1

In: P. Bhaskararao and K. V. Subbarao (eds.), The Yearbook of South Asian

Languages and Linguistics (New Delhi: Thousand Oaks; London: Sage

Publications, 2001), 457–92

AGREEMENT IN SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGES AND

MINIMALIST INQUIRIES: THE FRAMEWORK

Kārumūri V. Subbārāo

Introduction

Based on cross-linguistic evidence this paper aims to evaluate the claims concerning

agreement made in Chomsky's paper Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework, MI hereafter).

While there is evidence in support of Chomsky's claim that probe-goal relationship is a

local relationship, we shall demonstrate that it need not always be the case that locality

reduces to "closest C-command" as it may reduce to "closest subcommand" relationship

and hence, the nature of the relationship is not universal but parametric. We shall provide

evidence to show that a probe P may not be able to locate a closest matching goal G to be

in its domain and hence, the uninterpretable features of the probe do not delete resulting in

crash of derivation. We argue that there is need to posit a 'null argument' which moves and

merges (second merger) to satisfy the EPP and consequently, the null argument deletes the

probe in a "closest C-command" relationship. Our data demonstrate that

nonsubcategorized arguments too trigger agreement and hence, they are narrowly L-

related. A probe thus is coindexed with a goal that is a postpositional phrase (PP) and thus

the PP, a nonsubcategorized argument, is in a "closest C-command " position with a probe.

We shall examine the implications of COMP agreement in phi-features with the matrix

subject in some Austro-Asiatic languages to MI.

This paper is organized as follows: We shall provide a brief summary of Chomsky's claims

in the MI in section 1. Section 2 provides a brief typology of agreement patterns relevant

to our discussion. Section 3 provides arguments in support of including the notion of

'closest subcommand' in addition to having 'closest C-command'. Based on evidence from

default agreement in Hindi-Urdu, Telugu and Tamil we shall demonstrate in section 4 that

there is need to include the notion of 'null argument' as goal. Section 5 discusses the

implications of nonsubcategorized arguments to Chomsky's proposals concerning probe-

goal relationship. Section 6 discusses COMP agreement in some Austro-Asiatic languages.

Section 7 discusses long-distance agreement in South Asian languages and its implications

to MI.

1. Case and Agreement in Chomsky's Minimalist Inquiries: The Framework (MI)

Structural Case in the Minimalist Program is licensed in a Spec-head agreement

relationship. It is the functional head Agrs in association with the Tense that licenses

nominative Case and it is Agro in association with the verb V that licenses accusative Case.

Verbs under this approach are "fully-inflected" and "strong" structural Case features that

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are uninterpretable must be checked off and deleted by Spell-Out in the course of

derivation. By uninterpretable features we mean features that contain morphological

material. Uninterpretable features that are present after Spell-Out cause the derivation to

'crash'. However, features that are uninterpretable and deleted by Spell-Out are visible at

PF level. It should be mentioned that it is only "strong" structural Case features that are

deleted and inherent Case features are not (Chomsky 1995a). Chomsky (1995b) dispenses

with the notion of agr phrases as functional heads on conceptual grounds. Thus, feature

checking takes place not with agr phrases as functional heads but in a spec-head relation

with non-agr functional categories. Thus, nominative Case of subject if it is "strong" is

checked under Spec-head relation with Tense (T) phrase, the subject occurring in the Spec

position of T. Similarly, the accusative Case feature of DO is checked in Spec-head

relation with v where DO occurs in Spec position of a light verb v that is a functional head.

Though Chomsky's position of dispensing with agr phrases is essentially correct on

conceptual grounds, we have argued elsewhere (Subbarao1997) that agr heads such as agrs,

agrdo, agrio and agrgen are needed on empirical grounds.

Chomsky(1998) proposes a major modification in the treatment of Case and agreement.

In Chomsky (1995 a, b) a Case-marked noun phrase that has "strong" features moves to the

Spec position of a functional head. Uninterpretable features of a Case-marked DP make

the DP move. In contrast, Chomsky(1998) proposes "… agreement (hence, movement) is

driven by uninterpretable features of the probe which must be deleted for legibility"

(Chomsky1998: 42). Chomsky introduces two new terms: probe and goal. Agreement

(phi-features) constitute a probe and the DP that is "related to" or " connected with" the

probe is the corresponding goal. It is the probe that forces the 'identifiable goal' to move to

its spec position. Thus, agreement is viewed as a probe-goal relationship where strong

uninterpretable features of the probe force the goal to move to the Spec position.

Agreement still is a phenomenon which is "local" in nature as Spec-head relation is a

minimal requirement. To put it in Chomsky's words, the phi-set (probe) 'seeks a goal,

namely, "matching" features that establish agreement' (Chomsky1998: 37). Once the goal

and probe are in a purely local spec-head c-command relationship 'the probe erases under

matching' (Chomsky1998: 37). The next question that arises is: what happens to the

structural Case features of the goal? Chomsky points out that structural Case is ' a reflex

of an uninterpretable -set ' and hence, the structural Case 'too erases under matching with

the probe'. Chomsky labels the operation as Agree that results in the erasure of

uninterpretable features of probe and goal.

Chomsky points out that 'matching is a relation that holds of a probe P and a goal G.

Unless G is in the domain D(P) of P and satisfies locality conditions, matching pair is not

found and hence, it cannot induce Agree. The following assumptions are required for the

probe-goal system in MI.

(1). Matching is feature identity.

(2). D(P) is the sister of P

(3). Locality reduces to "closest C-command"

(Chomsky 1998:38)

The second uninterpretable feature that needs to be deleted is the EPP feature of T (tense).

The question that arises is: How does the goal select the probe? According to MI 'it is the

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structural Case that enables the closest goal G to select P (G) to satisfy EPP by Merge"

(Chomsky 1998:38)

The next crucial assumption concerns the nature of movement of goal. The "active"

nature of the goal crucially depends on uninterpretable features. '… if structural Case has

been checked (deleted), the phrase P (G) is "frozen in place" unable to move further to

satisfy EPP in a higher position' (Chomsky1998:38) . This assumption becomes relevant

in long-distance agreement. It is an active goal that is able to select a phrase for Merge

(piedpiping) or to delete the probe'. The operations Agree and Move require a goal that is

both local and active (Chomsky1998: 38).

Another crucial assumption concerns the nature of the probe with regard to deletion of phi-

features. According to MI, only a probe that carries a full complement of phi-features is

capable of deleting the feature that activates the matched goal.

2. Agreement Typology of South Asian Languages

We shall attempt to provide a typology of agreement patterns in South Asian languages

with a view to examine the role that lexical case markers play in triggering agreement or

blocking agreement. South Asian languages exhibit three distinct patterns with regard to

agreement: (i) the presence of a lexical case marker blocks agreement of an NP with the

INFL of the verb in a set of languages such as Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi and Gujarati in some

cases (ii) the presence of a lexical case marker is obligatory for agreement of that NP with

the INFL of the verb in the other set of languages such as Kurmali, Maithili etc. and, (iii)

the presence or absence of an agreement marker is of no consequence for agreement in

languages such as Mizo, Hmar, Paite etc. This indicates that the presence or absence of a

lexical case marker vis à vis agreement is parametric and hence, cannot be treated as a

universal. Thus, any classification that explicitly relies on the overt presence or absence of

a lexical case marker vis à vis agreement, may not be a proper universal characterization of

a phenomenon (Subbarao 1997).

2.1. Lexically Case-marked DP blocking agreement

In Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi the subject in the nominative case

triggers agreement. When the subject is lexically case-marked ergative as in (1), dative,

genitive or locative in Hindi-Urdu, the verb exhibits agreement with theme. It might show

default agreement in Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi (i) if the theme or patient is lexically case-

marked with a specificity marker as in (2), (ii) when the passive subject and patient/theme

are lexically case-marked as in (3) and (iii) in lexical passives where there is no overt

subject as in (4).

Hindi-Urdu:

Theme-verb agreement

1. raam ne roTii khaa- yii

Ram MASC ERG bread FEM eat PAST FEM

DEFAULT 'Ram ate bread'.

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Lexical case marker blocking agreement

2. raam ne laRkii ko dekh- aa

Ram

MASC

ERG girl SPECIFICITY see PAST

MASC SG

'Ram saw a girl'.

Default agreement- Theme lexically Case-marked in Passive

3. pulis ke dwaaraa cor ko pakRaa ga- yaa

police by thief ACC was caught DEFAULT

‘The thief was caught by the police’.

Default agreement-lexical passives

4. ham se yahaa~ baiTh-aa nahii~ jaa-taa

by us here sit-PASS not go-IMPERF

MASC SG

DEFAULT

‘We can’t sit here’.

When the subject is case-marked dative/locative, the verb agrees with the theme as in (5)

in Telugu.

Telugu

5. kamala ki nalugu-ru pillalu unnaa- ru

Kamala

FEM SG

DAT four

CLASSIFIER

children are

PL

'Kamala has four children'.

The verb exhibits third person singular neuter (default) agreement when no overt subject or

object is present in (6) in Telugu. ikkaDa 'here' is an adverb and callagaa 'cold' is an

adjective.

6. ikkaDa caalaa calla gaa un- di

here very cold be III NEUTER DEFAULT

'It is very cold in here'.

In Tamil the verb exhibits default agreement in the dative subject construction when the

subject is dative case-marked and the theme is lexically case-marked accusative.

Tamil:

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Theme in the accusative

7. kumaar- kku raajaav- aip piTikk um

Kumar DAT Raja ACC like NEUTER

DEFAULT

'Kumar likes Raja'

(Lehman 1993).

2.2. Lexically Case-marked DP triggering agreement

Gujarati:

In Gujarati, on the other hand, a lexically case-marked direct object triggers agreement

(Mistry 1997) as in (1).

