noun, whether
24
plural for clothes or singular for clothing. So we get syntactic agreement. The triggers in
examples (18a) and (20) lack number features entirely, and that of (18b) lacks the right
structure to project a feature to the nominal’s maximal projection, since it lacks a unique
head noun. In (20) the trigger lacks the relevant feature entirely. These latter cases do
not meet the necessary conditions for syntactic agreement, and so as a consequence the
target number is semantically potent.
Other trigger structures are not as clear-cut. For example, in a long-noted set of
cases, an English complex NP with a structure such as [Det N of NP] fails to trigger the
syntactic agreement feature of its head noun, showing semantic agreement instead
(Corbett 2006, 222-3).
To take a single case, in (22a) the vegetables have the
‘availability’ property, while in (22b) it is the variety that is ‘good for you’. The problem
is that the singular noun variety is apparently the syntactic head in both cases.
(22)
a. A variety of fresh vegetables are available.
b. A variety of fresh vegetables is good for you.
This raises the question of why the target verb in (22a) fails to ‘find’ the singular number
feature on the noun variety. Perhaps such nouns are too weak semantically to force the
number feature to project to the NP, behaving instead like classifiers or quantifiers (cp. a
number of, a set of, a lot of, and so on).8 The particular solution to this problem is not
8
Semantically ‘weak’ classifier-like head nouns are often indefinite. Cp. *The variety of
fresh vegetables were available. vs. The variety of fresh vegetables was impressive. Or:
25
crucial; any analysis that has the effect of blocking the projection of the syntactic number
feature up to the NP node will suffice. For an analysis of a similar problem with
Serbian/Croatian quantified noun phrases, see Wechsler and Zlatić (2003, 121ff).
The Agreement Marking Principle can be formalized using the Lexical Functional
Grammar formalism by specifying target forms disjunctively as either (i) checking for
and finding a formal feature in the trigger, or (ii) contributing the semantic content of the
agreement feature to the interpretation (Wechsler, 2004; 2005; 2008). Feature checking
is captured with LFG constraining equations (notated =c), and semantic contribution is
shown by the projection function σ from f-structure to semantic structure.9
Lexical
entries for the English verb forms is and are are given in (23):
(23)
LFG lexical entries
a. is,
V: (↑SUBJ NUM) =c SG ∨
[¬aggregate((↑SUBJ)σ) ∧ ¬(↑SUBJ NUM)]
The number of students at the party was very high. (a high number) vs. A number of
students at the party were very high. (high students).
9
This notation is simplified and slightly non-standard. The expression (↑SUBJ)σ refers
to the semantic denotation of (the f-structure corresponding to) the subject; call that
denotation x. Then ‘aggregate((↑SUBJ)σ)’, for example, indicates that x has the semantic
property aggregate.
See Dalrymple (2001) for a rigorous formulation of LFG
compositional semantics.
26
b. are,
V: (↑SUBJ NUM) =c PL ∨
[aggregate( (↑SUBJ)σ) ∧ ¬(↑SUBJ NUM)]
In prose, the second equation, for example, says that the plural verb form are must satisfy
one of the following conditions: (i) its subject provides a [NUM PL] formal feature; or
(ii) its subject fails to provide such a feature, but has ‘aggregate’ semantics, that is, the
cardinality is greater than one. The singular form is parallel but with singular instead of
plural; note that the semantics of is ([¬aggregate]) indicates only that it lacks ‘aggregate’
semantics, hence it is semantically unmarked (and could be a singular term or a mass).
This formalization is provided for concreteness, but could be replaced by a more
explanatory account under a theory of markedness such as Optimality Theory (see
Wechsler, 2005).
3.2
Pronouns and common noun phrases as triggers
As applied to number agreement, the upshot of the previous section is that
whenever the NP trigger lacks a formal NUM feature, then this forces a semantic
interpretation of the number morphology marked on the agreement target. Now we are
ready to address Question 1 from the end of Section 2 above, repeated here:
(24)
Question 1. Consider the right-most column of Table I. Why do polite plural
pronouns and pluralia tantum common nouns, respectively, differ systematically
in the agreement features that they trigger on predicate adjectives?
27
Keep in mind that this section deals only with adjective agreement; verb agreement is
postponed until Section 4 below. For now, let [NUM] (for NUMber) represent the
number feature of noun triggers to which adjectives and determiners are sensitive (again,
we put aside verbs for now). As we did for example (16) above, let us posit that common
nouns are normally marked for [NUM]. A pluralia tantum common noun such as French
ciseaux ‘scissors’ in (6) is marked for the formal feature [NUM pl], and this feature is
projected up to the maximal projection of the nominal as shown here:
(25)
NP[pl]
Det
|
les
N[pl]
|
ciseaux
[NUM pl]
Let us further posit that second person pronouns lack the [NUM] feature (again, keeping
in mind that [NUM] is concerned only with adjectives and determiners, not with verbs).
Since the head word (shown here as category N) lacks this feature, the phrase lacks it as
well:10
10
The lexical category of the pronoun is given as N, and the category of the phrase that it
heads is given as NP. Obviously these could be replaced with D and DP or anything else
without affecting the argument.
28
(26)
NP
|
N
|
vous
(n.b. no NUM feature)
If second person pronouns have number features then we expect them to determine those
features on the agreement targets to which those features are sensitive. If they lack
number features, then we expect the targets to be semantically interpreted with respect to
number. We saw that in mixed agreement languages, second person pronouns fail to
trigger syntactic number agreement on adjectives. We therefore hypothesize that second
person pronouns in mixed agreement languages lack NUM features.
(27)
Pronoun Number Hypothesis. (Preliminary version) Let NUM be the number
feature that adjective targets are sensitive to. In mixed agreement languages,
second person pronouns lack NUM features. In uniform agreement languages,
second person pronouns have NUM features.
There is some simple, prima facie evidence for the Pronoun Number Hypothesis. The
mixed agreement languages allow different number values on an adjective that is
predicated of a polite plural pronoun, correlated with a difference in the semantic number
or cardinality of the subject. For example, with French vous ‘you.PL’ as subject the
adjective can be either singular (loyal, ‘loyal.M.SG’) or plural (loyaux, ‘loyal.PL’), with a
corresponding change in interpretation (recall example (4)). If the pronoun vous were
marked for the number feature to which the adjective is sensitive then we could not
explain why the number on the adjective can be either singular or plural. The same is
29
true of the other languages described above: Czech adjectives (7), Russian long form
adjectives (9), and Romanian (11) all allow singular or plural adjectives to be predicated
of the second person plural pronoun.
