Agreement is not an essential ingredient of finiteness: Evidence from impersonal sentences in Norwegian dialects and in English

Abstract

I argue in this article that agreement is not an essential ingredient of T/finiteness. Using the mechanism of valuation of unvalued features, I argue that unvalued agreement features in T only exist if there is visible subject – verb agreement in the language/dialect. Correspondingly, I argue that unvalued agreement features in participles only exist if there is visible subject – participle agreement. The likelihood that these assumptions are correct is demonstrated through a comparative analysis of expletive subjects and agreement relations in impersonal constructions in Norwegian dialects and in English.