The distribution of φ-probes in the inflectional structure

Authors

  • Asia Pietraszko University of Connecticut

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4355

Keywords:

subject-verb agreement, φ-features, compound tenses, aspectual verbs, auxiliaries, multiple agreement, V-checking, feature percolation, Bantu languages

Abstract

Subject-verb agreement in φ-features has been treated as a relation between the subject and some functional category in the clausal spine (Infl, Agr, T). I argue that such severing of the Phi-probe from the verb is problematic for agreement patterns in Bantu languages and argue for a tighter connection between them. The crucial argument is the lack of consistent association of functional heads with agreement features, observed e.g. in compound tenses and aspectual-verb constructions in Bantu languages. The number and positions of Phi-probes in clausal structure are derived from the number and size of head-chains containing a verb. 

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Published

2018-03-06

How to Cite

Pietraszko, Asia. 2018. “The Distribution of φ-Probes in the Inflectional Structure”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 3 (1): 59:1–15. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4355.