Now let us look in more detail at how the Pronoun Number Hypothesis answers
Question 1 (from 15 above). Consider French as an example of a mixed agreement
language. The grammatically masculine plural noun ciseaux ‘scissors’ bears the features
[NUM pl, GEN masc], where GEN is the gender feature. But in keeping with the
Pronoun Number Hypothesis, vous ‘you.PL’ lacks a NUM feature. This pronoun also
lacks a GEN feature, like all first and second person pronouns in French, and indeed in
the vast majority of languages (Siewierska 2004, 104ff). Simplified lexical entries for
these words appear below.
(28)
ciseaux: N, ‘scissors’, [NUM pl; GEN masc]
(29)
vous: N, ‘you’
(n.b. no NUM or GEN feature)
A masculine singular adjective such as loyal ‘loyal’ or génial ‘brilliant’ checks its subject
for the presence of the [NUM sg] and [GEN masc] features, imposing the semantic
values ‘non-aggregate’ and ‘male’ on the subject denotation, if it fails to find those
respective features. A plural adjective such as loyaux ‘loyal.PL’, which is unmarked for
gender, checks its subject for the presence of the [NUM pl] feature, imposing the
semantic ‘aggregate’ if it fails to find that feature. Masculine plural géniaux ‘brilliant’
checks for [NUM pl] and [GEN masc], imposing ‘non-aggregate’ and ‘male’ on the
subject denotation, if it fails to find them.
30
Lexical entries for predicate adjectives in the LFG formalism are provided below.
This technical implementation is provided for the sake of concreteness, but this
information would not actually be stipulated in each form but rather in lexical templates
or, as suggested above, derived through a theory of markedness.11
(30)
Lexical entries for representative French masculine singular and plural predicate
adjectives
a. masculine singular adjective
loyal,
A:
loyal((↑SUBJ)σ)
(↑SUBJ NUM) =c SG ∨
[¬ aggregate((↑SUBJ)σ) ∧ ¬(↑SUBJ NUM)]
(↑SUBJ GEN) =c MASC ∨
[male((↑SUBJ)σ) ∧ ¬(↑SUBJ GEN)]
b. plural adjective
loyaux,
A:
loyal((↑SUBJ)σ)
(↑SUBJ NUM) =c PL ∨
[aggregate( (↑SUBJ)σ) ∧ ¬(↑SUBJ NUM)]
We illustrate with the French examples (7) and (9), repeated here:
11
These adjective forms can also be used attributively. Bresnan (2001, 276) derives
predicative from attributive forms by means of a lexical rule that adds the SUBJ
specification.
31
(31)
Ces
ciseaux
sont
géniaux!
this.PL
scissors
are.PL
brilliant.M.PL
‘These scissors are cool!’
(32)
Vous
êtes
loyal.
you.PL
be.2PL loyal.M.SG
‘You (one formal male addressee) are loyal.’
The noun ciseaux ‘scissors’ in (31) is specified as [NUM pl; GEN masc]. These features
satisfy the constraining equations introduced by the masculine plural adjective géniaux
‘brilliant’.
The pronoun vous in (32) lacks NUM and GEN features. The masculine
singular adjective loyal checks for the NUM and GEN features of its subject via its
constraining equation, but neither constraining equation is satisfied. As a consequence,
‘non-aggregate’ and ‘male’ semantics are imposed on the denotation of vous: as indicated
in the English translation, the addressee in (32) is understood to be one male individual.
Generalizing from this example, we now have an answer to Question 1. The
property of the grammar of mixed agreement languages that is responsible for the
difference between the adjective number agreement determined by common noun triggers
and pronoun triggers, respectively, is that the former are marked for number while the
latter are not. The Agreement Marking Principle predicts that agreement targets impose
their semantic values (for a given feature) on any triggers that are unmarked (for said
32
feature), so the result is so-called semantic agreement when the trigger is a second person
pronoun.
3.3
Attributive modifiers of pronouns and common nouns
The features posited above, NUM and GEN, are narrowly defined as features to
which adjectives are sensitive (this picture will be broadened below when we expand our
account to include verbs and other targets). Thus our analysis is based upon the lexical
specifications of pronouns, common nouns, and adjectives. This approach leads to a
further expectation.
If the agreement behavior depends upon the inherent lexical
properties of common nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, then those properties should be
preserved regardless of the grammatical relation between the trigger and target. Thus the
agreement behavior of attributive adjectives should parallel the predicate adjectives,
across the different trigger types (common noun versus pronoun).
This appears to be true, although it is a bit hard to test because it is generally hard
to modify pronouns with adjectives. Pronouns allow modification by some affective
adjectives, as in English Lucky you!, Poor me!, and so on. Strikingly, in French such
adjectives show semantic agreement with polite vous:12
12
Unfortunately the plural -s in (33b) is silent. This construction is limited to certain
affective adjectives, and we have not been able to find one that phonologically
distinguishes singular and plural. Still, (33) reflects our informants’ judgments regarding
orthography. Also a French speaker at the MUMSA conference suggested the following
examples, where the -s becomes audible due to liaison:
33
(33)
a. Pauvre
poor.SG
vous!
you.2PL
‘Poor you (one formal addressee)!’
b. Pauvre-s
poor-PL
vous!
you.2PL
‘Poor you (more than one addressee)!’
In contrast, common nouns trigger syntactic agreement on attributive adjectives:
(34)
ces
ciseaux
géniaux
this.PL
scissors
brilliant.M.PL
‘these cool scissors’
(i)
Pauvre
et
malheureux vous!
poor.SG
and
unhappy
you.2PL
‘Poor and unhappy you (one formal addressee)!’
(ii)
Pauvre-s et
malheureux vous!
poor-PL
and
unhappy
you.2PL
‘Poor and unhappy you (more than one addressee)!’
34
The semantic agreement with the pronoun in (33) is surprising in light of the Agreement
Hierarchy (1 and 3), which puts attributive modifiers at the extreme left edge of the
hierarchy, hence favoring syntactic agreement. But it follows from the assumption,
implicit in the present account, that grammatical category (adjective versus verb; see
below) trumps grammatical function, at least in this instance.