1. kiSori- E raaj j ne pajav- y- o*i, j

Kishore ERG Raj

MASC

ACC harass PERF Agr

MASC

'Kishore harassed Raj'

(Mistry 1997)

In (1) though both the ergative subject and object are lexically case-marked, it is the direct

object (patient) that triggers agreement and not the subject.

The light verb in Gujarati may also exhibit agreement with the theme madad 'help' that is

lexically Case-marked as in (2) or with a patient raaj 'Raj' that is lexically Case-marked as

in (3).

2. kiSori- E raajj ne madadk kar y- o*i, *j, k

Kishore ERG Raj

MASC

ACC help-do PERF Agr

MASC

'Kishore helped Raj'

3.

kiSori- E raajj ne yaadk kar y- o*i, j, *k

Kishore ERG Raj

MASC

ACC help-do PERF Agr

MASC

'Kishoreremembered Raj'

(Mistry 1997)

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Sentence (3) is similar to (1) in terms of agreement with patient but differs from (1) in

having a conjunct verb. Sentence (3) contrasts with (2) in agreement though both have a

conjunct verb.

First, we provide evidence to show that an NP may be case-marked nominative and still

may not be able to trigger agreement as agrs1 is not “active” but “inert” or “weak” in a

sentence. In (4) and (5) below from Maithili, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Bihar,

the verb exhibits two distinct types of agreement patterns though (2) and (3) are

identical in structure.

Maithili:

Subject - verb agreement: Agrs active (Subject active)

4. o i ahaank gaam mE gela chaal aaha i

he

HON

your

HON

village LOC go

PAST

AUX+PAST AGR

HON

'He went to your village’

(Singh 1979: 257)

GEN (of phrase) & verb agreement: AGR gen active - Subject dormant

5. ham ahaank i gaam mE gela chal ahun i

I

HON

your

HON

village LOC go AUX+P

AST

AGR

HON

‘ I went to your village’

(Singh 1979: 256)

In (6) the subject agrees with the INFL and in (7) there is no subject-verb agreement and

the verb agrees with the GEN phrase of an adverb.

The verb in Maithili exhibits agreement with direct object and indirect object though they

are lexically case- marked.

DO lexically case-marked

6.

o/i toora/j maar -ala- thuumha/j

he you

MID HON

hit PAST AGR

MID HON

'He hit you'

IO lexically case-marked

7.

7

ham/i ahaan-ken/j paai/k de- l- ahun/j

I you HON money give PAS

T

AGR HON

'I gave you money'

(Singh 1979)

Unlike in most of the South Asian languages the verb exhibits agreement with a dative

subject as in (8) or with a passive subject as in (9).

Agreement with Dative Subject

8.

hun- kaai bhuk lag- l- ain(h)i

he+

3 HON

DAT Hunger feel PAST AGRs

3 HON

'He felt hungry'

(Yadava 1997)

Agreement with Passive Subject 9.

hun-kaa sa~i kitaab paDh- al nahi~ ge- l- ain(h)/

him+DAT by book read PAST not go PAST AGR

passive subject

'He could not read this book.'

(Yadava 1997)

In Maithili the verb exhibits agreement with an adjunct (ablative) which carries an overt

lexical case marker as in (8).

Agreement with an Ablative PP:

10. o/i ii vastujat hamaraa sOn/j le- l- aka/*i, j

he these things me from take PAST AGR

'He took these things from me'

(Singh 1979)

In Maithili there are instances of triple agreement markers on the verb as Yadava (1997)

demonstrates. In (11) the verb exhibits agreement with the subject ham 'we', tohar 'your',

the possessor of the direct object, and the direct object baabuji 'father'.

Triple agreement markers (AGR s, AGR gen and AGR do)

11.

8

ham/i tohar/j baabuji/k ke~ dekh - al - i/i- au/j- nh/ k

I your

2 NH

father

3 H

ACC see PAST AGR s AGR gen

2 NH AGR do

3 H

'I saw your father.'

(Yadava 1997)

Based on the discussion thus far, the following characteristic features of Maithili

agreement are worth mentioning:

Though there is no overt ergative marker, the verb exhibits agreement with direct object

and an indirect object and the possessor (object of the genitive) too.

(i) Unlike in most other South Asian languages the verb exhibits agreement with a

dative subject and a passive subject, possessor of the subject and object and an

ablative postpositional phrase.

(ii) The verb exhibits triple agreement markers.

The verb exhibits long-distance agreement with the possessor of embedded clause too.

Maithili

12. raam keN tohaar gaaRii calaunaai abait ch- ah

Raam DAT your

2MIDHON

car to drive comes Agr

2MIDHON

.

‘Ram knows how to drive your car’.

(Yogendra Yadava pc)

The matrix verb agrees with the possessor of the embedded clause tohaar 'your' and hence,

the possessor agreement marker -ah occurs with the matrix verb.

In Kurmali, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Bihar in the north of India, the verb

exhibits agreement with subject and the possessor of the direct object as well. Possessor

agreement takes place in spite of the subject being in the nominative case just as in

Maithili. Just as in Maithili, there is no overt ergative marker in Kurmali

Kurmali:

Possessor Agreement in Kurmali

13. tor beTaa- taa-y/i okhar/j beTii-ti ke maari de- l- e/i in/j

your son DEF

NOM

their daughter

DEF

ACC beat give PAST

IIIPL

IISG

'Your son beat their daughter’

(Mahto 1989)

In Kurmali the indirect object triggers agreement though it is lexically case-marked and the

subject is not ergative case-marked.

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Indirect Object Agreement

14. tor beTaa- taa-y/i okhar beTii-ti ke/j ektaa kitaab

your son DEF

NOM

their daughter

DEF

ACC one book

-0 de- l- e/i in/j

ACC give PAST

IIISG

IIISG

'Your son gave a book to their daughter'

(Mahto 1989)

2.3. Lexically Case-marked NPs and Pronominal Clitics

Pronominal Clitics in Hmar, Mizo and Aimol

Languages such as Mizo, Hmar, Aimol, Paite which belong to the Tibeto-Burman family,

exhibit split ergativity in person. When the DO/IO/O GEN is in III person Hmar exhibits

accusative-absolutive pattern and when they are I or II person, it exhibits ergative-

absolutive pattern as well as nominative - accusative pattern. Based on data from South

Asian languages, we've argued elsewhere (Subbarao 1997a, 1998a) that classification of

languages into 'two types', namely, ergative-absolutive and nominative-accusative is not

tenable.

Hmar is a 'heavy pro drop' language. Pronouns do not normally occur unless they are in

the scope of an emphatic or a limiter such as only. Since the verb is transitive, the ergative

case marker occurs with the subject lali in (1). The verb agrees with the subject and hence,

has the subject agreement marker a- thus exhibiting the nominative-accusative pattern. It

also carries the object agreement marker thus exhibiting an ergative-absolutive pattern.

The IO agreement marker occurs with the verb in (2) though the IO is lexically case-

marked dative.

Hmar:

1. lali/i- n pro/j a/i- mi/j- hmu

Lali ERG IIISG ISG met

‘Lali met me’.

2. lali/i- n i- koma/j lekhabu a/i- pek- ce/j

Lali ERG you- for book III SG give IISG

'Lali gave you a book’

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We shall now consider the case of agreement in Mundari, an Austro-Asiatic language

spoken in Bihar. The pronominal clitic of the for dative cliticizes onto the verb and the

dative object is lexically case marked. Mundari is a ‘nominative-accusative language’ in

the traditional usage of the phrase.

Mundari:

3. pro/i soma- nanggen/j naki?- ny/i kiring a- i?/j - a

Soma for comb ISG buy BEN IIISG

PRED

'I bought a comb for Soma’

(Osada 1992)

In (3) the verb exhibits agreement with IO which is lexically case-marked. The object

naki? ‘comb’ exhibits agreement with the subject pro ‘I’ . This is labeled as Clitic 2

phenomenon (Subbarao 1997a,b).

2.4. COMP Agreement

In a sentence with a complement clause the subject pronominal clitic occurs with the

COMP as in (1). The postsentential COMP in Mundari is a quotative form of the verb say.

1. pro/i soma- hiju?- aka- n- a mente ny/i

Soma come ASP INTR PRED COMP ISG

ke - d- a

ASP PAST PRED

‘I heard that Soma came'

(Osada 1992)

In Juang too, an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in Orissa, the complementizer gamOjO

agrees with the subject of the matrix clause. The complementizer gamOjO is a quotative

form of the verb say.

Juang (Austro-Aisatic)

2. nin/i amte [rabi OpOmanian ne/i- gamOjO ] ne/i- gamO

we you-ACC Ravi was insulted IPL COMP IPL told

'We told you that Ravi was insulted'

3. apa banOg/i [aarakia banOg sugei kamOkia

you two he-DUAL two very hardworking

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a/i-gamOjO a/i- gamO

II-DUAL II- DUAL said

'You said that they two work very hard'

(Patnaik 1999)

To summarize the above discussion, the role that NPs with lexical case markers play in

triggering agreement or not is language specific and thus, parametric. While in Hindi-

Urdu and Punjabi of the Indo-Aryan family, an NP followed by a lexical case marker fails

to trigger agreement, in Kurmali and Maithili of the Indo-Aryan family and Mizo, Hmar

and Paite of the Tibeto-Burman family NPs which are followed by a lexical case marker

are the only eligible candidates for triggering agreement.

2.5. Pronominal Strength Hierarchy in Agreement

Many South Asian languages exhibit pronominal strength hierarchy in manifesting

agreement. In sentences with conjoined subjects in Mizo and Hmar, Tibeto-Burman

languages, I person subject has precedence in occurrence as a pronominal clitic over II and

III person subjects. Hence, when I person subject and III person subject occur, it is I

person subject clitic in plural that occurs and not III person clitic. Since Mizo and Hmar

are 'heavy pro -drop' languages, the pronoun does not normally overtly occur.

