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Quirky agreement[Note 1. I am most indebted to Noam Chomsky for his ...]
Author(s) -
Boeckx Cedric
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
studia linguistica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.187
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1467-9582
pISSN - 0039-3193
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9582.00070
Subject(s) - nominative case , agreement , dative case , icelandic , verb , linguistics , object (grammar) , element (criminal law) , constraint (computer aided design) , subject (documents) , mathematics , computer science , pure mathematics , philosophy , geometry , political science , library science , law
Verb agreement with a nominative element is severely constrained in Icelandic when a Quirky “subject” is present: only partial (number, not person) agreement obtains. This paper tries to account for this restriction in terms of Bonet's 1994 Person‐Case‐Constraint, which blocks ‘object’ person agreement when agreement with a dative element takes place. I put forward the idea that agreement obtains with Quirky subjects, but fails to show up morphologically on the verb for non‐syntactic reasons. The analysis is extended to other languages, which allows me to address the issue of the nature of Quirky Case, and of inherent Case more generally.