4
Adjectives versus verbs
Now let us turn to Question 2 in (15) above, repeated here:
(35)
Question 2. Consider the first row of Table I. Why do finite verbs and predicate
adjectives, respectively, differ systematically in the agreement features they
register when the trigger is a polite plural pronoun?
This is exemplified by mixed agreement in the French example (4) or other languages
described above: in French when the subject is the polite plural vous, referring politely to
a single addressee, then the finite verb is plural while the predicate adjective is singular.
Why does agreement determined on the verb and adjective differ in this way?
4.1
Concord versus Index agreement
Mixed agreement, in which a single trigger determines different values on
different targets, was analyzed in detail by Wechsler and Zlatić (2000; 2003). Indeed,
mixed agreement phenomena were an important evidentiary basis for the theory of
35
agreement features presented in those works. That theory will be applied here, but the
interaction of that theory with the Agreement Marking Principle will allow for a simpler,
more elegant analysis than was previously possible. It is important to note that the
Wechsler/Zlatić theory as a whole has a broad scope, connecting morphological form
(declension classes, etc.), various agreement processes, and semantics. Thus the formal
machinery used here has a broader justification than can be demonstrated in the
application to this particular problem.
The Wechsler and Zlatić (2000; 2003) theory of agreement distinguishes between
two syntactic agreement feature sets, called Concord and Index, which are both part of
the formal syntactic system.13 Concord features, like other inflectional features, are
HEAD features which are thus projected into the syntax via head projection lines. Index
features are features of the referential index (hence the name Index), which is mapped to
a discourse referent in the interpretation of the sentence (Pollard and Sag 1994). In
addition to those two subtypes of syntactic agreement, we find the sort of semantic
agreement described above, in which items that are semantically unified must have
consistent semantics. Wechsler and Zlatić (2000, 2003) call this last type pragmatic
agreement.
The two syntactic phi feature sets, Concord and Index, are grammaticalizations of
the form and the meaning of the trigger, respectively. Concord features are lexically
specified on the trigger and are closely related to trigger’s form, such as the noun’s
declension class in languages with rich inflection. Index features, on the other hand, are
13
The two-feature system can be traced back to (Kathol, 1999; Pollard and Sag, 1994).
36
closely related to trigger’s meaning. These close relations are formally specified in
language-particular defeasible constraints on lexical entries.
Those constraints are
non-persistent defaults (i.e. they do not persist into the syntax (Lascarides et al. 1995))
that can be preempted by irregular lexical entries. As an example of the former type, one
constraint on the Serbian/Croatian lexicon is that nouns belonging to the traditional
second declension class, which determines a particular set of case endings, take the
feminine Concord gender (e.g. deca ‘children’).
The notion that agreement features of nouns are related to the nouns’ form and
meaning is well-documented. Regarding gender features, for example, see Corbett 1991,
Chapter 2 ‘Gender assignment I: semantic systems’ and Chapter 3 ‘Gender assignment II:
formal systems’ (Corbett, 1991). The key idea behind the Wechsler and Zlatić theory is
that the different agreement targets split into two types, those sensitive to phi-features
derived from the trigger noun’s form (Concord features), and those sensitive to
phi-features derived from the meaning of the nominal (Index features). Thus there can be
different syntactic reflexes of agreement features depending on the mode of feature
assignment responsible for the feature.
Mixed agreement is observed if the respective Index and Concord values of the
trigger differ, for a given attribute such as gender or number. For example, certain
Serbian/Croatian nouns such as deca ‘children’ trigger feminine singular features on
some targets, and neuter plural on others (Corbett 1983; Wechsler and Zlatić 2003).
Attributive modifiers appear in feminine singular, while finite verbs, finite auxiliaries,
and personal pronouns take the neuter plural form:
37
(36)
Posmatrali
smo
ovu
dobru
decu.
watched.1PL
AUX
this.F.SG
good.F.SG
children.ACC
Ona
su
se
lepo
igrala.
they.N.PL
AUX.3PL
REFL
nicely
played.N.PL
‘We watched those good children. They played well.’
According to Wechsler and Zlatić’s analysis, within the syntax of Serbian/Croatian some
targets agree in Concord, others in Index. The noun deca is specified as in (37).
(37)
Agreement features of Serbian/Croatian deca ‘children’ (from Wechsler and
Zlatić 2000, 2003)


CONCORD



INDEX


CASE

NUM
GEN
PERS

NUM
GEN
nom

sg 
fem 
3rd 
 
pl  
nt  
€
The Index is conventionally abbreviated with a subscript, and attribute names such as
NUM and GEN are redundant, so (37) can be abbreviated as in (38):
(38)
deca: N[CONC nom.sg.fem][pl.nt.3rd]
38
(Other Serbian/Croatian collective nouns with this specification include telad ‘calves’,
unučad ‘grandchildren’, dugmad ‘buttons’, burad ‘barrels’, braća ‘brothers’, and vlastela
‘landowners’.) Targets are split between those sensitive to Concord features and those
sensitive to Index features. NP-internal modifiers such as adjectives and determiners are
sensitive to the noun’s Concord features while bound pronouns and finite verbs are
sensitive to the Index features. Thus when the trigger is a noun like deca, targets of the
former type appear in feminine singular form, while the latter appear in neuter plural
form; see example (36) above.
However, this sort of double marking for a feature, where a single noun has two
conflicting values for a given attribute of Concord and Index, appears to be very rare
across languages. The most common situation in natural language is that the Index and
Concord values are identical for any features they share, so that agreement is uniform
across different targets.
For example, in Those boys are behaving themselves, the
determiner (those) and bound reflexive pronoun (themselves) are both plural, the former
the result of Concord, the latter the result of Index agreement. But boys has only one
(plural) number value, not two. This is modeled in the unification formalism by allowing
two arcs of a directed graph to terminate at the same value. Each arc represents a
‘handle’ for grabbing that value:
(39)
The English noun plural -s morpheme (e.g. on the noun boys)
CONCORD
pl
INDEX
39
However, for perspecuity in the lexical entry for this noun we show the PL value twice,
once in the Concord field and once on the referential Index:
(40)
boys: N[CONC pl][pl.3rd]
Whenever the same value appears in both fields it should be understood as abbreviating a
reentrancy, in which two arcs terminate at the same node, as shown in (39). For example,
in the sentence Those boys are behaving themselves, the determiner (those) accesses the
PL feature of boys via the CONCORD path, while the reflexive pronoun (themselves)
accesses that same feature via the INDEX path.
