‘Agreement of structural obliques’ parameter

Abstract

We consider two sets of facts. The first is that dom objects may or may not agree with perfect participles in Indo-Aryan. The second is that (pseudo)partitive subjects may agree with the verb in the plural or not. We account for the dom parameter, basing on the assumption that dom corresponds to embedding of a DP under an oblique adposition: if P projects, the dom object is labelled PP and does not agree; if D projects, it is labelled DP, projecting like any other DP. On the contrary, inherent datives, where P/K is lexically selected, must project P/K and are therefore not goals for Agree. We extend this labelling account to (pseudo)partitives, as well as to optionally agreeing oblique clitics in Romance.