Earticle

This paper investigates the syntactic structure for the agreement attraction of the subject in English and the honorific subject or goal in Korean in terms of the subject or goal and verb(al predicate) agreement. The subject-honorific verbal ending si or goal-honorific verb tulita in Korean belongs to the verbal predicate. The subject-verb agreement in English is mistakenly affected by the feature percolation in the syntactic structure between an agreement target and a local attractor. The [+/-PL] feature in English and [+/-HON] feature in Korean, which undergo upward or downward percolation other than [WH], are also suggested to be a local attractor for the subject or goal and the verb(al predicate) agreement. In the coordinate structure of English subjects and Korean subjects or goals, the [+/-PL] feature or the [+/-HON] feature of the NP closer to the agreement target is a strong one, which undergoes upward percolation to the entire subject or goal DP. This is contrary to Jang and Kim’s (2021) suggestion that the plural feature percolates into the DP because it is a strong one. Last but not least, this is why coordinate elements in Korean subject or goal positions do not necessarily follow the animacy hierarchy.

This paper claims that feature percolation mechanism has both conceptual and empirical problems. On the conceptual and theoretical side, the assumption that features percolate only from Spec positions turn out to be problematic in explaining pied-piping wh-movement of English in the least. On the empirical side, it is shown that feature percolation faces problems with various cross linguistic findings from both theoretical and experimental studies regarding pied-piping, sluicing with preposition stranding and subject-verb agreement mismatch in English. As an alternative approach to those phenomena, this paper proposes that multiple activation which causes confusion on the part of speakers/ comprehenders would be a key factor in explaining the data that has been dealt with under feature percolation.

The current paper delves into the syntactic process of the honorification feature percolation within the subject NP when the subject-honorific verbal ending -si occurs in Korean. This is in accordance with the syntactic subject-verb agreement under the condition that the plural verb necessarily requires the plural subject in English. The honorific feature [+HON] of an possessor within the subject of the possessive structure is a strong one, which undergoes upward percolation to the entire subject NP in the hierarchical structure, regardless of proximity to the subject-honorific verbal ending -si. The feature [+HON] of the subject of the embedded clause into the complex noun phase also undergoes hierarchical percolation in this way. Even though the strong feature of the honorific subjects of the possessive and coordinate structures is determined differently, the feature [+HON] undergoes upward percolation in the hierarchical structure in the same way.

The current paper provides the syntactic analysis for the agreement attraction of the plural subject in English and Korean and subject honorification in Korean in terms of the syntactic subject-verb agreement. The ramifications of this paper include that there are features like [+PL] or [+HON] in the subject that undergo upward or downward percolation other than [WH]. Supporting evidence for the subject-verb agreement is attested along with feature percolation of [+PL] in English and Korean and [+HON] in Korean (Ross, 1967; Hudson, 2013; Hong, 2018). The agreement or its frequent error is affected by the hierarchical structure between an agreement target and a local attractor. The [+PL] feature in English and Korean and [+HON] feature in Korean are also suggested to be a local attractor for the subject-verb(al predicate) agreement. In the coordinate structure of the subject in Korean, the [+HON] feature of the last element is a strong one, so only its [+HON] feature undergoes upward percolation to the entire subject DP, which is consistent with si of the verbal predicate.

This paper attempts to deal with a contrast in sloppy reading found in some VP-ellipsis contexts from English. This reading is available if another VP-ellipsis applied in the preceding environment; it is unavailable if not. The purpose of this paper is to account for this contrast by exploring an alternative way to previous approaches such as the proform analysis by Schwarz(2000) and the LF structure analysis by Tomioka(2008). Despite some merits of these analyses, they are shown to have some difficulties in resolving the VP-ellipsis gaps. I then propose a new analysis in which some positive elements factored out of the two existing analyses are reshaped and incorporated more adequately in terms of focus feature percolation and inheritance.