This vignette examines the use of features in minimalist syntax and the theory behind this use. First, it examines the main oppositions that characterize syntactic features: inherent vs. attributive; valued vs. unvalued; functional vs. categorial; LF-motivated vs. PF-motivated vs. purely syntactic; privative vs. bivalent vs. multivalent. Second, it focuses on the behavior of features correlating with their properties: what agreement, defined as matching or as valuation, can entail about the opposition discussed earlier. Third, it examines the same issues with respect to Case features, which, being defined only syntactically, have been analyzed as a subtype of categorial features or as the uninterpretable counterparts of categorial features. The notion of feature inheritance is considered next, and finally, it addresses the issues of second-order features: interpretability and EPP. The main theoretical point made in this vignette is that a given feature (e.g. definiteness) may be defined in more than one domain (semantics, syntax, or morphology) and exhibit different forms in different domains.

This vignette is concerned with φ-agreement, that is, agreement in φ-features (person, number, and gender/noun-class). For current purposes, φ-agreement should be understood to refer to morpho-phonologically detectable covariance in φ-features between a finite verb and one or more nominal arguments of that verb. Finite verb agreement is far from the only case of obligatory covariance between pairs of expressions in natural language, and it is not even the only case where the φ-features of two or more expressions appear to covary. However, whether these other phenomena do or do not supervene on the same grammatical relation responsible for φ-agreement in the narrow sense is an empirical question. This vignette therefore focuses on φ-agreement in the narrow sense: its modular locus, its computational properties, its interactions with nominal case, and the nature of the feature-structures it manipulates.

The traditional conception of ϕ-Agree involves copying of feature values from one element to another, yielding two separate feature tokens that have the same value. An alternative conception of ϕ-Agree involves “feature sharing.” On this view, Agree unifies the features or feature values of the two elements, yielding a single token that is simultaneously associated with two syntactic elements. This vignette provides an overview of ϕ-feature-sharing accounts within minimalism. The focus is on how feature sharing differs from feature copying and on the kinds of phenomena that have been analyzed in this way. The vignette discusses (i) parasitic agreement and case assignment, (ii) interactions with phase locality, and (iii) applications of ϕ-feature sharing to phenomena other than ϕ-agreement (case, binding, and coreference). In addition, the vignette briefly discusses levels at which sharing may apply and the relationship between feature sharing and multidominance.

A survey of phrase and sentence grammar, including discussion of the difference between grammaticality and acceptability, parts of speech-word classes, word order, case marking, verbal inflection, constituency, structural ambiguity, argument structure, anaphora, quantifiers, and negation.

This chapter centers around inflectional morphology, used to convey grammatical meaning, particularly in connection to nouns and other nominal elements. It addresses ways in which natlangs vary morphologically, including using infixes and circumfixes, which are relatively unusual in languages. This chapter also explores ways in which languages express number, gender and case morphologically, and it introduces glossing, a set of conventions used to indicate word structure and meaning. In addition, this chapter provides conlanging practice, includes a set of guided questions to facilitate building the nominal morphology in a conlang, and outlines the basics of nominal morphology in the Salt language.

This chapter introduces syntax, i.e. sentence structure. It distinguishes between clauses and sentences and discusses sentence constituents and constituency tests. This chapter also discusses sentence structure and word order, which can be fixed or flexible, and considers how some word orders tend to correlate with other linguistic characteristics in a language. In addition, this chapter provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to develop the basic structure of sentences in a conlang, and outlines the sentence structure of the Salt language.

This chapter builds on the grammatical foundation provided in Chapters 7 and 8, specifically diving into grammatical features of nouns. In this chapter, you will be introduced to three major ways nouns can inflect in languages: number, noun class, and case. The examples provided throughout each section focus on the most common types of inflections found in languages to help inspire you as you make noun-marking decisions for your conlang. The final section explores connections between adpositions and case. The exercises at the end of this chapter ask you to decide whether you will mark nouns for number, noun class, and/or case and, if so, how.

In this chapter we first look at the DP-hypothesis, the idea that nominals are DPs rather than NPs, and that NP is a complement of D. We then refine this idea, motivating a tripartite structure for the nominal, analogous to what we saw for the clause in the previous chapter. Next, we focus on the argument structure of nominals, comparing and contrasting with argument structure in the clause. Finally, we briefly describe the ways in which grammatical functions are marked in nominals, again contrasting this with the clause.

The goal of this chapter is to develop a theory of Formal Features that will capture and unify many of the generalisations we have arrived at in previous chapters and, more specifically, to develop a theory of Case, agreement and movement, showing how these three notions are intertwined. The core notion is the Agree relation.

This chapter presents and analyzes the main goals of linguistic typology and explores its relation to formal comparative syntax. It shows that typology can be understood in two different ways, as a subfield and as a methodology of comparative linguistic study. Understood in the former sense, a typological approach is complementary to a formal one; understood in the latter sense, a typological approach is inherent in formal comparative syntax. The chapter discusses critical differences between the subfield of functional typology and the subfield of formal comparative syntax and explains the difficulties on the way to their convergence. It uses studies of word order and case to compare the two approaches.

This chapter is about the comparative syntax of adpositions. We suggest that the category P is universal, and argue that in addition to functional adpositions, there are also lexical Ps. We make our way through the extended projections of P from bottom to top, and argue that the composition of the extended PP parallels that of the extended VP. We show that in addition to PP-internal projections for grammatical aspect (coding place vs. path distinctions) and for event aspect (coding boundedness distinctions), there are also projections dedicated to deixis and to discourse particles. The maximal extension of the PP provides an escape hatch for extraction, much like Spec, CP in the clause. We also discuss the relationship between Figure, Ground, and Theme, suggesting that Figure and Theme should be kept distinct. Finally, we suggest that cross-linguistically there are two major ways of building PPs: they can bottom out in a lexical P or in a relational noun. In the latter case, the Ground is merged as a possessor of the relational noun, and PPs show morphological parallels with possessive structures.

An A-dependency is usually characterized in terms of a relationship between different syntactic positions that is based on case, agreement, theta-role assignment, or binding. This chapter starts with an examination of the defining properties of A-dependencies, focusing on case and agreement as potential driving forces for the creation of such dependencies, and the debate surrounding these topics. We then explore the cross-linguistic variation in the syntax of A-dependencies, illustrating it with dependencies that cross a clausal boundary. Specifically, we examine different instances of raising and control, as well as the theories formulated to account for such phenomena.