Two ways to agree in D[N1&N2] constructions – Romance left-conjunct agreement and Germanic morphologically resolved agreement

Abstract

Hitherto unnoticed, Romance and Germanic differ with respect to the observable agreement patterns in D[N1&N2] constructions (e.g., this philosopher and linguist): While Romance (Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese) exhibits left conjunct agreement, Germanic (German, Dutch and English) exhibits (morphologically) resolved agreement. In this article, I present an analysis that will derive this difference from one parametrized property: Germanic Num° has both gender and number, while Romance Num° lacks gender. The analysis will be couched in a multiple agree framework, where triggering is reduced to interface conditions: The outcome of (multiple) agree must be semantically and phonologically interpretable.

Keywords

• Coordination
• Nominal domain
• Agree
• Concord