Assuming the Agreement Marking Principle, many cases of mixed agreement can
be modeled not as a consequence of differential marking of the trigger, as Wechsler and
Zlatić (2000, 2003) assumed, but rather as selective underspecification. Instead of being
specified for two different values for a phi attribute, a noun may be specified for a given
feature in the Concord field but not the Index field, or vice versa. This is equivalent to
blocking one of the arcs of the directed graph (see 39). For example, consider again our
example of Serbian/Croatian deca ‘children’. We may be able to simplify our lexical
representation slightly by removing the plural NUM feature from the INDEX field. Since
deca ‘children’ is notionally plural, any Index targets would appear in plural anyway, as a
consequence of the Agreement Marking Principle: they would fail to find an INDEX
NUM feature, and thus the number feature of the target would receive its semantic
interpretation, hence plural.
40
(41)
Agreement features of Serbian/Croatian deca ‘children.NOM’, simplified due to
the Agreement Marking Principle.


CONCORD


INDEX

CASE

NUM
GEN
PERS

GEN
nom

sg 
fem 
3rd 
 
nt  
€ More generally, obligatory semantic features of a noun or pronoun (i.e. lexical
entailments) can be safely removed from a lexical entry’s syntactic phi features. The
representation in (41) will be abbreviated as in (42):
(42)
deca: N[CONC nom, fem, sg][nt, 3rd]
As usual, the Concord features reflect the noun’s form: as noted already, deca belongs to
the second declension class, which is almost entirely composed of feminine nouns; and
the forms are taken from the singular values in the case paradigm for this noun.14
With the removal of the plural NUM feature from the INDEX field of deca, it is
14
Motivation for the neuter is not clear. Neuter may be related to diminutive semantics,
although many collective nouns in this class are not diminutives, such as gospoda
‘gentlemen’, braca ‘brothers’, etc. Alternatively the neuter may be related to the fact that
neuter plural and feminine singular forms are homophonous in the nominative case
(Corbett 1983, 76).
41
only the gender attribute that has conflicting values specified for Concord and Index for
this noun, namely feminine Concord and neuter Index. As noted above, such double
marking appears to be very rare. Most mismatches involve syntactic agreement on one
target and semantic agreement (that is, a semantically interpreted target feature) on the
other. We suggested that may be the case for the NUM features of deca: this noun is
specified for singular Concord number, but unspecified for Index number. In the analysis
below, this sort of selective underspecification will be proposed for polite plurals as well:
they are specified for plural Index (accounting for the plural finite verb) but unspecified
for Concord number (accounting for semantic agreement on the adjective).
Targets are split between those sensitive to Concord and Index, and the syntactic
mechanisms responsible for the diffusion of these two types of feature are rather different.
As noted above, Concord features, like other inflectional features, are HEAD features
which are thus projected into the syntax via head projection lines. Hence Concord is
accessed for nominal-internal concord.
Because of its relation to nominal-internal
concord, CASE is included among the Concord features (to account for case concord).
But PERSON is not included among the Concord features, since NP-internal person
agreement is extremely rare cross-linguistically, perhaps a consequence of the fact that
attributive modification of pronouns is relatively rare.
Index features, being related to
meaning, are features of the referential index (hence the name Index), which is mapped to
a discourse referent in the interpretation of the sentence. Structural anaphoric binding
(roughly binding dictated by Principle A) requires identification of the referential indices
of the pronoun and its antecedent, thus guaranteeing the matching condition on (Index)
person, number, and gender features, as in She behaved herself/*himself/*themselves.
42
(Pollard and Sag, 1994) Thus personal pronoun-antecedent agreement is normally Index
agreement.15
Broadly (and functionally) speaking, then, Concord supports local grammatical
relations while Index agreement tracks discourse referents.
However, finite verb
agreement also tends to be Index agreement since the agreement morphology derives
historically from incorporated pronouns and continues to function as an incorporated
pronoun in pro-drop languages (Bresnan and Mchombo 1987). Key differences between
Concord and Index agreement are summarized in Table II.
Table II. Two varieties of syntactic agreement (Wechsler and Zlatić 2000, 2003)
origin of trigger values
Concord
trigger’s form properties
such as declension class
Index
trigger’s semantic
properties such as sex and
cardinality
range of attributes
Case, Number, Gender
Person, Number, Gender
feature type; agreement
mechanism
head features; projection in features of the referential
phrase structure
index; coindexation (for
pronoun-antecedent
agreement)
Determiners and other
bound pronouns, finite
NP-internal attributive
verbs
modifiers; adjectives
typical targets
15
Not all pronoun-antecedent agreement is Index agreement; see Wechsler and Zlatić
2003, Chapter 9.
43
4.2
The theory applied to adjectives and verbs
Applying the theory of agreement summarized above to our Question 2, we arrive at the
following answer. The finite verb is an Index target while the adjective is a Concord
target. Second person pronouns, including polite plurals, are specified for Index number
and gender but not Concord number or gender.
(43)
Pronoun Number Hypothesis. In mixed agreement languages, second person
pronouns lack Concord phi-features. In uniform agreement languages, second
person pronouns have Concord phi-features. Pronouns in both types of languages
have Index features.
The French second person plural pronoun vous, for example, has Index phi features but
no Concord phi features:
(44)
vous:
N[2,pl]
(n.b.: no Concord phi features)
The common noun ciseaux ‘scissors’ is specified for masculine plural phi features on
both Concord and Index:
(45)
ciseaux:
N[CONC m.pl][3.pl.m]
44
Finite verbs are specified for Index agreement while predicate adjectives and attributive
modifiers such as demonstratives and adjectives show Concord:
(46)
Vous
êtes
loyal.
you.PL
be.2PL
loyal.M.SG
INDEX
CONCORD
‘You (one formal male addressee) are loyal.’
With the pronoun vous as the agreement trigger as in (46), the finite verb (êtes) finds the
subject’s Index features and hence normal Index agreement results. Meanwhile, the
adjective looks in the CONCORD field of vous and finds neither NUMBER nor
GENDER. As a consequence of the Agreement Marking Principle the masculine and
singular features of the adjective loyal receive their semantic interpretations, hence the
subject is understood to refer to one male individual. Turning to the pluralia tantum noun
ciseaux ‘scissors’ in (47), it is specified as masculine plural in both Index and Concord,
so it triggers these features across the board.
