-
Algonquian Languages Have A-Movement and A-Agreement
- Linguistic Inquiry
- The MIT Press
- Volume 40, Number 3, Summer 2009
- pp. 427-445
- Article
- Additional Information
Ritter and Rosen (2005) claim that Algonquian languages lack A-movement and A-binding, and they theorize that all agreement in Algonquian is agreement with Ā-positions. I show that this proposal cannot be maintained, given facts of quantifier scope in Passamaquoddy. These facts require recognizing a step of A-movement to a derived A-position, comparable to Spec,TP in languages like English. I further contrast this movement with the movement involved in cross-clausal agreement (Branigan and MacKenzie 2002) and show that the two differ in exactly the ways that A-movement and Ā-movement differ. Algonquian languages clearly have A-movement as distinct from Ā-movement.