Nominal concord constitutes the primary focus of this thesis. Although concord
bears some resemblance to agreement in the sense that both involve feature sharing,
I argue that the two are distinct. Following work by Norris (2014), this thesis takes
concord to result from the spellout of features from dominating nodes on available
terminals. Extending Norris’s analysis, I emphasize the importance of domain
maximization in derivations of concord. The system achieves domain maximization
by percolating features as high as possible in the syntax and realizing them as low
as possible in concord, according to locality. This approach to concord arguably
provides a more straightforward analysis than previous analyses that attempt to
unify concord and agreement, as these often require unnecessary complications to
accommodate concord phenomena.
In addition to providing a simpler account of general concord, this approach offers
a novel analysis of Slavic numeral constructions, such as ‘those five new students.’
For decades, numeral constructions have posed difficulties for those who have
taken up the challenge to investigate them, but there is, as yet, no widely accepted
analysis. This thesis compares five concord patterns across Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian,
Polish, and Russian and proposes a cohesive account.
While investigating these patterns, the thesis also offers insight into the application
of impoverishment and its representation, along with the impact of the
numeral’s categorial status on the outcome of the derivation. I show that both play
a role in domain maximization and language variation. Impoverishment allows for
lower extension of the concord domain, whereas the semi-lexicality of the numeral
and its associated feature specification can allow higher percolation than usual,
which ultimately results in upward extension of the concord domain.
The system developed in this thesis supports the distinction between concord
and agreement and provides additional insight into the movement of features
within the nominal domain as well as the interaction of processes at the interfaces.