(47)
Ces
ciseaux
sont
géniaux!
these.PL
scissors
are.PL
brilliant.M.PL
INDEX
CONCORD
CONCORD
‘These scissors are cool!’
This accounts for the observed difference between hybrid nouns and hybrid pronouns.
45
5
A uniform agreement language: Serbian/Croatian.
Now let us consider Question 3 from (15), repeated here:
(48)
Question 3. Table I represents mixed agreement languages; in uniform agreement
languages, the upper right cell would be replaced by ‘PL’.
What crucial
distinction between the grammars of these two types of language is responsible
for that observed difference in the agreement adjectives show when the trigger is
a polite plural pronoun?
Recall that Serbian/Croatian is a uniform agreement language: a polite plural subject
triggers plural agreement uniformly on both the finite verb (or auxiliary) and the
predicate adjective.
(49)
Uniform Agreement: ‘standard’ Serbian/Croatian
Vi
ste
you.PL AUX.2PL
duhovit-i.
funny-M.PL
(i) ‘You (one formal addressee) are funny.’
(ii) ‘You (multiple addressees; not all female) are funny.’
When used formally for a single addressee, vi triggers masculine plural agreement on the
predicate adjective, regardless of whether that addressee is male or female. Predicate
adjectives show syntactic agreement with subject vi.
46
Corbett (1983, 49) notes, however, that ‘in colloquial speech the adjective may be
singular’, citing the example Vi ste (pl) pametna (sg) ‘You are sensible’ (Corbett 1983, 49,
example (30)). He cites a study of 18th and 19th century writers that includes ‘several
singular adjectives’ and describes that earlier usage as ‘differing from the modern
standard.’ (Corbett 1983, 49)
Similarly, Comrie (1975, 407, fn. 3) also noted the
singular variant and characterized its use as ‘non-standard Serbo-Croatian.’ Let us ask
what grammatical difference is responsible for the distinction between uniform
agreement and mixed agreement patterns, where the former, uniform agreement type
includes ‘standard’ Serbian/Croatian, while the latter, mixed agreement type includes the
languages discussed above (French, Czech, Romanian, etc.) as well as the ‘non-standard’
variety of Serbian/Croatian. Clearly something differs in the grammars of the two types.
What is that difference in the grammars?
Let us consider two a priori possibilities: (i) there could be a difference in the
grammatical representation of the polite plural pronouns (the different pronoun
hypothesis) or (ii) there could be a difference in the grammatical representation of the
adjectives (the different adjective hypothesis).
The different pronoun hypothesis locates the difference in the phi features of
second person pronouns. We posited above that French vous, for example, lacks Concord
phi features (but has Index phi features to account for the forms of finite verbs and bound
pronouns). Perhaps standard Serbian/Croatian second person pronouns, unlike those of
French, are marked for Concord phi features. Assuming that predicate adjectives in both
languages are sensitive to the Concord features of the subject, then the standard
47
Serbian/Croatian adjectives would show syntactic agreement with such pronouns, while
the French adjectives would default to the semantic interpretation, as explained above.
Alternatively, on the different adjective hypothesis there could be a difference in
the agreement status of predicate adjectives: perhaps Serbian/Croatian predicate
adjectives, unlike those of French for example, are sensitive to Index phi features. Since
second person pronouns in both languages are marked for Index phi features,
Serbian/Croatian adjectives would pattern with verbs in showing index agreement.
Some evidence seems to favor the different pronoun hypothesis. As we will see,
the agreement triggered by the polite plural depends upon the case form of the pronoun,
splitting between nominative and non-nominative pronouns.
This split cuts across
different syntactic configurations involving adjective targets, as well as agreement on
bound reflexive pronouns, suggesting that the crucial difference lies in the pronouns and
not the adjectives.
Recall from the French examples above that affective adjectives are sometimes
permitted to modify personal pronouns. This is possible in Serbian/Croatian as well.
Consider agreement in attributive modification, which is assumed to involve Concord.
The Serbian/Croatian honorific second person plural pronoun, when in the nominative
case form (Vi), triggers masculine plural Concord on attributive modifiers, regardless of
the cardinality or sex of the referent, as shown in (50a). This represents syntactic
agreement, where the features of Vi are masculine plural. Note that (50a) can even be
48
used for addressing a single female formally.
Some speakers also accept semantic
agreement; such speakers accept (50b,c).16
(50)
a.
Jadni
Vi!
poor.M.PL
you.PL
‘Poor you!’ (formal; male or female; one or more than one)
b.
(%*)Jadna
poor.F.SG
Vi!
you.PL
‘poor you’ (formal; one female addressee)
c.
(%*)Jadne
poor.F.PL
Vi!
you.PL
‘poor you’ (formal; more than one female addressee)
Even those speakers who require syntactic agreement with nominative Vi and therefore
reject (50b,c) nonetheless resist syntactic agreement with other case forms of this
pronoun (accusative vas, etc.). Such forms force the semantic interpretation of the
adjective phi features (Wechsler 2004):
16
The second person pronoun Vi is capitalized in its formal usage but not in its usage as a
semantically plural pronoun. An utterance of Jadna vi! that is phonologically identical to
(50a) would refer informally to more than one addressee.
49
(51)
a.
Vas
jadnu
(niko ne postuje).
you.ACC.PL
poor.ACC.F.SG
nobody NEG respect
‘(Nobody respects) poor you.’ (one female addressee)
b.
Vas
jadnog
(niko ne postuje).
you.ACC.PL poor.ACC.M.SG
nobody NEG respect
‘Nobody respects poor you.’ (one male addresee)
c.
Vas
jadne
you.ACC.PL poor.ACC.PL
(niko
ne postuje).
nobody
NEG respect
‘Nobody respects poor you.’ (multiple addressees)
Non-nominative Serbian/Croatian pronoun forms like accusative vas behave like French
vous above: the number and gender features of adjectival modifiers are semantically
interpreted. In contrast, in the dialects that reject (50b,c), the nominative Vi triggers
masculine plural features on Concord targets, regardless of the sex or cardinality of the
referent.
Exactly the same case split seen above when the target is the affective attributive
modifier is also observed in predicate adjectives.
