Agreement as a fallible operation

Abstract

In this thesis, I argue that the obligatory nature of agreement in [phi]-features (henceforth, [phi]-agreement) cannot be captured by appealing to "derivational time-bombs"-elements of the initial representation that cannot be part of a well-formed, end-of-the-derivation structure, and which are eliminated by the application of [phi]-agreement itself (as in Chomsky's 2000, 2001 uninterpretable features approach, for example). Instead, it requires recourse to an operation- one whose invocation is obligatory, but whose successful culmination is not enforced by the grammar. I then discuss the implications of this conclusion for the analysis of defective intervention by dative nominals. These results lead to a novel view of the interaction of '-agreement with case, furnishing an argument that both '-agreement and so-called "morphological case" must be computed within the syntactic component of the grammar. Finally, I survey other domains where the same operations-based logic proves well-suited to model the empirical state of affairs; these include Object Shift, the Definiteness Effect, and long-distance wh-movement. The thesis examines data from the Kichean languages of the Mayan family (primarily from Kaqchikel), as well as from Basque, Icelandic, and French.