In (1) and (2) the conjuncts are in III person and I person and hence, the I person clitic

takes precedence in occurrence because I person is stronger than III person. In (3) the

conjuncts are III and II person and hence, it is the second person agreement marker that

occurs with the verb.

Hmar 1.

lali le pro kan- in- Tsung- pui- ce

Lali and IPL VR sat with IISG

'Lali and I sat with you'

2. lali le pro nang cou in- Tsung- pui- kan- ti- ce

Lali and you only VR sat with IPL FUT IISG

'Lali and I will sit only with you'

3. lala le pro in- in- Tsung-

Lala and IIPL VR Sat

'Lala and you sat'

Mizo

4.

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tluangii nen pro apple kan

-

i- ang

Tluangi and IPL eat FUT

'Tluangi and I will eat the apple.’

5. tluangii nen pro apple in- ei- ang

Tluangi and II

PL

eat FUT

'Tluangi and you will eat the apple.'

The hierarchies in sentences (1) - (5) can be schematically represented as follows:

I>II>III where > indicates 'stronger than'.

In Telugu adjectives in predicate position carry pronominal suffixes except in III person

masculine singular where the entire pronoun is suffixed to the adjective. The pronominal

suffixes too exhibit pronominal strength hierarchy.

2.6 Predicate adjectives and verbs exhibiting pronominal strength hierarchy

1. neenu-u waaDu-u manciwaaLLa- mu

I CONJN he CONJN good fellows I PL

'He and I are good fellows'

2. neenu-u nuwwu-u manciwaaLLa- mu

I CONJN you CONJN good fellows I PL

'He and I are good fellows'

Verbs too manifest pronominal strength hierarchy in agreement.

3. waaDu-u neenu-u bazaaru-ki weLtaa- mu

he and I and market to will go

'He and I will go to the market'

4. nuwwu-u neenu-u bazaaru-ki weLtaa- mu

you and I and market to will go

'You and I will go to the market'

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2.7. Language Contact and Agreement:

In contact situations it is the case that a functional category such as Agr of a language

‘converges’ with the Agr of a language belonging to another family. The case in point

concerns agreement in Manda, a Dravidian language, spoken in areas where Munda, an

Austro-Asiatic language and the Indo-Aryan Oriya are spoken. Both Manda and Munda

are ‘nominative-accusative languages’. Manda verb agrees not only with the subject but

also with the DO, IO, OO (Locative), for dative and with the dative subject. Such

agreement is untypical of Dravidian languages. The following examples from Manda are

illustrative. (The glosses have been modified) (Rama Krishna Reddy 1980, 1992).

Manda:

Agreement of Direct Object:

1. sanaatan i manka j hur - da j - un i

Sanatan us see IPL IIIMSG

‘Sanatan saw us’

Agreement of Indirect Object :

2. evar i manka j ru kata k ves j - sa - t - ir i

they us one story tell IPL PAST IIIPL

‘They told us a story’

Agreement of OO (Locative):

3. inelin maa j

- dengata piiyu rii j - da i t - i j

yesterday us on day Rain IPL PAST IIISG

‘It rained on us yesterday’

Agreement of for Dative NP:

4 even i pro j Il je - ta j - n - un i

he for

me/us/you

house open IPL FUTURE IIISG

‘He will open the door for me/us/you’

Agreement of the Dative Subject :

5. nin-ka i nuumer j ah ta j - n - ba

you-to fever catch IISG NONPAST PROG

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‘You got fever.’

(Ramakrishna Reddy 1992)

Note that in (5) the verb does not agree with the noun phrase nuumer `fever’ in the

nominative case. Instead, it agrees with a lexically case-marked dative subject. Since

Dravidian literary languages do not have agreement of a non-subject with a verb and since

it is the Munda languages which do, Rama Krishna Reddy convincingly argues that it is

Munda influence on Manda.

Malto, a transplanted Dravidian language in Bihar, exhibits agreement in conjunctive

participles (Mahapatra 1979). Conjunctive participles in Dravidian languages, though

finite, do not manifest agreement. On the other hand, participles in some of the Austro-

Asiatic languages exhibit agreement in participles. Thus, agreement in conjunctive

participles in Malto could be attributed to convergence with Austro-Asiatic languages. The

following examples from Malto are illustrative. We provide the corresponding sentence

from Telugu to illustrate the Dravidian pattern of nonagreement of conjunctive participles..

Malto

6. pro bit-a-ka- r o- c a- r mand-a-r

cook ?-CPM 3PL take ? CPM 3PL plant PAST 3PL

'Having cooked, having taken them, they planted them'

(Mahapatra 1979)

[The glosses and sentence translation have been slightly modified]

Telugu

7. pro wanD-i tiis-i kon-i weLL-i paat-i peTT-ee- ru

cook- CPM take CPM VR-CPM go-CPM plant-CPM put- PAST-

3PL

'Having cooked, having taken them, they planted them'.

In the following section we shall attempt to examine the various types of agreement found in South

Asian languages in the Minimalist Inquiries framework.

3. Locality: 'Closest C-command' and 'closest Subcommand'

3.1.Possessor Raising Cases

In Maithili, (Yadava 1997) Bajjika and Magahi Indo-Aryan), the matrix verb exhibits

agreement with object as well as indirect object. The verb further shows agreement with

the possessor of an NP that occurs in the matrix sentence or in the embedded sentence.

Since the genitive triggers agreement, it occupies a narrowly L-related position because

15

any position in which checking take place with a functional head is a narrowly L-related

position.

In Maithili it is the possessor which triggers honorificity agreement with Tense.

Maithili 1.

tohar kukuur ham-raa nankirbaa ke kaiT le-l-ak-Ø-i

2 nh dog my child ACC bite take-PAST- 2nh Agr-

‘Your dog bit my child.’

2. aha~k kukuur ham-raa nankirbaa ke kaiT le-l-ak-Ø-an

2 h dog my child ACC bite take-PAST- 2nh Agr-

‘Your dog bit my child.’

3. apnek kukuur ham-raa nankirbaa ke kaiT le-l- kh- in(h)

2 h dog my child ACC bite take-PAST- 2h Agr-

‘Your dog bit my child.’

4. aha~k kheet suikhi raha chathi-n(h)

2 h field is drying up 2h

‘Your field is drying up.’

5. Tohar/okar khet suikhi rah-al-chai

your/his

2nh/3nh

field is drying up 2nh/3nh

‘Your field is drying up’

(Anil Thakur pc)

The possessor with the DO and an OO too can trigger agreement.

Direct Object

6. ham hinak beTaa-ke~ dekh- l- au- nh

I 3hPROX:GEN son DAT see PST 2nh 3h

'I saw his-h son' (whom you-nh referred to, etc.)

(Bickel et al 1999).

16

Note that the second person agreement marker can 'index referents in the wider discourse

context' (Bickel et al ibid). To the best of our knowledge there is no mechanism available

in sentence grammars to account for the occurrence of such agreement markers.

Oblique Object

7. ham ahaank i gaam mE gela chal ahun i

I

HON

your

HON

village LOC go AUX PAST AGR HON

‘ I went to your village.’

(Singh 1979: 256)

To account for the phenomenon in Chomsky’s MI, the possessor which is the Goal is

‘forced’ to move to the spec position of the corresponding functional head to delete the

uninterpretable features of the probe and of the goal. The possessor is in a subcommand

relation with Tense and the uninterpretable features of the probe. The Genitive Case of the

possessor DP and the nominative case of the possessed DP have to enter into the operation

Agree with the probe of T of the S. Notice that the genitive, which is inherently case-

marked, is not deleted.

Agreement with possessor in Hmar

Hmar

8. zova-n ka

I-

kut a- mi i - sOOp

Zova ERG my hands IIISG ISG washed

'Zova washed my hands'

9. zova-n i I- kut a- sOOp ce i

Zova ERG my hands IIISG washed IISG

'Zova washed your hands'

Note that the agreement markers for DO, IO, and O GEN are homophonous in Hmar.

Since the possessed DP is in third person and the O GEN is in I person, it is the agreement

marker of O GEN that is coded in the verb. An explanation similar to the one we provided

for Maithili possessor raising works for the Hmar cases too.

To account for possessor raising in Chomsky’s MI, the possessor and the possessed which

are the 'identifiable' goals are ‘forced’ to move to the spec position of the corresponding

functional head to delete the uninterpretable features of the probe. That is, the Genitive

Case of the possessor DP and the nominative case of the possessed DP have to enter into

the operation Agree with the Probe of T of the S. Notice that the genitive, which is

inherently case-marked, is not deleted. The possessor is in a subcommand relation with

Tense T and the probe and the uninterpretable features of the probe are deleted.

17

We shall now discuss long-distance possessor agreement in Maithili.

Maithili

10. raam keN tohaar i gaaRii calaunaai abait ch- ah i

Ram DAT your

2mid hon

car to drive come agr

2mid hon

‘Ram knows how to drive your car’

(Yogendra Yadava pc)

In Maithili the matrix verb agrees with the possessor of the embedded clause. The

entire embedded clause is an infinitival complement and hence, behaves like a DP. This

DP occurs in the object position of the matrix S and the possessor raises to the Spec

position of the T of the matrix clause because the probe identifies the possessor of the

embedded clause as the candidate and the Spec position of the T of the matrix S has to be

filled. That is how the target of move and location are determined. The operation Agree

simultaneously takes place deleting the probe. Note that the Case features of the genitive

are not deleted, as genitive is inherently Case-marked.

To summarize the above discussion concerning possessor raising in simple clauses and

long-distance possessor raising, the possessor DP is in a closest subcommand relation

with the probe. According to MI the DP must be in "closest C-command" relationship

that is local. Our analysis of Maithili and Hmar data clearly demonstrate the need to

include subcommand as a requirement for the deletion of uninterpretable features of the

probe.

