Theoretical Implications and Roadmap. This construction is particularly relevant in the present state of Minimalist syntactic theory, as it presents an agreement configuration that is highly problematic to explain. The most salient problematic property is the fact that the complementizer agrees with a structurally higher noun phrase. The Agree relation is generally assumed to hold between a head and a goal which is c-commanded by the head, as part of a derivational structure which builds syntactic structures from the bottom up (Xxxxxxx 2000, 2001). While there is some work proposing so-called ‘upward’ probing (x.x. Xxxxx 2008), as will be demonstrated in what follows, Xxxxxxxx 1 Lubukusu has been reclassified from its Xxxxxxx classification of E31c to J30 in Xxxxx (2009), and JE31c in Maho (2008). 2 It is often said that Lubukusu is a dialect of Luyia, but the Ethnologue’s terminology recognizes that there is no standard “Luyia” language, but rather, each Luyia speaker speaks one of its varieties. There are estimated to be 17- 23 Luyia languages, all with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility (Xxxxx 2009, Xxxxx 2009).
Theoretical Implications and Roadmap. This construction is particularly relevant in the present state of Minimalist syntactic theory, as it presents an agreement configuration that is highly problematic to explain. The most salient problematic property is the fact that the complementizer agrees with a structurally higher noun phrase. The Agree relation is generally assumed to hold between a head and a goal which is c-commanded by the head, as part of a derivational structure which builds syntactic structures from the bottom (Xxxxxxx 2000, 2001). While there is some work proposing so-called ‘upward’ probing (e.g. Xxxxx 2008), as will be demonstrated in what follows, Lubukusu complementizer agreement diverges in important ways from the properties of Agree, even an upward-probing Agree. It is this core puzzle that occupies most of the focus of this paper. There are, however, additional theoretical puzzles raised by this construction. First, the complementizer agreement relationship in Lubukusu intersects in critical ways with phase theory. Note that while the head of CP is argued to be the edge of the phase and accessible to higher operations (Xxxxxxx 2008, among others), the verb in
