agreementwhether

Agreementwhether is a term used in linguistic theory to describe a proposed pattern of verbal agreement that interacts with whether-clauses, i.e., embedded questions introduced by the conjunction whether. The name reflects the idea that agreement morphology may be conditioned by the subject of the embedded whether-clause rather than by the matrix subject alone. The term is not widely standardized and appears in a small, cross-lertilizing body of typological and theoretical discussions about embedded questions and agreement.

Definition and scope

In languages with productive agreement systems, some analyses posit that the finite verb in a matrix clause may agree with the embedded subject of the whether-clause, leading to a mismatch with the matrix subject’s features. This contrasts with the more familiar expectation that the matrix verb agrees with the matrix subject. Agreementwhether is typically discussed as part of a broader inquiry into how embedded clauses influence main-clause morphology, and it is often treated under the umbrella of embedded-question agreement or complementizer-related agreement phenomena.

typology and data

Across languages, the availability and robustness of agreementwhether patterns vary. Some languages may show clear agreementwith the embedded subject in certain tenses or moods, while others exhibit more limited or optional effects. Researchers explore potential motivations, including discourse focus, locality constraints, or formal parallels between matrix and embedded clauses.

Examples

A hypothetical language could show matrix-verb plural marking when the embedded whether-clause has a plural subject, yielding sentences like The committee say whether the members are ready, even though the matrix subject is singular. Such examples illustrate the conceptual core without asserting empirical universality.

See also

Subject-verb agreement, embedded questions, whether-clause, complementizers, typological morphology.