SYNTAX: AGREEMENT

1. Agreement is a morpho-syntactic procedure by which certain elements in the sentences are supposed to show the same categories. Agreement is to be found at two levels:

– among phrases within the sentence (sentence agreement), or

– among words within the phrase (phrase agreement).

In Syntax, agreement is represented as follows:

– Subject agreement: the subject must agree in number (and gender in some languages) with the predicate.

– Object agreement: the subject must agree in number with the predicate.

– Gender agreement: adjectives and determiners must agree in gender with the nouns, i.e., the head of the phrase.

– Number agreement: adjectives and determiners must agree in gender with nouns, i.e., the head of the phrase.

2. Agreement in English is quite reduced and just applies to number. Sentence agreement is reduced to Subject-Predicate agreement, only in present tenses (simple present, present continuous or present perfect), when the third person singular takes –s as an ending: he sings, he is singing, he has sung.

Phrase agreement is also quite reduced and just involves demonstratives, since articles and possessives undergo no inflection at all: this book vs. these books.

3. Agreement in Catalan is much more complex than in English.

3.1. Sentence agreement involves mainly number:

a) Subject-Predicate agreement

la casa groga	the yellow house
el dies estiuencs	the summer days

b) Subject-Predicate-Attribute agreement

la casa és bonica	the house is beautiful
les cases són boniques	the houses are beautiful

c) Object-Predicate agreement in middle voice (see Voice):

Es venen cases	Houses for sale
Es diuen coses molt estranyes últimament	Very weird things are being said lately

3.2. Sentence agreement involves also gender when past participles are present, but only under two circumstances, i.e.:

3.2.1. In relative clauses in transitive constructions:

la casa[fem/sg] que has comprada[fem/sg m’agrada	I like the house you’ve bought
els llibres[masc/pl]  que m’has mostrats[masc/pl]  són increïbles	The books you’ve shown me are amazing

3.2.2. In emphatic constructions (i.e., as the object becomes a focus), when the object is moved leftwards:

les teves sabates[fem/pl] no les he vistes[fem/sg]	Actually, I haven’t seen your shoes
aquests llibres[masc/pl],  no me’ls havies mostrats[masc/pl]	You hadn’t shown me these books, had you?

Observe that in the former cases, there is in fact a double agreement. While the participle agrees in gender and number with a noun, the conjugated verb agrees with the subject:

(a) la paret	ton germà	l’ha	pintada	la paret
focus	[subject agreement]		[object agreement]

> Your brother did paint the wall

3.3. Phrase agreement in Catalan is to be found exclusively within Noun Phrases. It involves both gender and number, being the head (à the noun) the main word, which imposes its own categories of gender and number to the rest of the items within the phrase:

aquelles	amigues	teves	tan maques
[+gender agreement]
[+number agreement]

> Those nice friends of yours.