Grabovac, Anna; (2022) Maximizing the concord domain: Concord as spellout in Slavic. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

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.

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