3.2. Null Arguments as Goal: The Case of Agreement in Nonnominative Subject

Construction

Nonnominative subjects which are lexically case marked in general do not trigger

agreement in South Asian languages. These nonnominative subjects include dative,

genitive, locative, passive, and ablative in these languages.

Just as in Japanese and Korean, South Asian languages too have a dative subject

construction (DSC hereafter) in which the experiencer/possessor is lexically case-marked.

In most of the languages such as Hindi-Urdu, Kashmiri, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil

Kannada etc. it is marked by a dative postposition and by a genitive case marker in Bengali

and Assamese. There have been a number of excellent works that explicate the subject

properties of the dative/genitive subject (Sreedhar 1976, Davison 1988, Abbi 1990,

Jayaseelan 1990, Verma and Mohanan 1990 just to name a few).

In most of the Dravidian languages and Indo-Aryan languages the verb does not agree with

the dative/genitive subject and it agrees with the theme which is in the nominative case.

Tamil exhibits a DSC in which the theme is marked accusative. If the theme is case-

marked accusative like in Tamil, the verb exhibits default agreement which is III person

singular neuter.

To indicate possession South Asian languages use a locative postposition with the logical

subject and some languages use a genitive to indicate inalienable possession. Manda, a

18

Dravidian nonliterary language spoken in Orissa and Bihar, exhibits agreement with a

locative DP and a for-dative DP. In this paper we shall focus our attention on the dative

subject construction alone.

Telugu:

The Dative Subject in Telugu

1. kavita ki jwaram wacc- in- di

Kavita DAT fever came PST III NEUTER

‘Kavita had fever’

2. kavita ki jwaram-u daggu-u wacc-ee- yi

Kavita DAT fever CONJ cough CONJ came PST III NEUTER PL

‘Kavita had fever and cough’

The verb agrees with the theme jwaram 'fever' in (1) and with jwaramu-u daggu-u 'fever

and cough' in (2), which are in the nominative case.

In Tamil however the theme can either be in the nominative case as in (4) and (5) or in the

accusative case as in (3).

Tamil

Subject in dative and theme in accusative

3. kumaar- kku raajaav- aip piTikk- um

Kumar DAT Raja ACC like NEUT

'Kumar likes Raja'

(Lehman, 1993)

Theme in nominative:

4. kumaar- ukku IraNTu paiyan-kaL-0 iru-kkir-aarkaL

Kumar DAT two children NOM be-PRES-3PL

'Kumar has two boys'

5. kumaar- ukku cila ninaivu-kaL-0 va-nt-ana

Kumar DAT a few memories come-PST-3PL N

'Kumar got some memories'

(Lehman, 1993)

19

Hindi-Urdu

6. kavitaa ko bukhaar aa- yaa

Kavita DAT fever MASC

SG

Came PST

MASC PL

‘Kavita had fever’

7. kavitaa ko bukhaar aur khaaNsii aa- yiiN

Kavita DAT fever

MASC

CONJ Cough

FEM

Came PST

FEM PL

‘Kavita had fever and cough’

Note that the conjoined NP containing a masculine noun and a feminine noun is treated as

feminine as the second constituent is feminine and the entire NP is in plural number. Thus,

the verb in (6) agrees with the theme bukhaar 'fever' in (6) and with bukhaar aur khaansii

'fever and cough' in (7).

However, in Maithili (Indo-Aryan) and Manda (Dravidian) the verb exhibits agreement

with the dative subject in honorificity. For example:

Agreement with the dative subject in honorificity:

Maithili

8. hunkaa ha~s- aa- it ch- ainh

3hDAT laugh EXP IMP AUX- 3hNN

'Laughing comes naturally to him'

'EXP stands for Experiential Suffix (marking that the higher argument is an experiencer)'

(Bickel 1999).

Agreement of the Dative Subject:

Manda

9. nin-ka i nuumer j ah ta j - n - ba

you-to fever catch IISG NONPAST PROG

‘You got fever.’

(Ramakrishna Reddy 1992)

Note that in (9) the verb does not agree with the noun phrase nuumer `fever’ in the

nominative case. Instead, it agrees with a lexically case-marked dative subject. And it is

person agreement. Since Dravidian literary languages do not have agreement of a non-

subject with a verb and since it is the Munda languages which do, Rama Krishna Reddy

convincingly argues that it is Munda influence on Manda.

The dative subject in Japanese and Korean exhibits honorificity agreement.

Japanese:

10.

20

yamada sensei- ni sono mondai -ga o- wakari-

Professor Yamada- DAT that problem NOM HON understand

ni- nar- u

to become PRES

'Professor Yamada understands that problem'

(Perlmutter 1984:323)

Korean

11. sensayng- nim- ekey ton- I phil yoha -si- ta

Professor HI DAT money NOM needs HON DECL

' The professor needs money'

(O'Grady 1991:102 as quoted in Ura 1996:327)

It is well established that the dative subject exhibits subject properties in terms of

anaphoric binding and acting as a controller of PRO. The fact that the dative subject

triggers honorificity agreement in Japanese and Korean and in Maithili and person

agreement adds further additional support to the subject properties of the dative subject.

However, the verbal reflexive/reciprocal, which is subject-oriented, cannot occur when the

dative subject occurs in Dravidian languages (Gair et al 1999). Recall that the VR in

Dravidian languages is subject-oriented and cannot occur if it is coindexed with a

nonsubject.

Since the theme in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages is in the nominative case, it is the

theme that triggers agreement if the language under consideration exhibits agreement. The

agreement of the verb vis a vis the dative subject is parametric. While in almost all the

South Asian languages, the dative subject does not control agreement, in Maithili and

genetically unrelated languages such as Japanese and Korean, the dative subject triggers

honorificity agreement. Harada (1976) and Shibatani (1977) point out that 'the so-called

(subject-) honorification in Japanese (and Korean) is induced solely by the element with

the SUBJECT function.' (Ura 1996: 326). In Manda the agreement marker on the verb

with a dative subject is the same as the agreement marker that occurs when the subject is in

the nominative. However, there is conflicting evidence regarding subject properties of the

dative subject. While the nonpermissibility of the verbal reflexive or reciprocal in the DSC

indicates that the dative subject lacks subject properties the fact that the dative subject can

be controller of PRO and an antecedent to an anaphor indicates that it does have subject

properties.

In recent approaches, it is a well-established fact that inherently Case-marked DPs do not

undergo Case-checking and hence, in the Minimalist Program the uninterpretable features

of the inherently Case-marked DPs are not deleted before Spell-Out. This fact can be

formulated in Chomsky's (1998) Minimalist Inquiries Program: The Framework as:

The Probe which is uninterpretable and is coindexed with a Goal that is inherently

lexically-case marked forces the Goal to Move (Merge and Agree) to the Spec position of

the T of the clause and it is only the uninterpretable features of the Probe that get deleted

and NOT the uninterpretable features of the Goal.

21

The next crucial issue with regard to Case and agreement of the dative/genitive agreement

construction is: How is the dative case assigned to experiencer/possessor? Generally, it is

agreed that the nature of the verb/predicate is the crucial element and the dative subject is

subcategorized by the predicate. (Shibatani and Cotton 1976). Saito (1982), Takezawa

(1987), and Morikawa (1993) argue that' the subcategorized dative subject is generated not

as a NP (or DP), but as a PP' [emphasis provided-KVS](quote from Ura 1996:330). Ura

(1996) argues that the light verb v in the dative subject construction is transitive and takes

the VP containing the theme and an intransitive verb as its complement and the dative

subject is generated at the Spec of the light verb v. This v does not assign accusative Case

to any theme. (Ura 1996: 330).

It appears that it is the nature of the predicate and the animacy feature of the noun phrase

that functions as the dative subject that are crucial for the interpretation in the DSC.

Consider for example:

Telugu:

12a. prasaad ki plague waccindi

Prasad DAT plague came

'Prasad has plague'

12b. ii uuri loo kii plague waccindi

This town LOC DAT plague came

'Plague entered the village'

13a. kamala ki jalubu paTTindi

Kamala DAT cold caught

‘Kamala caught a cold’

13b. kattera ki tuppu paTTindi

scissors DAT rust

NOUN

caught

‘This scissors got rusted’

The (b) sentences do not have the dative/experiencer interpretation because the NP that is

dative-case marked is [-animate]. The entire predicate plague wac ‘ plague come’ or

jalubu paTT ‘cold catch’ takes an external argument which is an experiencer in (a)

sentences and a theme in (b) sentences. It is to be worked out whether the external

argument is an NP or a PP.

Data from Telugu show that the most of the predicate in DSC carries an intransitive verb.

In Telugu and the other Dravidian languages a transitive verb takes the verbal reflexive.

The fact that a verbal reflexive cannot occur in the DSC indicates that the predicate of the

DSC is intransitive. Hence, it appears that Ura's claim that the v in the DSC is a light verb

22

that takes a complement VP may be difficult to maintain. M. Shibatani (pc) too

independently arrived at the same conclusion that the predicate in DSC is intransitive.

Chomsky's approach in MI neatly explains the first pattern of agreement in the dative

subject construction: In the first pattern in most of the languages the dative predicate

exhibits agreement with the theme in the nominative case and there is no agreement with

the theme in the accusative case. In the second pattern the dative predicate exhibits

agreement with no constituent, that is, default agreement.

In the first pattern the theme in the nominative Case moves to the Spec position of T, as

the V is intransitive.

In the second pattern in Tamil where the theme occurs in the accusative case and the verb

exhibits default agreement, there is a problem: Which is the NP that is the goal such that it

can be in the closest C-command position with the probe? The probe cannot 'identify' a

goal that can move to the spec of T position. Our proposal to resolve this issue is as

follows:

The assignment of accusative case to theme is inherently assigned depending on the nature

of the predicate (Ura 1996). Hence, the accusative feature of the Goal need not be deleted

before Spell-out.

