Agreeing nouns
Distribution
Cross-linguistically, nouns are seldom sensitive to the featural properties of clause-level arguments. Nearly all attested cases are in the Dagestanian branch of Nakh-Dagestanian. The most comprehensive account of this phenomenon is described for Zilo Andi by Kaye (2023). Indexation of core argument properties on other arguments has also been observed in the Italo-Romance variety Ripano (Paciaroni 2003) and appears to be a property of two extinct varieties, Elamite, an isolate once spoken in modern day Iran (see Stolper 2004), and Coahuilteco, an isolate once spoken in southern Texas (United States) and northeastern Coahuila (Mexico) (Troike 1981, 1996).
Map 4.1 Languages with noun agreement within a convenience sample of 73 languages used in Bond et al. (2022) exhibiting evidence for at least one non-verbal agreement target belonging to the categories adverb, adposition, complementizer, noun or pronoun.
Data
| Variety | Value | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Aqusha Dargwa |  Dagestanian | van den Berg 1999; Ganenkov 2018 |
| Avar | Dagestanian | Alekseev & Ataev 1998; Rudnev 2020 |
| Coahuilteco |  Coahuilteco | Troike 1981; Troike 1996; Branan 2019 |
| Gagatl Andi | Dagestanian | Salimov 2010 |
| Lak | Dagestanian | Kazenin 2013 |
| Northern Akhwakh | Dagestanian | Creissels 2012; Creissels 2018 |
| Ripano |  Romance | Paciaroni & Loporcaro 2018; Lopocaro et al. 2020; Paciaroni 2023; D'Alessandro 2020 |
| Tanti Dargwa | Dagestanian | Sumbatova & Lander 2014; Sumbatova 2023; p.c. Nina Sumbatova |
| Tokita | Dagestanian | Magomedbekova 1971; Magomedova & Khalidova 2001 |
| Tsakhur | Dagestanian | Ibragimov 1990; Kibrik 1999a; Kibrik 1999b; Kazenin & Testelets 1999 |
| Zilo Andi | Dagestanian | Kaye 2023; Kaye, in press; Kaye et al., in press |
References
Bond, Oliver, Steven Kaye & Marina Chumakina. 2022. A typology of agreement targets. Paper given at the 55th Societas Linguistica Europaea meeting (SLE 55), University of Bucharest, August 26, 2022.
Kaye, Steven. 2023. ‘Agreement between arguments in Andi’, in Marina Chumakina, Oliver Bond & Steven Kaye (eds), Agreement beyond the verb. Unusual targets, unexpected domains, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 48–90.
Paciaroni, Tania. 2023. ‘Unusual agreement targets in Ripano’, in Marina Chumakina, Oliver Bond & Steven Kaye (eds), Agreement beyond the verb. Unusual targets, unexpected domains, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 156–197.
Stolper, Matthew W. 2004. ‘Elamite’, in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge encyclopaedia of the world’s ancient languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 60–94.
Troike, Rudolph C. 1981. ‘Subject-object concord in Coahuilteco’, Language, 57/3, 658–73.
Troike, Rudolph C. 1996. ‘Sketch of Coahuilteco, a language isolate of Texas’, in Ives Goddard (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, vol. xvii: Languages. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 644–65.