Abstract

In this talk, I discuss the mechanism of feature sharing in the analysis of agreement across theories. I argue that there are agreement phenomena that require an agreement mechanism which is both symmetric and feature sharing. The main argument relies on a Latin nominalized clause construction which has until now remained ill understood, but I will also show that phenomena that have so far been described in terms of long distance agreement lend themselves to a treatment in terms of feature sharing. I will then look at the consequences for the theory of agreement. I show that there are also cases of agreement which resist a feature-sharing treatment. This means that we cannot pin down a single agree mechanism. Some agreement phenomena require feature sharing, others do not, and yet others are incompatible with feature sharing. The talk complements a talk I gave in the Cambridge classical linguistics seminar last year, but here the focus is on what the Latin data tells us about the theory of agreement, rather than on the Latin construction itself.