Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.22210/suvlin.2017.084.02
Agreement in Role and Reference Grammar: a Typology of Possible Targets
Ranko Matasović
orcid.org/0000-0001-7068-3036
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
This paper presents a sketch of a theory of agreement within the framework of Role and
Reference Grammar and proposes an implicational universal that can be formulated rather
elegantly due to RRG’s conception of the layered structure of the clause. It is argued
that, in the RRG framework, controllers of agreement are always elements represented
in the Constituent Projection, while targets of agreement may be represented both in the
Constituent Projection and in the Operator Projection. On the basis of a sample of 300
languages, we propose an implicational universal stating that languages cannot have agreement on operators, unless they also have agreement on syntactic elements represented
on the constituent projection (the converse does not hold). This claim can be shown to
have very few apparent counter–examples, and holds for both the domains of the NP (RP)
and the Clause. It lends further support to the distinction between operator projection
and constituent projection, which is one of the foundations of RRG’s approach to syntax.
Keywords
agreement; Role and Reference Grammar; language typology; syntactic domains
Hrčak ID:
190747
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2017.
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