The Existence of Failed Agreement: Evidence from English List-Existentials
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This paper aims to propose a structure of English list-existentials, an understudied type of expletive there-constructions, and argue the existence of failed agreement, proposed by Preminger(2014), by using English list-existentials. These constructions exhibit the following properties: First, the copula is always realized as 3rd person singular forms regardless of whether post-verbal associates of there are singular or plural. Second, associates of there in constructions in question are not nominative but accusative. In order to capture these two properties shown in list-existentials, which are substantially different from indefinite existentials, I suggest that there are two types of unaccusative v, depending on whether it can assign case or not. v in list-existentials is the one with an ability to assign case, while v in indefinite existentials is not. Additionally, I argue that the associates in list-existentials, which have already received case from v, cannot be appropriate targets for Agree. Thus, uninterpretable φ-features on T always fail to be deleted. Nonetheless, list-existential sentences containing undeleted uninterpretable φ-features can be well-formed. This is impossible under Chomsky’s (2000) derivational time-bombs model, but possible under the failed agreement model, proposed by Preminger(2014). Given this, I conclude that failed agreement does exist in the grammar of English.
Abstract
This paper aims to propose a structure of English list-existentials, an understudied type of expletive there-constructions, and argue the existence of failed agreement, proposed by Preminger(2014), by using English list-existentials. These constructions exhibit the following properties: First, the copula is always realized as 3rd person singular forms regardless of whether post-verbal associates of there are singular or plural. Second, associates of there in constructions in question are not nominative but accusative. In order to capture these two properties shown in list-existentials, which are substantially different from indefinite existentials, I suggest that there are two types of unaccusative v, depending on whether it can assign case or not. v in list-existentials is the one with an ability to assign case, while v in indefinite existentials is not. Additionally, I argue that the associates in list-existentials, which have already received case from v, cannot be appropriate targets for Agree. Thus, uninterpretable φ-features on T always fail to be deleted. Nonetheless, list-existential sentences containing undeleted uninterpretable φ-features can be well-formed. This is impossible under Chomsky’s (2000) derivational time-bombs model, but possible under the failed agreement model, proposed by Preminger(2014). Given this, I conclude that failed agreement does exist in the grammar of English.
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