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For those sentences with CP arguments and final subjects, I assume that they have a right
dislocation structure in which the subject moves to a position in the left periphery,
followed by movement of the remnant AgrSP (429):
V CP S
(429) a. [TopP [AgrSP tsubject V CP] Top [FocP subject Foc tAgrSP]]
b. [FocP [AgrSP tsubject V CP] Foc [TopP subject Top tAgrSP]]
This analysis is supported by the fact that these sentences have right dislocation
intonation.
4.6 Subject agreement
In the final section of this chapter, I address the issue of subject agreement with non-
initial subjects. Recall that, like Hale (1998), I assume that one way agreement occurs is
through a spec-head relationship. This is a desirable assumption because it can explain
why agreement must occur with preverbal subjects. However it doesn't explain why third
singular agreement may occur with non-initial third person plural subjects. In the analysis
I have pursued, some non-initial subjects do not occupy the specifier of AgrSP at any
point in the derivation. This being the case, we need to find some other explanation as to
how agreement occurs with non-initial subjects.
I propose that there is, in addition to the spec-head relationship, another avenue
by which agreement may occur: a probe-goal relationship, as argued for by Chomsky
(2000). In this proposal, when spec AgrSP is empty, a probe originating in AgrS searches
its c-command domain for an appropriate goal, in this case, the DP subject occupying the
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