How are the uninterpretable features of the probe deleted? Note that there is no

“identifiable” Goal available as the verb exhibits default agreement. We maintain that

when the agreement is default, the probe cannot force any goal to move, as there is no

Goal with "identifiable Case features" that will match the probe. Further, it is not permitted

to procrastinate the erasure of the phi features of the probe till LF as any uninterpretable

phi features lead the derivation to Crash.

We therefore propose that agreement that is default be checked with a 'Null Goal'. Note

the operation Agree deletes the phi-features of T. However, there is no structural Case

feature of a Goal to be deleted, as there is no 'matching Goal'. Our proposal is similar to

the Null Case feature checking of PRO proposed in Chomsky and Lasnik (1993).

PRO must be Case-marked with "null" Case, where (certain license null case instances of)

non-finite Tense.' (Lasnik 1999:64)

The proposal made in here accounts for the erasure of default features of the Goal (in

Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi and Gujarati of the Indo Aryan family (cf. (2)-(4)) and Telugu (cf.(6))

of the Dravidian family in 1.1.) where the verb exhibits default agreement when object is

lexically case-marked.

The next crucial question that needs to be answered is: How are the EPP features of T

satisfied?

We propose that if the language has expletives, the operation Merge adds an expletive

satisfying the EPP feature of T. Recall that most of the South Asian languages are verb-

final and hence, do not have an expletive such as there or it (Hook 1976). [Note: This is

not an absolute generalization as Dutch is verb-final and has expletives (Ingeborg van Gyn

and Inge Zwitserlood pc)]. If an expletive is not permitted, the question that still remains

to be answered is: how is the EPP feature of T satisfied? To answer this question, let us

23

examine the situations under which Goal is not available for checking and the phi features

of T have to be checked with a 'Null Goal'. When the subject and object are case-marked

inherently as the case in Tamil DSC or when the subject is Case-marked inherently and the

DO is marked by a lexical case marker for specificity as in the case of Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi

and Gujarati, we propose that in such cases, the goal closest to T be Merged with T to

satisfy the EPP features of T. Interestingly, the logical subject is the one that is inherently

Case-marked in South Asian languages and by 'Merging' it with T the word order we

obtain is the unmarked word order as dative/genitive subjects and ergative subjects are

inherently Case-marked and they are the eligible candidates for such Merger. Our

proposal also accounts for the default agreement cases with regard to passive sentences

where the theme/patient is marked with a specificity marker in Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi

and may be in Gujarati too.

Hindi-Urdu

14. pulis/i ke dwaaraa cor/j ko pakRaa ga- yaa/*i,*j

police by thief ACC was caught. MASC SG DEFAULT

‘The thief was caught by the police’.

The agent and the theme are not 'identifiable', as the phi features of the probe do not have a

matching Goal. According to the proposal made in above, the EPP features of T are

satisfied by merging the inherently Case-marked DP, that is, the agent with T. The phi

features of the probe are deleted after checking with a 'Null Goal'.

The problem still remains with the default agreement case in Telugu repeated here.

Telugu

15. ikkaDa caalaa callgaa un -di

here very cold be III NEUT

DEFAULT

'It is very cold in here.'

16. *ikkaDa idi/pro caalaa gaa un -di

here it very cold be III NEUT DEFAULT

'It is very cold in here.'

(16) shows that a pronoun or pro cannot occur in (15). It appears that we have to posit a

null argument here that can be coindexed with the probe. The probe can then be deleted.

However, I do not think it is the right solution.

Let us now examine the case of agreement of the Dative Subject with the phi features of T

in Maithili. Sentence (8) is repeated here.

24

17. hunkaa ha~s- aa- it ch- ainh

3hDAT laugh EXP IMP AUX- 3hNN

'Laughing comes naturally to him'

(Bickel 1999)

Recall that the predicate exhibits agreement with the dative subject in honorificity just as

the case in Korean and Japanese. The theme does not agree in such cases. Again we notice

that Chomsky's proposal in MI neatly accounts for this. Recall that the probe of T

identifies the dative subject as the Goal and the dative subject, though inherently Case-

marked, Merges with T to fulfil the EPP features of T. In the MI Case-checking is no

longer needed and hence, it does not matter whether the Goal is structurally Case-marked

or inherently Case marked to fill the position of spec of T.

A similar explanation can also be provided to account for the honorificity agreement of the

passive subject in Maithili.

Maithili

18. hunkaa- sa~ i ciThi likha -al ge- l- ainh

3h ABL this letter write PPLE

NEUTRAL

PASSIVE

AUX

PST 3PNN

' This letter was written by him'

(Bickel et al 1999)

The proposal made in here to account for the DSC will account for the case of agreement

of the locative PP in Manda in (18). The Goal P(G), the locative PP, moves to the Spec

position of T as the Probe, the phi features of T, ‘identifies’ it as the asuitable candidate for

Move (Merge and Agree).

Manda

Agreement of OO (Locative):

19. inelin maa i

- dengata piiyu rii j - da i t - i j

yesterday us on day rain IPL PAST IIISG

‘It rained on us yesterday’ (Ramakrishna Reddy, 1992)

25

That is, a locative PP should be treated as narrowly L-related argument and a narrowly L-

related PP is in a closest C-command position that is local in nature.

3.3. COMP Agreement

In continuation to the proposal made above concerning a null argument in nonnominative

subjects, we demonstrate in this section that that PRO is a candidate for merger, as PRO

has to act as goal to delete uninterpretable features of the probe. We shall point out that

there could be a problem in 'identification' of PRO as goal as PRO is null Case-marked.

Before we discuss COMP agreement, it is worth discussing agreement of conjunctive

participles in Austro-Asiatic and Manda. The conjunctive participle in Indo-Aryan,

Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman does not carry agreement marker (Lalitha Murthy 1994,

Subbarao 1997). In contrast, in some of the Austro-Asiatic languages and in the

transplanted Dravidian Malto language the conjunctive participle carries subject agreement

marker of the matrix sentence. It is a well-established fact that the subject of the

embedded conjunctive participial clause in South Asian languages is PRO (Bagchi 1993.

Davison 1992, Lalitha Murthy 1994, Subbarao 1997b).

Sentences carrying agreement marker with the conjunctive participle in Malto, a Dravidian

language, are repeated here.

Malto

1. pro bit-a-ka- r o- c a- r mand-a-r

cook ?-CPM 3PL take ? CPM 3PL plant PAST

3PL

'Having cooked, having taken them they planted them'

( Mahapatra 1979)

Sentences carrying agreement marker with the conjunctive participle in Juang, an Austro-

Asiatic language, are given below.

Juang

2. am/i ini gatare [me/i- gamOjO] leberemO

you this fact IISG say-CPM laughed

'Having said this you laughed'

3. nini [ gaObO nO-nO- jO] tONO dure nure

We village reach IPL CPM rice etc. eat

'Having gone home we'll eat rice'

(Patnaik 1999)

26

We shall first attempt to account for agreement in conjunctive participles. The probe of

the conjunctive participle carries agreement features of the matrix subject and a goal has to

be identified for merger. Identification of the goal takes place on the basis of Case features

of the goal. According to MI there are three conditions that have to be met for merger of

goal and probe: The phi-set identifies T as a target of dislocation. The EPP requires that a

DP be merged in this position. The Case feature identifies a DP as a candidate for merger.

Note that the conjunctive participle carries a probe that carries a phi-set, that is, the

agreement features of the matrix S. EPP requires that something be merged in this position

which in this case is PRO. The problem arises with the last condition. The goal which is

PRO has no case feature. PRO is null Case-marked and hence, it cannot be identified by

the probe as the corresponding goal.

Recall our proposal made earlier concerning default agreement. We proposed that the phi-

features of the probe be checked with a null argument and the first DP in the sentence

occupies the position of Spec of T. Such checking deletes the uninterpretable features of

the probe. The case of participial agreement in Juang and Malto provides further support to

our proposal concerning a null argument checking features.

We shall now discuss COMP agreement in Mundari and Juang. Recall that COMP in

Mundari and Juang carries the agreement features of the matrix S. The COMP in these

languages is conjunctive participial form of verb say.

Mundari

4. pro/i soma hiju?- aka- n- a mente- ny/i ayum

Soma come ASP INTR PRED COMP ISG hear

ke- d- a

ASP PAST PRED

‘I heard that Soma came'

(Osada 1992)

Juang

5. nin/i amte [rabi OpOmanian ne/i- gamOjO ] ne/i- gamO

we you-ACC Ravi was insulted IPL COMP IPL told

'We told you that Ravi was insulted'

(Patnaik 1999)

To account for the phi-features of COMP in Juang, Patnaik proposes that the quotative

construction be treated as a control structure where the complementizer is treated as the

verb of a clause with PRO as its subject . This PRO in turn is coindexed with the subject

of the matrix clause.

The proposal we made above concerning agreement of conjunctive participles in Mundari

and Juang accounts for COMP agreement. The phi-features of the probe of the embedded

S are checked and deleted with a null argument and the first DP of the embedded S which

is PRO occupies the position of Spec of T.

27

3.4. South Asian Languages and Long-Distance Agreement

There are instances of long-distance agreement in some South Asian languages such as

Hindi-Urdu, (Davison 1991, Mahajan 1990, Butt 1993, Singh 1993), Punjabi (Subbarao

1997), Kashmiri (Wali & Koul 1996), Kurmali (Mahto 1989), Maithili (Yogendra Yadava

pc) of the Indo-Aryan family, Mizo (Lalitha Murthy & Subbarao to appear), Hmar

(Subbarao 1998b) of the Tibeto-Burman family and Telugu (Subbarao 1984) and Tamil

(Subbarao fieldnotes) of the Dravidian family. We shall consider only a few cases here.

