Agreement Beyond Phi. By SHIGERU MIYAGAWA. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, Linguistic
Inquiry Monograph Seventy-Five. 2017. Pp. 223.
Reviewed by ELENA ANAGNOSTOPOULOU, University of Crete

In this monograph, SHIGERU MIYAGAWA expands, sharpens and further substantiates the theoryof clausal operations argued for in his 2010 Monograph Why Agree? Why Move? Unifying
Agreement-Based and Discourse-Configurational Languages (MIT Press), exploring its
consequences in many new domains of syntax and the syntax-discourse interface. Based on
Chomsky’s (2001) Uniformity Principle, Miyagawa (2010) argued that movement operations
across languages are governed by Strong Uniformity which dictates that the same set ofgrammatical features occurs and is overtly manifested in all languages. The current monographdefends a version of Strong Uniformity, according to which phi-features (φ-features) anddiscourse configurational features (δ-features) all start out on the phase head C and may or may
not be inherited by T as a parametric option (cf. Chomsky 2005, 2007). The different
combinatorial possibilities lead to four basic types of languages, depending on where thedifferent sets of grammatical features are hosted: (I) φ-feature on C, δ-feature on T (Japanese);(II) δ-feature on C, φ-feature on T (English); (ΙΙΙ) both φ-feature and δ-feature on T (Spanish);(IV) both φ-feature and δ-feature on T (Dinka). In this simple and elegant typology, the variation
we find across languages depends on how φ-features and δ-features interact with each other andwith items in their local domain, the C-domain and the T-domain.
The book investigates a wealth of empirical phenomena in many typologically unrelated
languages and arrives at a set of surprising new generalizations which are accounted for in termsof the Strong Uniformity Hypothesis, thus shedding light on the interaction between theagreement-systems and the discourse configurational properties of languages. It is argued thatpoliteness markers in Japanese, allocutive agreement in Basque, sloppy interpretations of nullsubjects in Japanese, Chinese, Malayalam and Spanish, why and how come in Japanese, Chinese,
English and Spanish, and focus in ga/no conversion in Japanese can be understood only if thelocus of φ-features and δ-features in the clause is taken into account. The book thus initiates anexciting new research program in the study of formal syntax.
Chapter 1 introduces the basic theory argued for in the book: Strong Uniformity, thepredicted typology of four language-categories, and some preliminary empirical evidence for theunconventional claims that δ-features reside in T in Japanese and Spanish, while φ-features
reside in C in Dinka (Nilo-Saharan; van Urk 2015). Chapters 2-5 are case studies illustrating how
the typology developed in chapter 1 can be fruitfully exploited to account for a range of that do
not seem to be connected to one another. Chapter 6 concludes by summarizing the main findingsof the monograph.
Chapter 2 argues that, contrary to what is assumed in the literature, Japanese is not alanguage lacking agreement; rather, it is a language where φ-feature agreement resides in C,
being manifested as the politeness marker –mas-. Unlike e.g. French politeness agreement which
is sensitive to the clausal subject and can occur in all kinds of embedded clauses, the distributionof politeness marking in Japanese is sensitive to properties of the addressee and is limited toenvironments matching the notion of the Root (Emonds 1969). M argues that the differences
between the two language types can be accounted for if φ-features are hosted in C in Japaneseand in T in French, as predicted by the Strong Uniformity typology. He furthermore analyzes
1Japanese politeness marking as an analogue to allocutive agreement in Basque dialects. Basqueallocutive agreement displays sensitivity to properties of the addressee (e.g. gender, status) and islimited to Root environments, just like Japanese politeness markers. M analyses them asagreement in C, adopting Speas & Tenny’s (2003) Speech Act Projection (saP). SaP can only bepresent when C is unselected, thus providing a straightforward explanation for the fact that thistype of agreement is limited to Root environments.
Chapter 3 investigates pro-drop and agreement. The empirical question addressed
concerns the nature and availability of sloppy readings of zero subjects in three different types oflanguages, namely (i) Japanese, (ii) Chinese/Malayalam and (iii) Spanish. In the literature, there
is a debate concerning the proper analysis of empty subjects in Japanese, whether these involve
pro-drop, as originally proposed by Kuroda (1965), or they result from argument ellipsis, asargued for by Oku (1998). Oku’s argument crucially rests on a Generalization according towhich Romance pro-drop languages with rich agreement do not allow for sloppy interpretationsof null subjects, unlike Japanese which freely permits sloppy readings and lacks agreement. Oku
accounts for this on the basis of the hypothesis that sloppy interpretations are only possible underargument ellipsis and proposes that rich agreement blocks argument ellipsis in Romance-type
languages. As a first step, M extends Oku’s generalization to capture languages like Chinese andMalayalam that lack overt subject agreement, like Japanese, but do not permit sloppy
interpretations of null subjects, like Spanish. Drawing on evidence from long distance binding,he argues that these languages conform with Oku’s Generalization despite appearances to thecontrary. He points out, however, that Oku’s Generalization is contradicted by languages likeSpanish and Greek where sloppy readings for subjects are, in fact, possible under certain
conditions. He also presents a large-scale survey of Japanese and Chinese speakers which showsthat sloppy interpretations are systematically available in Japanese without context, unlike
Chinese where context is required to encourage sloppy interpretations.
These combined results lead to a restatement of Oku’s Generalization. The right question
to ask, according to M, is why do pro-drop languages like Japanese freely permit sloppy
readings, while this is only possible under the right contextual conditions in Chinese andSpanish/Greek. M proposes that the key towards an answer to this question is provided by
Oikonomou’s (2017) proposal that sloppy readings are the result of an E-type interpretation ofpro, which gives rise to indefinite readings. The Topic systems of languages in connection toproperties of pro determine the conditions under which E-type interpretations may arise. In richagreement languages, agreement leads to topicalization of pro (interpreted as movement of pro toT hosting δ-features; rich agreement languages are Tφ/δ) which is incompatible with E-typeinterpretations. Furthermore, due to its referential/φ-deficiency, Chinese pro can pick a referent
outside the sentence only when it is topicalized to C hosting δ-features (Chinese is Tφ-Cδ), once
again rendering E-type interpretations and the concomitant sloppy readings difficult. On theother hand, pro is allowed to remain vP internal in Japanese (a Tδ-Cφ agreement-less language),and therefore E-type/sloppy readings are freely available.
Chapter 4 is an investigation of ‘why’ from the perspective of the debate between
movement and external-merge (EM) analyses of why-questions. While many languages provide
robust evidence that wh-adjuncts like why may be externally merged in the Spec,CP position andwh-adjuncts like how come must be externally merged in that position, Japanese has nothingcomparable to wh-adjuncts like how come in English which are obligatorily externally merged inthe Spec,CP position. The question that arises is what explains this gap in the paradigm ofJapanese, as opposed to English, Chinese and Spanish. M (2017) proposes that this difference2