In ‘standard’ Serbian/Croatian,
nominative second person pronouns uniformly trigger syntactic number agreement, as
noted already.
50
(52)
a.
Ti
si
you.SG AUX.2SG
duhovit /
duhovit-a.
funny.M.SG
funny-F.SG
‘You (one informal male/female addressee) are funny.’
b.
Vi
ste
duhovit-i.
you.PL AUX.2PL
funny-M.PL
‘You (one formal addressee or multiple addressees) are funny.’
In contrast with nominatives, non-nominative second person pronouns default to
semantic agreement. Following are examples with accusative pronouns:
(53)
a.
Očekivao
sam
vas
veselu.
expect.M.SG
AUX.1SG
you.PL.ACC happy.ACC.F.SG
‘I expected you (formal, one female addressee) to be happy.’
b.
Očekivao
sam
vas
veseli.
expect.M.SG
AUX.1SG
you.PL.ACC happy.ACC.M.PL
‘I expected you (more than one; male or mixed gender) to be happy.’
c.
Očekivao
sam
vas
vesele.
expect.M.SG
AUX.1SG
you.PL.ACC happy.ACC.F.PL
‘I expected you (multiple female addressees) to be happy.’
51
In the following example the adjective pijanoj ‘drunk’ is predicated of a dative pronoun.
Again, the adjective shows semantic agreement, that is, its feminine singular features are
interpreted semantically.17
(54) a. Dao
gave.M.SG
sam
vam
pijanoj
AUX.1SG
you.DAT.PL drunk.DAT.F.SG
sav novac.
all money
‘I gave you (one formal female addressee), drunk, all the money.’
b. Dao
gave.M.SG
sam
vam
pijanom
AUX.1SG
you.DAT.PL drunk.DAT.M.SG
sav novac.
all money
‘I gave you (one formal male addressee), drunk, all the money.’
c. Dao
gave.M.SG
sam
vam
pijanim
AUX.1SG
you.DAT.PL drunk.DAT.PL
sav novac.
all money
‘I gave you (multiple addressees), drunk, all the money.’
(The data presented in this section are summarized in Table III below.) So far we have
seen that some dialects have a split between nominative vi and other case forms: the
former trigger syntactic agreement on adjectives, whether the adjective is a modifier or a
predicate, while the latter trigger semantic agreement.
17
We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this example, as well as others upon
which the examples in (53) are based.
52
A similar, though not identical, case split is observed in reflexive pronoun
agreement. Serbian/Croatian reflexives must be bound by either the nominative subject,
or a non-nominative ‘logical subject’ such as a dative experiencer (Zlatić 1996; 1997a;
1997b). The full (non-clitic) third person reflexive pronoun sebe distinguishes case but
not gender or number. However it can be modified with the intensifier adjective sam
‘own’, which inflects for case, number, and gender, like other adjectives. Interestingly, a
reflexive can show only semantic agreement with a non-nominative antecedent, while
syntactic (masculine plural) or semantic agreement is possible with nominative vi
(Wechsler and Zlatić 2003, 217ff). Taking nominative first, the following sentence could
be uttered to one female addressee, for example:
(55)
Vi
ste
voleli
sami/ samu
you.NOM.PL
AUX.2PL
liked.M.PL own.NOM.M.PL/ACC.F.SG
sebe.
self.ACC
(i) with sami: ‘You liked yourself.’
(ii) with samu: ‘You (one female addressee) liked yourself.’
When vi is a Nominative binder, the reflexive can show either masculine plural,
reflecting the grammatical features of vi, or feminine singular for one female addressee.
However, when the binder is a non-nominative form, only feminine singular
agreement is possible (again, assume the addressee is one female). Examples (56a) and
(56b) illustrate dative and accusative binders, respectively:
53
(56)
a. Vama
je
bilo
you.DAT AUX.3SG be.N.SG
žao
same/ *samih
sorry own.GEN.F.SG/ GEN.PL
sebe.
self.GEN
‘You (one female addressee) felt pity for yourself.’
b. Vas
nije
bilo
briga za samu/ *same
sebe.
you.ACC NEG.AUX be.N.SG care for own.ACC.F.SG/*own.ACC.M.PL self.ACC
‘You (one female addressee) didn’t care about yourself.’
Summarizing, we have seen that non-nominative forms of the polite plural pronoun
trigger semantic agreement on adjectives (both modifiers and predicates) and reflexives.
Nominative vi triggers syntactic agreement on those same targets in ‘standard’
Serbian/Croatian, although there is some variation: semantic agreement with nominative
pronouns is a dialectal variant for adjectives (50b,c) and an option for reflexives as well
(55). The main generalization is that agreement depends on the case form of the pronoun
but seems to cut across the different target types. This suggests that the key to uniform
agreement lies in the pronoun, not the adjective. We tentatively posit that: (i) adjectives
agree in Concord features; (ii) non-nominative forms of vi lack Concord phi-features,
hence triggering semantic agreement on adjectives; and (iii) in ‘standard’
Serbian/Croatian nominative vi has masculine plural Concord features, hence triggering
syntactic agreement on adjectives.
Can we find independent evidence for the first tentative conclusion, namely that
adjectives agree in Concord features? Prima facie evidence is that all the adjectives
considered so far show case agreement, and case is a Concord feature. Moreover, for
54
non-nominative nominals, our hybrid noun deca ‘children’ provides clear evidence of
Concord agreement by attributive modifiers.
Recall that this noun has the special
property that its Concord and Index values differ: its Concord values are feminine
singular, while its Index values are neuter plural (or perhaps the Index is neuter but
unmarked for number; see above). NP-internal modifiers of non-nominative deca always
take the feminine singular form; see the accusative NP ovu dobru decu (‘this.F.SG.ACC
good.F.SG.ACC children.ACC ‘these good children’) in example (36) above.
However, when applied to nominative vi, tests involving nouns like deca
‘children’ are inconclusive because the feminine singular and neuter plural forms are
homophonous in the nominative case, as noted above (Corbett 1983, 76; Wechsler and
Zlatić 2003, 52ff). In the following example (from Wechsler and Zlatić 2003, 53 ex.
(14)) the correct gloss of the adjective form gladna ‘hungry’ is not clear. It could be
feminine singular or neuter plural:
(57)
Ta
mala
deca
su
gladn-a.
that.F.SG small.F.SG children AUX.3PL
hungry-??