First, we consider the case of long-distance agreement in Mizo. In Mizo predicate

adjectives exhibit agreement with the noun. These markers are homophonous with the

agreement markers that occur with the verb. Adjectives in Mizo carry phi-agreement

features just as verbs do. It may be noted that Mizo does not have gender agreement and

hence, adjectives and verbs do not carry any gender agreement markers. Thus, the third

person plural marker is -an.

Mizo

1. amirikaa mite cu an- thaau tak tak a -ni

American people DEF 3PL fat very very 3SG be

‘It is the case that Americans are fat.’

2. amirikaa mite cu Ø -thaau tak tak an -ni

American people DEF fat very very 3PL be

‘It is the case that Americans are fat.’

According to Chomsky's MI a DP (labeled as Goal in the MI) does not move due to Case-

theoretic reasons as it did in the Minimalist Program of Chomsky 1995. Thus, Case-driven

movement is dispensed with. The uninterpretable phi features (agreement features in terms

of number, person and gender) of Tense (labeled as Probe in the MI) identify the Goal and

force the Goal to move towards the Probe. It is the phi set that ‘identifies T (Tense) as a

target of dislocation’ (Chomsky 1998:36) and it is the Case feature of the goal that

identifies the specific Goal as the ‘candidate for such merger (dislocation)’(Chomsky

1998: 36). It is the EPP (Extended Projection Principle) feature of Tense T that requires

that something be merged in its Spec position.

Since the adjective agrees in number and person with the subject, the adjective thaau ‘fat’

in the embedded clause in (1) agrees with the embedded subject. Hence, the agreement

marker -an with the adjective. This necessitates that the probe (agreement features) of the

Tense T of the embedded S force the goal P(G) america mite to move to the Spec T

position as the EPP feature of T is strong. When the goal and probe "merge" and

"agree", the phi features of the adjective and the structural Case features of the goal are

checked and deleted before Spell-Out. Once the structural Case features of the goal P(G)

are checked and deleted the goal is "frozen in place" (Chomsky 1998: 38). Mizo is a

strong pro drop language and the subject position in the matrix clause contains a null pro.

Thus, the probe of T of the matrix S merges and agrees with the null pro which occurs in a

nonthematic position and the uninterpretable features of the probe and the structural Case

features of the null pro are deleted before Spell-out.

28

Let us consider sentence (2) and see how Chomsky (1995 b) accounts for long-distance

agreement in such cases so that a comparison can be made with the analysis of long-

distance agreement in Chomsky (1998). According to Chomsky (1995b) the adjective

thaau ‘fat’ is assigned [nominal] feature. Once the [subject, adjective] raises to the outer

Spec for checking, the derivation crashes as the adjective in the embedded clause does not

carry any agreement features. Chomsky proposes that checking like attract is external and

takes place if and only if the derivation would crash without the operation. That is,

checking does not take place unless it is forced for convergence (Ura 1996, Collins 1995

and Fujita 1995 as quoted in Ura 1996). Once checking does not take place at the outer

Spec of embedded sentence, the [subj, adj] raises to the non-thematic position of the matrix

S to the position of Spec of T. This is induced by the strong EPP feature of T (Ura 1996).

Hence, checking takes place between amerikaa mite ‘American people’ and an-ni ‘3PL + be’. Once checking takes place, the uninterpretable features are deleted before Spell-Out.

The basic hypothesis here is ‘checking is an operation that is required only for

convergence’ (Ura 1996:77).

According to the analysis proposed in Chomsky (1998), sentence (2) is derived as follows.

The embedded adjective does not contain a probe that seeks a goal and since the EPP

features of the T of the embedded S are "weak", the subject of the embedded sentence does

not merge and does not result in the operation labeled as "agree". Since the structural case

features of the goal amirika mite 'American people' are uninterpretable, and since

"uninterpretable features render the goal active [emphasis in the original text-KVS] ", the

goal moves further up to the Spec position of the T of the matix S to have its Case features

deleted and to delete the probe. Thus, the goal amerika mite 'American people' which was

originally the subject of the embedded S becomes "local" and "active" which results in

"checking" and "deletion". Thus, the operation "Move" of the goal amerika mite

'American people' results in two operations “Merge” plus “Agree”. That is why Chomsky

(1998) rejects the earlier proposal made in Chomsky (1995a,b) which prefers Merge to

Move.

In Telugu too there is long-distance agreement of the matrix verb with the embedded

subject.

Telugu

3. waaDu manci- waaDu laa un -di

3SG good 3SG COMP be 3SG NEUT

‘He appears to be a nice fellow'

(Subbarao 1994)

In (3) the subject of the matrix verb is the entire embedded sentence and hence, the matrix

verb is in neuter singular. The embedded subject in (3) is waaDu 'he' and it is the Goal

whose features have to agree with the phi features (person, number and gender) of the

adjective. We posit an abstract T and the Goal moves to the Spec of T to Merge with the

phi features of the adjective. Once the structural Case features of the Goal and the phi

features of the probe 'Merge', the structural Case features and the probe delete under

identity and strict locality conditions.

In (4) and (5) the matrix verb agrees with the embedded subject.

29

4.

waaDu manci- waaDu laa unna -Du

he good fellow COMP be PAST 3SG MASC

‘He appears to be a nice fellow'

5. waaLLu manci- waaLLu laa unnaa -ru

they good fellows COMP be PAST 3PL

‘They appear to be nice fellows.’

The subject of the embedded S which is the Goal moves to the Spec position of Tense T to

Merge with the probe of the adjective and the structural Case features of the Goal and the

phi features of the probe delete under identity and strict locality conditions. The subject of

the embedded S agrees with the matrix verb. Since the phi set of the probe is strong and

seeks a goal to merge and the EPP features of the matrix Tense T are strong, the goal

which is the embedded subject has to move. However, there is a problem. Since the

structural Case features of the embedded subject have already been checked and deleted,

the goal is "frozen in place" (Chomsky 1998: 38) as it is no longer "active" once feature

deletion takes place. Note that Move is feature driven by the uninterpretable Case features.

We propose that the Case feature checking of a goal can take place more than once if the

phi features of the next higher are strong and are uninterpretable. The inactive goal may

move to the Spec position of the next higher S and merge with the probe and delete its

uninterpretable features while having its structural case features "null checked". Chomsky

(ibid.) proposes that Spell-Out is cyclic and hence, if checking takes place more than once

in the same derivation, it should not cause any serious problems.

A similar problem arises in Telugu in what might be labeled as Super raising cases.

6. naaku waaDu manci- waaDu laa unna -Tlu kanipistun-di

to me he good fellow COMP be COMP appear 3 SG NEUT

'He seems to behave like a nice fellow.’

7. naaku waaDu manci- waaDu laa unna -Tlu kanipistun- Du

to me he good fellow COMP be COMP appear 3 SG MASC

'He seems to behave like a nice fellow.’

The subject of the lowest embedded S (S3) successive cyclically raises to the Spec position

of the matrix S in (7) to have its Case checked with the probe of the T of the matrix S

subject to the proposal made earlier that the Case feature checking of a goal can take place

more than once if the phi features of the next higher are strong and are uninterpretable. The

inactive goal may move to the Spec position of the next higher S and merge with the probe

30

and delete its uninterpretable features while having its structural case features "null

checked".

If small clauses are treated as clauses having no tense, the problem alluded to above does

not arise as the Case features of the Goal which is the subject of the small clause are not

"checked" at that level and hence, it (the Goal P(G)) can move further up to have its Case

features checked with the appropriate Probe.

Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi

Hindi-Urdu permits long-distance agreement when the embedded sentence contains a verb

in the infinitival form (Mahajan 1990, Davison 1991, Butt 1993, Singh 1993). It is the case

in Punjabi too (Subbarao 1997).

Hindi-Urdu

8. raam ko saaikil caalaa- n- ii aa- tii hai

Ram DAT cycle (FEM) ride INF FEM come- IMPERF

FEM

PRES

‘Ram knows how to ride a bicycle.’

9. raam ko saaikil caalaa- n- aa aa- taa hai

Ram DAT cycle (FEM) ride INF MASC come- IMPERF

MASC

PRES

‘Ram knows how to ride a bicycle.’

Punjabi :

10. maadhuri nu~ [PRO saaikal i calaa- Ni i ] aa- ndii i - e

Madhuri III

SG

DAT cycle FEM SG ride INF

FEM

SG

come- IMPF

FEM

SG

is

IIISG

‘Madhuri knows how to ride a bicycle.’

We shall explicate only the Hindi examples here. In (6) the embedded infinitive caalaa-

naa ‘to drive’ exhibits agreement with the embedded object saaikil ‘bicycle’ which is

feminine in Hindi-Urdu. The matrix verb in turn agrees with the embedded infinitival

complement clause. Mahajan (1990) accounts for this by the movement of the Agr phrase

to the Spec position of the necessary functional projections. The analysis proposed in

Davison (1991) accounts for this by Head Feature convention and feature percolation. Butt

(1993) treats the infinitival clause an NP and thus, the infinitival clause functions as a

theme in the dative subject construction and hence, the matrix experiencer predicate agrees

with the theme which is an NP. According to Butt's analysis, sentence (6) is not a case of

long-distance agreement. For expository reasons, we shall refer to such cases as

LDAgreement.

31

Since infinitives in Hindi-Urdu exhibit number and gender agreement, the case feature of

DO saaikil ‘cycle’ has to be checked before Spell-Out with a probe. The goal moves to

the Spec position of the light verb v of the embedded verb and gets its structural Case

features checked and the uninterpretable phi features of the goal and of the probe of the

infinitive are deleted. The verb of the matrix sentence exhibits agreement with the

infinitival complement (the embedded object saaikil 'bicycle' and the infinitive together).

