In some languages, a subject consisting of a Conjunction Phrase agrees only partially with the verb. Aoun, Benmamoun and Sportiche (1994) have presented an analysis for Arabic in which the conjuncts are clauses rather than Noun Phrases. The present paper argues that partial agreement is a subclass of a more general, and widespread, phenomenon: that of unbalanced coordination (Johannessen 1993b). An analysis is presented in which conjuncts can be NPs as well as other categories. The central idea is that the conjunction heads a Conjunction Phrase, and that unbalanced coordination is a possible consequence of specifier-head agreement. This explains a correlation between the order of conjuncts that have different grammatical features and the order of head and complement in these languages.
Partial Agreement and Coordination