Postsyntactic inflection of the degree phrase in German

Abstract

Recent treatments of concord contend that adjectival inflection occurs postsyntactically through the insertion of Agr nodes onto individual, concord-bearing heads after Spell-Out (i.a. Norris 2012, 2014). I examine these claims through the lens of degree modification in German, which demonstrates that current formulations of this approach are untenable. I argue however that a postsyntactic treatment of (adjectival) concord can in fact be maintained if Agr node insertion occurs phrasally at DegP, and not at adjectival heads. This account explains i) an observed difference between the inflection of analytic vs. synthetic degree expressions in both simple and complex modifiers, and ii) a puzzle involving across-the-board inflection of coordinated adjectives, which I argue to involve pointwise attachment of Agr.