Infinitival complements behave like noun phrases (Subbarao1984, Butt 1993). The

infinitival complement saaikil calaanii is in the theme position of the matrix clause that

has a dative subject. The entire infinitival complement is the Goal whose Case features

have to be checked out before SPELL-OUT. The Probe of the T of the matrix S forces the

Goal, the infinitival clause, to move to the Spec position of T and the infinitival

complement Merges in the Spec position of T thus satisfying the EPP requirements of T.

Thus, once the operations merge and agree take place, the uninterpretable features of the

probe and goal are deleted.

There is however one problem with the analysis presented here. The order in which the

constituents occur after these operations is marked with the infinitival phrase occurring in

the initial position of the sentence.

Hindi-Urdu

11. saaikil caalaa- n- ii raam ko aa- tii hai

cycle (FEM) ride INF FEM Ram DAT comes- IMPERF

FEM

PRES

‘Ram knows how to ride a bicycle.’

Sentence (9), in which the infinitive does not agree with the object of the embedded S

saaikil 'bicycle', the explanation is simple.

The infinitival complement functions as the theme and the Probe of the matrix clause

identifies it as theme and forces the embedded infinitival complement to Move and Merge

in the Spec position of T of the matrix S. The uninterpretable features of the Probe and the

structural case features of the Goal are deleted and the derivation 'converges'.

The problem encountered earlier with regard to word order is encountered here too. After

these operations we get (12) which is a marked order.

12. saaikil caalaa- n- aa raam ko aa- taa hai

cycle (FEM) ride INF MASC Ram DAT come- IMPERF

MASC

PRES

‘Ram knows how to ride a bicycle.’

We do not at present have any specific solution to offer to remedy this problem.

One of the issues that has not been answered in the earlier works on agreement is why is

LDAgreement permitted only when the matrix is in the nonnominative case. In addition to

the sentences such as (8) above, there are sentences such as (13) with an ergative subject in

the matrix clause permitting LDAgreement. When the matrix subject is in nominative case,

LD Agreement is not permitted (14).

32

13. raam ne roTii khaan- ii caahii

Ram MASC ERG bread FEM eat INF FEM wished FEM

'Ram wanted to eat bread

14. *raam roTii khaan- ii caahtii hai

Ram MASC bread FEM eat INF FEM wants

'Ram wanted to eat bread'

It appears that the dative or ergative case features of the matrix subject percolate down to

the PRO of the embedded sentence and when PRO is thus abstractly case-marked,

agreement of the infinitive with the theme (NP in the nominative case) is permitted. The

question that arises is: if PRO is uncase-governed and uncase-marked, how is this

possible? How can PRO be abstractly marked for the Case feature ergative or dative?

Lalitha Murthy (1994) argues that the PRO theorem could only be a parameter, not a

theorem as there are several instances where PRO appears to be Case-marked.

A similar argument holds for Punjabi too as the Punjabi sentence in (8) is similar in

structure to he Hindi-Urdu sentence.

Maithili

Maithili too permits agreement of the possessor of the theme NP with the matrix verb and

it has been discussed in 1.3 above.

3.5. ECM Cases and Agreement

We shall now discuss cases involving ECM subjects in Mizo and Hmar. Recall that Mizo

and Hmar are split ergative in person and subject as well as object agreement clitics occur

as phi features in this language. The pronominal agreement marker of the subject of the

embedded sentence appears as a clitic on the matrix verb. In (1) it is ce, the pronominal

object clitic of the embedded subject. It occurs to the right of the matrix verb. In (2) it is

min which is the subject of the embedded sentence showing up as the object clitic of the

matrix S. It occurs to the left of the matrix verb. Note that the subject of the matrix S is in

third person and IP DO> IIIP S according to the Principle of the Pronominal Strength

Hierarchy discussed earlier. How is the probe of the ECM subject in the matrix S

checked? The ECM subjects raise to the Spec position of the v of the matrix clause as it is

identified as the Goal P(G) which corresponds to the Probe in the matrix clause. Due to

Move(Merge and Agree) the uninterpretable phi features of the Probe and the Case

features of the ECM subject are deleted 2.

Hmar

( 1 ) lali-n insual- pui in a- dit- ce

Lali ERG fight with COMP 3SG want 2SG

‘Lali wants you to fight.’

33

Mizo ( 2 ) zovi -n lekhathOn Ø-ziak turin min -duh

Zovi ERG letter write COMP 1SG want

‘Zovi wants me to write a letter.’

3.6. RELEVANCE OF CHOMSKY’S MI APPRAOCH TO AGREEMENT IN

SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGES

Chomsky's (1998) proposals concerning Merge neatly explain the presence/absence of

structural case markers and the phi features of agreement in embedded relative and in the

embeeded S of the passive which has a biclausal structure in Mizo.

When the direct object is modified, Mizo has two distinct agreement patterns (Subbarao &

Lalitha Murthy ms.). In the first type, the embedded subject carries the ergative marker

and the embedded verb carries the agreement marker as in (1) below. In the second type,

the ergative marker as well as the agreement marker are together absent (2).

Mizo

Embedded relative carrying the ergative marker with the subject and verb

agreement

1. zovi-n lekhabu a- lei- tur cu zova- n a- chiar-ang

Zovi ERG book 3SG buy FUT DEF Zova ERG 3SG read will

'Zova will read the book that Zovi will buy'

Absence of the ergative marker and verb agreement in the embedded relative

2. zovi-0 lekhabu 0- lei- tur cu zova- n a- chiar-ang

Zovi ERG book buy FUT DEF Zova ERG 3SG read will

'Zova will read the book that Zovi will buy'

Note that in (1) the embedded subject Goal carries the structural case marker which is

uninterpretable and the Tense T carries the probe which is uninterpretable. The probe

seeks a goal that would agree and the EPP feature of the T of the embedded s forces the

goal to Move so that it cam Merge + Agree. Thus, all the uninterpretable features are

deleted.

34

In the embedded relative of (2) the structural Case marker with the embedded subject and

the phi features of the T are both absent and hence, the operation Move does not apply at

the level of the embedded S.

In passive too a similar phenomenon is found. The passive in Mizo has a bisentential

structure.

The embedded S in the passive in Mizo in (3) contains the structural Case marker and with

the Goal and the tense carries the phi features of the probe. These are uninterpretable and

hence, deleted after Move.

Embedded passive carrying the ergative marker with the subject and verb

agreement

(3) lekhabu-cu zova-n a- ziak in a- om

book DEF Zova ERG 3SG write Linker 3SG be/exist

'The book was written by Zova'

In (4) since the embedded subject lacks a Goal and the verb lacks a probe , the operation

Move is not required.

Absence of the ergative marker and verb agreement in the embedded passive

(4 ) lekhabu-cu zova-0 0- ziak in a- om

book DEF Zova ERG 0 write Linker 3SG be/exist

'The book was written by Zova'

Thus, the relative clause and the passive provide support to Chomsky's analysis linking the

uninterpretable features of Goal and probe together. They are either overtly present

together or absent together.

4. CONCLUSION:

It is the probe, the phi features of agreement, that forces a Goal P(G) to move to the Spec

position of the concerning functional category. The Probe “identifies” the Goal, as the phi

features of the Probe and Goal have to match. Each Spec position must be occupied by a

Goal for the process of Agree before Spell Out if the probe is “strong”. When the Probe is

null, that is, “weak”, Case-driven movement of the Goal may be necessary to satisfy the

EPP features of T or any other functional category that requires its Spec position to be

filled. There is Null Agreement Checking in such cases. Chomsky (1998) points out that

“properties of the probe/selector alpha must be exhausted before new elements of the

lexical subarray are accessed to drive further operations.” (Chomsky 1998: 49). It appears

35

that we have to add to the above formulation that properties of the Goal must be exhausted

too. It appears that substantial evidence can be adduced in favor of the hypothesis proposed

in here that the verb in the dative subject construction is intransitive and not transitive as

several authors have claimed earlier. If elements that have psychological reality have any

place in the mental organization of language, then the role of agr phrase in theory needs to

be reconsidered.

Abbreviations:

I/II/III : First/second/third person

ABL : Ablative

ACC : Accusative

AGR : Agreement

ASP : Aspect Marker

AUX : Auxilliary

COMP : : Complementizer

CONJN : : Conjunction

CPM : Conjunctive Participle Marker

DAT : Dative

DECL : Declarative

DEF : Definite

DEFA : Default Agreement

DO : Direct Object

ERG : Ergative

EXP : Expletive

FEM : Feminine

HON/H/h : Honorific

HI : High

IMP : Imperative

IMPERF : Imperfect

INTR : Intransitive

IO : Indirect Object

LOC : Locative

MASC : : Masculine

MID HON : Mid Honorific

NEUT : Neuter

NN : Non-Nominative

NOM : Nominative

PASS : Passive

NH : Non-Honorific

OO : Oblique Object

PL : Plural

PRED : Predicate

PROG : Progressive

PST : Past

SG : Singular

SPECIFIC : Specificity Marker

VR : Verbal Reflexive

36

Notes:

* I dedicate this paper to my respected teacher Professor Yamuna Kachru, who had taught

me the intricacies of syntax in general and of Hindi syntax in particular. An earlier version

of this paper was presented at the South Asian Languages Analysis conference at the

University of Illinois, U.S.A. and at the Universities of Potsdam and Konstanz, Germany

in July 1999, at the California State University at Fresno and at the School of Oriental and

African Studies at London in October-November, 1999. We're thankful to Hans Hock,

Miriam Butt, Frans Plank, P.J.Mistry, J. Yoon, E. Benmamoun, Joseph Bayer and Andrew

Spencer for valuable suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply. The research here in was

partly supported by a grant given by the University Grants Commission to the Department

of Linguistics, University of Delhi under the Special Assistance Programme. I’m thankful

to Mr. V.T. Bapui, Rev. Kola, Zara and Zodyn and many others at Haflong, Assam for

providing us data on Hmar. Thanks are due to Ms. Grace Temsen for her valuable help in

word processing.