‘Those small children are hungry.’
In fact, the glosses on ta and mala are also indeterminate between feminine singular and
neuter plural, but they are usually analyzed as feminine singular since NP-internal
55
modifiers of deca are unambiguously feminine singular in all other cases. See Corbett
(1983, 76ff) for discussion. Taken alone, this test is inconclusive.18
When predicated of nominative deca ‘children’, predicate adjectives take a form
that is homophonous between feminine singular and neuter plural. But that homophony
exists only in nominative case; in other cases the two forms are distinct. When a
case-agreeing second predicate adjective is predicated of non-nominative deca, it
uniformly takes the feminine singular form. This is shown for accusative case in (58) and
dative case in (59).19
(58)
Očekivao
sam
expect.SG.M
AUX.1SG
decu
veselu
children.PL
happy.ACC.F.SG
‘I expected the children to be happy.’
18
In an attempt to address this question Wechsler and Zlatić (2003, 54-5) constructed a
complex test involving gender resolution in coordinate structures, and concluded on the
basis of that test that predicate adjectives show Index agreement— the opposite of the
conclusion we arrive at below. But that test relied on certain assumptions about the
nature of coordinate structure resolution, assumptions that are not above question. The
evidence for Concord agreement presented below is stronger.
19
The interpretation of (58) indicates that veselu ‘happy’ is a secondary predicate rather
than an attributive modifier. As an attributive modifier veselu would normally precede
decu and the sentence would mean ‘I expected the happy children’ (e.g. I expected them
to arrive).
56
(59) a. Dao
sam
Gave.SG.M AUX.1SG
deci
veseloj
children.DAT happy.DAT.F.SG
sav novac.
all money
‘I gave the children, happy, all the money.’
b. *Dao
sam
Gave.SG.M AUX.1SG
deci
veselom
children.DAT happy.DAT.M.SG
sav novac.
all money
(‘I gave the children, happy, all the money.’)
c. *Dao
sam
Gave.SG.M AUX.1SG
deci
veselim
children.DAT happy.DAT.PL
sav novac.
all money
(‘I gave the children, happy, all the money.’)
d. *Dao
sam
Gave.SG.M AUX.1SG
deci
veselima
children.DAT happy.DAT.PL
sav novac.
all money
(‘I gave the children, happy, all the money.’)
The case-agreeing predicate adjective shows the same syntactic agreement as an
attributive adjective, namely feminine singular for the trigger deca ‘children. Within the
present framework this means that case-agreeing predicate adjectives, like attributive
modifiers, are sensitive to the Concord features of the trigger.
Indeed, when we summarize the data from this section in a table, we find that
attributive and (case-agreeing) predicative adjectives are parallel across different trigger
57
types.
That is, with respect to Table III the observed agreement regularities are
horizontal rather than vertical.
Table III.
Serbian/Croatian agreement with different case forms of honorific vi on
selected targets
target→
trigger↓
2PL.NOM vi
finite verbs
&
auxiliaries
M.PL
(49)
2PL.Acc vas
2PL.Dat vam
(n.a.)
NOM deca
N.PL
non-NOM deca
(n.a.)
Notes. Numbers indicate the
adjective modifier
case-agreeing
predicate adjective
M.PL (%semantic)
M.PL (%semantic)
(50)
(49)
semantic
semantic
(51)
(53, 54)
F.SG=N.PL
F.SG=N.PL
(57)
(57)
F.SG
F.SG
(36)
(58, 59)
example sentences illustrating each cell. Finite elements
agree only with nominative subjects, hence some cells are marked n.a. (not applicable).
The notation %semantic means that some dialects allow semantic agreement.
The goal of this section is to determine the grammatical basis for the difference between
uniform and mixed agreement (Question 3). With respect to Table III, that means
explaining the M.PL in the second and third cells of the top row. Why does nominative
vi trigger syntactic agreement on adjectives? Recall that this variant represents so-called
‘standard Serbian/Croatian’, which we call uniform agreement, meaning that the same
(M.PL) values that are found on the adjective are also found on the finite verb, as shown
in the upper left cell.
58
These data support the different pronoun hypothesis, as noted above. Nominative
Serbian/Croatian vi has Concord phi features (60), in contrast to French vous (and
nominative vi in colloquial or non-standard Serbian/Croatian), which lacks Concord phi
features (recall 44 above). Meanwhile, non-nominative forms of Serbian/Croatian vi lack
phi Concord features and have only case features (61).
(60)
(61)
nominative Vi
a. ‘standard’ Serbian/Croatian:
vi:
N[CONC nom.m.pl][2nd.m.pl ]
b. colloquial/dialectal:
vi:
N[CONC nom][2nd.m.pl ]
accusative vas:
N[CONC acc][2nd,m,pl]
All adjectives are specified for Concord (62a,b), and finite verbs and auxiliaries are
specified for Index agreement (62c).
(62)
a.
duhoviti:
(↑SUBJ CONC) = nom.m.pl
(predicate adjective)
((ADJUNCT↑) CONC) = nom.m.pl (attributive adjective)
b.
c.
veselu:
su:
(↑SUBJ CONC) = acc.f.sg
(predicate adjective)
((ADJUNCT↑) CONC) = acc.f.sg
(attributive adjective)
(↑SUBJ INDEX) = 3.pl
Finite verbs and auxiliaries, as well as bound pronouns, uniformly show Index agreement,
as usual, thus appearing in the second person plural masculine form when the subject is vi.
59
But adjective targets seek the Concord features of their triggers, showing masculine
plural for nominative Vi but defaulting to the semantics for non-nominatives.
(63)
Vi
ste
duhovit-i.
you.PL
AUX.2PL
funny-M.PL
INDEX
CONCORD
‘You (one formal addressee / multiple addressees) are funny.’
(64)
Video
sam
vas
saw.SG.M AUX.1SG you.PL.ACC
pijane.
drunk.ACC.PL
CONCORD
‘I saw you drunk.’
