The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of features

Abstract

We present a proposal about the nature of agreement processes and the syntax of its output, and demonstrate that this proposal not only advances the overall understanding of agreement, but also contributes to a simpler view of various syntactic phenomena. At the heart of our proposal is a conception of agreement that draws on various traditions that view it as “feature sharing”. We combine this conception with a proposal that valuation and interpretability of features are independent concepts. We specifically focus on the role of verbal tense morphology in specifying other properties of a sentence, and the comparable role played by wh -morphology in specifying clause type.We concentrate on the syntax of raising constructions and an analysis of sentential subjects.