1. In Subbarao (1997) we proposed following Chomsky (1995 a) that the ‘two-way’ system of

classification of languages into nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive be dispensed

with and NPs be associated with “active” Agr phrases. Under the proposal made in there

whether an NP triggers agreement or not, does not depend on whether it is lexically case-

marked or not. Rather, it depends on whether an Agr phrase such as agrs, agr0, agrio is “active”

or “inert”/ “dormant”. That is, it is the “activeness” or “strength” of an NP that is responsible

for triggering agreement and not the presence or absence of a lexical case marker per se. We

therefore proposed that the existing classification of nominative-accusative and ergative-

absolutive be replaced by a simple unitary system as in (A) below:

A. A noun phrase whether lexically case-marked or not agrees with the verb if the functional

head AGR with which it is coindexed is “active” and “strong”. Agreement is not

morphologically manifested and is “covert” if the functional head AGR is “inert” and “weak”.

Schematically:

[SNPx NPy Agrx - Agry- T -VS]

[ +/- lexically case-marked] [ +/- lexically case-marked] [+/-“active”]

(Order of agrx, agry ,T and V irrelevant).

NPx is the NP of S. NPy may be a complement of the verb or may be an adjunct if the verb is

intransitive. The verb may thus exhibit agreement with the subject or a non-subject that could be a

direct object or an indirect object or an oblique object or an object of a genitive.

Chomsky (1995 b) dispenses with the notion of agr phrase as a functional category and proposes a

multiple Spec VP hypothesis. This concept has further been refined in Chomsky's (1998) recent

paper 'Minimalist Inquiries: the Framework'. We shall reformulate our proposal in (A) above in the

later part of the paper keeping in view Chomsky's formulation of agreement in terms of notions such

as Probe and Goal. For expository reasons we shall discuss the agreement patterns in this section

in terms of "active" and "inactive" or "strong" or "weak" agr phrases.

37

2. In the Government and Binding framework, the S or S bar node was deleted to facilitate the case

marking of the embedded subject by the matrix verb. Hence, it was called exceptional case marking.

Recall that in the Minimalist Program, Case is not assigned but it is only checked with the

appropriate functional head. In the Minimalist Program, the ECM subject raises to [SPEC, AGRo]

just as a normal object does (Lasnik 1999: 64). In (1) from Hmar and (2) from Mizo, the embedded

subjects are pro ‘you’ and pro ‘I’ respectively. Once the embedded subject raises to [SPEC, AGRo],

case checking with the clitics ce ‘second person singular object clitic’

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Wali, K. and O. N. Koul. 1996. Kashmiri: A Cognitive-Descriptive Grammar. London:

Routledge.

Yadava, Y. 1999. The Complexity of Maithili Verb Agreement. The year book of south

Asian language and linguistics, Delhi: Sage.

2.5. Pronominal Strength Hierarchy in Agreement

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Many South Asian languages exhibit pronominal strength hierarchy in manifesting

agreement. In sentences with conjoined subjects in Mizo and Hmar, Tibeto-Burman

languages, I person subject has precedence in occurrence as a pronominal clitic over II and

III person subjects. Hence, when I person subject and III person subject occur, it is I

person subject clitic in plural that occurs and not III person clitic. Since Mizo and Hmar

are 'heavy pro -drop' languages, the pronoun does not normally overtly occur.

In (1) and (2) the conjuncts are in III person and I person and hence, the I person clitic

takes precedence in occurrence because I person is stronger than III person. In (3) the

conjuncts are III and II person and hence, it is the second person agreement marker that

occurs with the verb.

Hmar 1.

lali le pro kan- in- Tsung- pui- ce

Lali and IPL VR sat with IISG

'Lali and I sat with you'

2. lali le pro nang cou in- Tsung- pui- kan- ti- ce

Lali and you only VR sat with IPL FUT IISG

'Lali and I will sit only with you'

3. lala le pro in- in- Tsung-

Lala and IIPL VR Sat

'Lala and you sat'

Mizo

4. tluangii nen pro apple kan

-

i- ang

Tluangi and IPL eat FUT

'Tluangi and I will eat the apple.’

5. tluangii nen pro apple in- ei- ang

Tluangi and II

PL

eat FUT

'Tluangi and you will eat the apple.'

The hierarchies in sentences (1) - (5) can be schematically represented as follows:

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I>II>III where > indicates 'stronger than'.

In Telugu adjectives in predicate position carry pronominal suffixes except in III person

masculine singular where the entire pronoun is suffixed to the adjective. The pronominal

suffixes too exhibit pronominal strength hierarchy.

2.6 Predicate adjectives and verbs exhibiting pronominal strength hierarchy

1. neenu-u waaDu-u manciwaaLLa- mu

I CONJN he CONJN good fellows I PL

'He and I are good fellows'

2. neenu-u nuwwu-u manciwaaLLa- mu

I CONJN you CONJN good fellows I PL

'He and I are good fellows'

Verbs too manifest pronominal strength hierarchy in agreement.

3. waaDu-u neenu-u bazaaru-ki weLtaa- mu

he and I and market to will go

'He and I will go to the market'

4. nuwwu-u neenu-u bazaaru-ki weLtaa- mu

you and I and market to will go

'You and I will go to the market'

Agreement with possessor in Hmar

Hmar

8. zova-n ka

I-

kut a- mi i - sOOp

Zova ERG my hands IIISG ISG washed

'Zova washed my hands'

9. zova-n i I- kut a- sOOp ce i

Zova ERG my hands IIISG washed IISG

'Zova washed your hands'

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Note that the agreement markers for DO, IO, and O GEN are homophonous in Hmar.

Since the possessed DP is in third person and the O GEN is in I person, it is the agreement

marker of O GEN that is coded in the verb. An explanation similar to the one we provided

for Maithili possessor raising works for the Hmar cases too.

Before we discuss COMP agreement, it is worth discussing agreement of conjunctive

participles in Austro-Asiatic and Manda. The conjunctive participle in Indo-Aryan,

Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman does not carry agreement marker (Lalitha Murthy 1994,

Subbarao 1997). In contrast, in some of the Austro-Asiatic languages and in the

transplanted Dravidian Malto language the conjunctive participle carries subject agreement

marker of the matrix sentence. It is a well-established fact that the subject of the

embedded conjunctive participial clause in South Asian languages is PRO (Bagchi 1993.

Davison 1992, Lalitha Murthy 1994, Subbarao 1997b).

Sentences carrying agreement marker with the conjunctive participle in Malto, a Dravidian

language, are repeated here.

Malto

1. pro bit-a-ka- r o- c a- r mand-a-r

cook ?-CPM 3PL take ? CPM 3PL plant PAST

3PL

'Having cooked, having taken them they planted them'

( Mahapatra 1979)

Sentences carrying agreement marker with the conjunctive participle in Juang, an Austro-

Asiatic language, are given below.

Juang

2. am/i ini gatare [me/i- gamOjO] leberemO

you this fact IISG say-CPM laughed

'Having said this you laughed'

3. nini [ gaObO nO-nO- jO] tONO dure nure

We village reach IPL CPM rice etc. eat

'Having gone home we'll eat rice'

(Patnaik 1999) 3.4. South Asian Languages and Long-Distance Agreement

There are instances of long-distance agreement in some South Asian languages such as

Hindi-Urdu, (Davison 1991, Mahajan 1990, Butt 1993, Singh 1993), Punjabi (Subbarao

1997), Kashmiri (Wali & Koul 1996), Kurmali (Mahto 1989), Maithili (Yogendra Yadava

pc) of the Indo-Aryan family, Mizo (Lalitha Murthy & Subbarao to appear), Hmar

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(Subbarao 1998b) of the Tibeto-Burman family and Telugu (Subbarao 1984) and Tamil

(Subbarao fieldnotes) of the Dravidian family. We shall consider only a few cases here.

First, we consider the case of long-distance agreement in Mizo. In Mizo predicate

adjectives exhibit agreement with the noun. These markers are homophonous with the

agreement markers that occur with the verb. Adjectives in Mizo carry phi-agreement

features just as verbs do. It may be noted that Mizo does not have gender agreement and

hence, adjectives and verbs do not carry any gender agreement markers. Thus, the third

person plural marker is -an.

Mizo

1. amirikaa mite cu an- thaau tak tak a -ni

American people DEF 3PL fat very very 3SG be

‘It is the case that Americans are fat.’

2. amirikaa mite cu Ø -thaau tak tak an -ni

American people DEF fat very very 3PL be

‘It is the case that Americans are fat.’

3.5. ECM Cases and Agreement

We shall now discuss cases involving ECM subjects in Mizo and Hmar. Recall that Mizo

and Hmar are split ergative in person and subject as well as object agreement clitics occur

as phi features in this language. The pronominal agreement marker of the subject of the

embedded sentence appears as a clitic on the matrix verb. In (1) it is ce, the pronominal

object clitic of the embedded subject. It occurs to the right of the matrix verb. In (2) it is

min which is the subject of the embedded sentence showing up as the object clitic of the

matrix S. It occurs to the left of the matrix verb. Note that the subject of the matrix S is in

third person and IP DO> IIIP S according to the Principle of the Pronominal Strength

Hierarchy discussed earlier. How is the probe of the ECM subject in the matrix S

checked? The ECM subjects raise to the Spec position of the v of the matrix clause as it is

identified as the Goal P(G) which corresponds to the Probe in the matrix clause. Due to

Move(Merge and Agree) the uninterpretable phi features of the Probe and the Case

features of the ECM subject are deleted 2.

Hmar

( 1 ) lali-n insual- pui in a- dit- ce

Lali ERG fight with COMP 3SG want 2SG

‘Lali wants you to fight.’

Mizo ( 2 ) zovi -n lekhathOn Ø-ziak turin min -duh

Zovi ERG letter write COMP 1SG want

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‘Zovi wants me to write a letter.’