Agreement features correlate closely with semantics as well as with noun morphology. This book presents a precise formal theory of those correlations, illustrated with Serbo-Croatian and other languages. In explaining a regular agreement as a network of constraints, the theory also predicts a restricted set of exceptional situations where normal agreement can give way to agreement mismatches. With this framework in place, the authors explore a number of factors that affect agreement processes. The theory even explains the striking cross-linguistic generalizations expressed in Corbett's Agreement Hierarchy. Agreement is shown to be a distributed phenomenon, manifesting its many faces among the various components of grammar.
Stephen Wechsler is an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin.
Larisa Zlatić is the Director of Larisa Zlatic Language Services in Austin, Texas.
