Agreement and optionality: evidence from Spanish variation

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the syntax of number agreement. It focuses on two phenomena of variation in Spanish: number unagreement (NU), understood as lack of agreement in a monoclausal configuration, and hyper-agreement (HA), a cross-clausal agreement relationship that ignores the conventional syntactic boundaries. Both phenomena pose a theoretical challenge for the explanation of agreement relations within Chomsky’s (2000, et seq.) Probe-Goal framework and, more generally, for the theory of variation, since they are exponents of “true optionality” and subject to idiolectal variation. The main goal of the dissertation is to provide a model of Agree that explains the locality violations that these phenomena seem to commit and correctly capture their optional nature._x000D_ Chapter 2 reviews the suitability of a Probe-Goal framework within Phase Theory. It is argued that a system based on the simultaneity of Agree and Transfer is not flexible enough. Instead, the Phase Preservation Hypothesis (PPH) is defended, which maintains that transferred material must remain in syntax, enabling long distance agreement (LDA). The PPH is combined with a strictly derivational system by which the relative timing of operations has an impact on the derivation of phasal-domains prior to transfer points. These tenets are the base for the proposal of a tridimensional model of variation, by which variation is encoded in the three components of grammar: (i) the Lexicon; (ii) the syntax; and (iii), the syntax-interfaces connections. Dimension (i) is responsible for crosslinguistic variation, while intraspeaker variation stems from (ii) and (iii)._x000D_ Chapter 3 provides a characterization of the contexts in which NU arises: DAT-NOM structures (DNS) and SE-sentences. A proposal based on intervention effects is put forward to account for the fact that some Spanish speakers alternate between a complete agreement pattern and a NU-pattern in DNS and between a partial, only in number, agreeing pattern and a NU-pattern in SE-sentences. The analysis is extended to Icelandic “quirky subject” structures. This proposal encompasses the levels of variation previously mentioned. The order of operations (cf. (ii)) has an impact on the computation of intervention effects, the second one is related to how Agree responds to the shape of the intervener. More specifically, the notion of “improper Goal” (cf. (i)) is put forward to define those elements that cannot fully value all the features of the Probe, therefore they act as partial interveners for Agree. Given this circumstance of partial valuation, two repair mechanisms are proposed: default repair (cf. (iii)) and split repair (cf. (ii)), which bring about the optional patterns attested._x000D_ Chapter 4 explores agreement patterns in biclausal configurations. Spanish HA is compared to previous descriptions of LDA crossliguistically. It is concluded that the HA is an instance of bona fide long distance Agree. Such proposal differs from those accounts that maintain that LDA is the result of multiple local Agree-steps. In addition, an intervention-based analysis is applied to the biclausal contexts, unifying the treatment of number agreement. More specifically, it is suggested that clausal dependents are Goals for Agree due to the presence of a D-head endowed with phi-features. The transparency or opacity of the embedded domain is both derived from those features and the structural relationship that it establishes with the matrix clause.

Date of Award	11 Nov 2022
Original language	English
Supervisor	Ángel Jesús Gallego Bartolomé (Director)