between Japanese vs. Chinese/English-type languages relates to the fact that the EM option
requires focus in C. Being a discourse feature, focus never resides in C in Category I Cφ-Τδlanguages like Japanese, while it is hosted in C in Category II Cδ-Iφ languages like Chinese andEnglish, explaining the absence of how come-type questions in the former type of languages andtheir presence in the latter. Based on a comparative investigation of wh-adjunct questions withrespect to anti-superiority (Saito 1985), anti-intervention effects (Beck 1996a) and anti-piedpiping (Nishigauchi 1990), Miyagawa argues that Japanese naze displays all the signature
properties of movement while Chinese zenme all those of base-generation. In turn, this entails
that the movement vs. base-generation behavior of why/how come-adjuncts cannot be attributed
to the wh-in-situ parameter and depends on the position of focus features in the clause.
Combining the syntactic analysis of Shlonsky & Soare (2011) with the semantic analysis of Beck(1996b) M offers a syntax for why/naze in terms of a because of what clause (ReasonP), attachedabove TP. Why phonologically spells out an operator that binds a variable in ReasonP, andundergoes movement from ReasonP to CP for scope reasons. In languages like Japanese andKorean which have a δ-feature in T there is an option to merge ‘why’ lower than TP and move it
across the subject to the Spec,ReasonP position, prior to ‘why’ moving to Spec,CP. In contrast,
there is no topic Tδ position that can host the movement step from a TP-internal position to
ReasonP of Chinese weishenme (‘why’).
Chapter 5 investigates the phenomenon of ga/no conversion from the perspective ofStrong Uniformity. In Japanese, the subject of a relative clause or a noun-complement may either
be marked with the nominative –ga or with the genitive –no. In the first part of the chapter, M
argues that ga/no conversion provides strong evidence for the central thesis of Strong Uniformitythat all formal features start out in C and are inherited by T. Building on previous work, M
argues that the nominative marking occurs in a full CP, while the genitive marking is associatedwith a TP not selected by C. On the Strong Uniformity hypothesis, this means that inconstructions with a nominative subject, T is fully active; it can license nominative and focus on
the subject and can trigger EPP-related operations like subject movement to T and object
scrambling. On the other hand, since T is devoid of features and syntactically inactive in theabsence of C, constructions in which the subject bears genitive case show several restrictions. T
cannot license nominative case on the subject which is therefore assigned genitive case by D.
Moreover, T cannot EPP-attract the subject, resulting in an adjacency requirement between thevP-internal subject and the verb, and cannot EPP-attract the object, resulting in unavailability ofscrambling. Most importantly, as shown in (1), a focus element on the subject precludes genitivefrom occurring on the subject:(1)
Taroo-dake-ga/*-nononda kusuriTaro-only-NOM/*-GEN
took medicine‘medicine that only Taro took’
This is so because focus requires C, and C is associated with an active T which assigns
nominative to the subject. In the second part of the chapter, M argues that focus features onarguments are activated by Case, similarly to φ-features.
The book makes an important contribution to our understanding of theoretical syntax andparameter theory through an in-depth investigation of the interaction between φ-features and δfeatures across languages and phenomena. Based on highly complex and intriguing data fromseveral areas of syntax, Miyagawa makes a convincing case that there is much to be gained if
variation is approached from the perspective of Strong Uniformity. The book offers a systematic
typology of C-related and T-related phenomena depending on where φ-features and δ-features3

are hosted. It highlights the similarities between the agreement/Case systems and the topic/focus
systems in natural language and offers a restrictive and conceptually sound theory of theinteraction between φ-features and δ-features. It also provides novel tools for comparing related
structures in typologically diverse languages, such as the presence, properties and distribution ofpoliteness agreement; the conditions governing the availability of sloppy readings on nullsubjects; the syntactic behavior of why, how come and what for why adjuncts; and the (un)availability of special case and focus marking on subjects in full vs. reduced clausalenvironments. The book will be a valuable guide to researchers studying these phenomena in all
languages and initiates a new research agenda in the investigation of clause structure, agreement,Case, discourse configurationality and their typology.
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Department of Philology, Linguistics section
University of Crete, University Campus Gallos, 74100 Rethymno, Greece[anagnostopoulou@uoc.gr, elena.anagnostopoulou01@gmail.com]

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