Number agreement in copular constructions. A treebank-based investigation

This paper has both a theoretical and a methodological objective. The theoretical one concerns the modeling of number agreement in copular constructions. For that purpose it adopts the distinction, familiar from Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, between morpho-syntactic agreement (also known as concord) and index agreement. The methodological objective concerns the demonstration of how treebanks can be exploited in order to guide the formulation of relevant generalizations. For that purpose we crucially rely on tools and resources that have recently been developed in the framework of the Dutch-Flemish stevin program (2004–2011) and the European clarin infrastructure.

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