5 Semantic agreement | ScienceGate

Abstract A classical topic in the syntax of the mainland Scandinavian languages is so-called pancake clauses where there seemingly is disagreement between the subject and the predicative adjective, as in Pannekaker er godt ‘Pancakes(f):indf:pl be:prs good:n:sg’; the subject is in the plural, whereas the predicative adjective is in the neuter singular. According to one of the several approaches, these clauses display a type of semantic agreement. Recently, it has also been argued that there are at least four different types of pancake constructions. In this article, the semantic relationship between the different constructions is investigated further. It is argued that, diachronically, pancake agreement started with subjects interpreted as virtual, ungrounded processes, and that the absence of grounding has been reinterpreted as absence of spatial boundedness in the latest kind of pancake construction. The analysis is supported by a diachronic corpus investigation. The emphasis on virtual reference is a new feature with the current paper, and it enables us to set aside an objection against the semantic agreement analysis. The diachronic corpus investigation enables us to revise, empirically, earlier suggestions as to when the pancake constructions originated: They are well attested from the mid-1800s, in both Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk.

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Collectives in the Qur'Ān Revisited: Another Possibility of Semantic Agreement

Journal of Semitic Studies ◽

10.1093/jss/fgz034 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 147-169

Author(s):

Luca D'Anna

Keyword(s):

Typological Approach ◽

Collective Nouns ◽

Semantic Agreement

Abstract The present paper revisits Dror's (2016a) analysis of collective nouns and their agreement patterns in the Qur'ān. Collectives are ‘unmarked plurals’, i.e. morphologically singular nouns that semantically refer to a plurality of entities. With respect to agreement, Dror distinguishes between singular agreement (syntactic) and plural agreement (semantic), signalling respectively a holistic or distributive reference. We argue that, although the consideration of plural agreement as semantically motivated is correct, gender should also be taken into consideration, especially when a mismatch occurs between morphologically masculine singular collectives and feminine singular agreeing targets. The present paper, grounded in a typological approach, demonstrates that feminine singular agreement with masculine singular controllers represents another form of semantic agreement, in which the controller is considered as a non-individuated plural.

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DP-internal semantic agreement: A configurational analysis

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory ◽

10.1007/s11049-015-9319-3 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 975-1020 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Idan Landau

Keyword(s):

Configurational Analysis ◽

Semantic Agreement

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Morphology and syntax … and semantics … and pragmatics

Lingvisticae Investigationes ◽

10.1075/li.37.2.08joh ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 306-321

Author(s):

Cynthia A. Johnson ◽

Brian D. Joseph

Keyword(s):

Good Evidence ◽

Local Context ◽

Morphological Form ◽

Cultural Information ◽

Semantics And Pragmatics ◽

Feature Values ◽

Syntactic Context ◽

Morphosyntactic Feature ◽

Hybrid Nouns ◽

Semantic Agreement

Agreement minimally involves interaction between morphology and syntax, as a target’s features vary according to the morphological form of a controller in a given syntactic context. However, semantics can also play a role, and the term “semantic agreement” has been used to describe various constructions where morphosyntactic feature values of the agreement target do not match the formal features of the controller, reflecting instead meaning-based properties of the noun. In this paper, we deconstruct instances of “semantic agreement,” as there is good evidence to believe that more than just the semantics is involved in the agreement process. In some cases, e.g. Russian hybrid nouns like vrač ‘doctor’, the local context provides the agreement features, giving a type of “pragmatic agreement”. In other cases, socio-cultural information plays a role, showing a broader type of pragmatic agreement. In light of these observations, we offer a deconstruction of semantic agreement phenomena in order to show the complex ways morphology interacts with syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Finally, we argue that the distinction between syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic agreement is paralleled by (and benefits from) earlier discussions of syntactic versus pragmatic control.

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Analyzing the Emergence of Semantic Agreement among Rational Agents

2011 IEEE 13th Conference on Commerce and Enterprise Computing ◽

10.1109/cec.2011.40 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Golnaz Vakili ◽

Thanasis G. Papaioannou ◽

Zolt´n Miklos ◽

Karl Aberer ◽

Siavash Khorsandi

Keyword(s):

Rational Agents ◽

Semantic Agreement

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Agreement Morphology

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.500 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Patricia Cabredo Hofherr

Keyword(s):

Inflectional Morphology ◽

Semantic Features ◽

A Value ◽

Agreement Morphology ◽

Semantic Agreement ◽

Formal Features

Agreement is defined as the systematic covariance of one element with another. The most uncontroversial agreement configuration is that between a controller—an element intrinsically specified for a value of an agreement feature—and the target of agreement—the element reflecting a displaced feature value of the controller. The distribution of morphological agreement markers is however much wider than controller–target configurations: targets can express agreement values for features that are not visible on the controller and even show agreement morphology in the absence of a lexical controller. A second source of variation is due to the fact that in certain contexts there is a choice between syntactic agreement (with formal features of the controller) and semantic agreement (with semantic features of the referent of the controller). The choice between syntactic and semantic agreement is correlated in part with cross-linguistically observed regularities that have been formulated as the agreement hierarchy and the animacy hierarchy. Agreement morphology harnesses the same morphological devices found with derivation and inflection. Like inflectional morphology more generally, agreement morphology is only present in a subset of the world’s languages.

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