As noted already, the fact that these adjectives also show case concord with their
predication subjects lends further support to the view that this is Concord rather than
Index agreement, since case is a Concord feature but not an Index feature.20
20
Case-agreement is evidence for Concord agreement, but lack of case agreement is
consistent with any type of agreement. Certain Serbian/Croatian verbs select a special
type of adjectival secondary predicate that does not agree in case but rather appears in
instrumental case regardless of the case of its predication subject. These instrumental
second predicate adjectives seem to favor Concord as well, taking feminine singular with
forms of deca, for example. Our assumption that non-nominative forms of vi lack
60
Why does nominative vi differ from other forms? A clue is provided by looking
across the rows of Table III. The syntactic (M.PL) agreement with nominative vi shown
in the top row is a historical innovation. Corbett (1983, 49) notes that ‘the trend has been
away from the semantic form towards syntactic agreement.’ Perhaps the features of the
nominative pronoun adjusted in order to assimilate adjective agreement to the (masculine
plural) finite verb agreement. Since only nominatives trigger agreement on the finite
verb, this assimilation would take place only for nominatives.
6
Discussion: the hierarchy revisited
Based on the present theory, our three types of agreement form a hierarchy with
respect to syntactic and semantic agreement:
(65)
An agreement hierarchy in terms of grammatical mechanisms
Concord targets
>
Index targets
> Targets finding no trigger feature
←syntactic agreement
semantic agreement→
Concord phi features leads to the correct prediction that those pronouns will trigger
semantic agreement on instrumental predicates.
However, some speakers can use
non-nominative forms of vi, with a M.PL instrumental adjectival predicate, even when
speaking formally to a single female; but they reject such an interpretation with a
case-agreeing adjective.
61
Concord and Index agreement are both ‘syntactic agreement’, and Concord is the ‘more
syntactic’ of the two, since Concord feature assignment is rooted in the formal properties
of the noun, such as declension class, while Index feature assignment is rooted in
meaning (see Table II above). However, if the trigger lacks the relevant agreement
feature then it defaults to purely semantic interpretation of the target feature. This default
to the semantics takes place with Concord targets as well as Index targets.
For all of the languages analyzed in this paper, we concluded that the finite verbs
are specified for Index agreement and all adjectives, whether modifiers or predicates, are
specified for Concord. Therefore, as long as the trigger is marked for both Concord and
Index features, as is normal for most common nouns, agreement on adjectives will be at
least as syntactic as agreement on verbs. However, if the trigger has Index features but
remains unmarked for Concord features, as is normal for second person pronouns, then
the relative hierarchical ranking of verbs and adjectives is reversed: verb agreement will
be at least as syntactic as adjective agreement. This is illustrated here:
(66)
An agreement hierarchy in terms of grammatical mechanisms
trigger features↓ Concord targets > Index targets > (no trigger feature)
Concord phi
adjectives
No Concord phi
verbs
verbs
←syntactic agreement
adjectives
semantic agreement→
Now consider a substructure of Corbett’s combined hierarchy (recall (3) above) that
includes only attributives, verbs, and predicate adjectives:
62
(67)
Substructure of the Agreement and Predicate Hierarchies, showing only
attributive modifiers, verbs, and predicate adjectives. Based on (Corbett 2006,
233)
attributive
>
verb
>
←syntactic agreement
predicate adjective
semantic agreement→
Notice that attributive adjectives appear to the left of verbs, while predicate adjectives
appear to the right. We showed above that predicative and attributive adjectives show
parallel agreement behavior as long as the trigger type is held constant. We argued that
adjectives are uniformly sensitive to Concord features of the trigger. So what is the
reason for the split observed by Corbett? We believe that the reason for the apparent split
is that polite plural pronouns, which played an important role in supporting this hierarchy,
are unmarked for Concord features, leading the predicate adjective targets to default to
the semantics (while verbs show syntactic agreement with the Index features).
Meanwhile attributive adjectives are rare with pronouns, but when we forced them we
found that they undergo the same default to the semantics as their predicative cousins.
Our proposal leads to an interesting cross-linguistic prediction regarding the
relation between person and number features. Recall from Table II above that Person is a
feature of the Index but not of Concord, a theoretical assumption motivated by the fact
that NP-internal person agreement is exceedingly rare. Thus any target showing person
agreement must be an Index target. Since pronouns have Index phi features, it follows
63
that a polite plural second person pronoun (French vous, Russian vy, etc.) will always
trigger plural agreement on any person agreement target.21
(68)
Prediction:
With a polite plural pronoun as agreement trigger, any person
agreement targets marked for number will show plural number.
We are unaware of any other theory from which this prediction follows. In the languages
covered here, verbs agree in person but adjectives do not (cross-linguistically,
person-agreeing adjectives are rare; exceptions include Mayan languages).
21
So this
The prediction in (68) is not intended to cover pronoun-antecedent agreement, but
rather other grammatical targets such as predicates and attributive modifiers. Pronouns
typically agree in person with their antecedents, and, consistent with (68), they typically
take the plural form when the antecedent is a polite plural pronoun. But the conditions on
pronoun-antecedent agreement are more complex and depend on locality and other
factors. Locally bound reflexive pronouns tend to show index agreement in all phi
features (Pollard and Sag 1994, 73 and 79), which follows from HPSG binding theory,
since binding is literally index-sharing (see Section 4.1 above). However, semantic
agreement by pronouns is sometimes observed even in apparently local binding domains.
For example, Serbian/Croatian reflexives allow either index agreement or semantic
agreement with nominative antecedents (see 55), but only semantic agreement with
non-nominative antecedents (see 56). For detailed discussion, see (Wechsler and Zlatić
2003, Ch. 9).
64
prediction does not extend to adjectives. We expect only that their behavior with polite
plural pronouns should depend upon whether the pronoun has Concord phi features or
not.
This prediction is met for all the languages we have investigated. For example, in
all the languages discussed above, finite verbs show person agreement. As predicted,
they uniformly show plural agreement with polite plurals. However, honorific uses of
second person plurals are attested in some non-European languages (Corbett 2000, 220ff),
and this prediction has not yet been tested on any of those languages.
7
Conclusion
While the agreement facts described above are complex, the underlying
explanation for them turns out to be fairly simple. Instead of adding new mechanisms or
exception features, we have actually subtracted certain features. We proposed that local
pronouns lack the features appearing on nouns that are responsible for triggering
agreement on certain targets such as adjectives. According to a general principle, number
marking on the target realizes its inherent semantic potential when the trigger lacks the
relevant syntactic feature.
(The same idea is applied to gender agreement in Wechsler
(2008a)). Honorific uses of second person ‘plural’ pronouns therefore fail to trigger
uniform plural agreement on those targets, which instead encode the true semantic
number of the trigger.
65
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