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ɸ-Agree with silent goals and the theory of interface effects

This article provides evidence from Arabic (namely Modern Standard Arabic and Jordanian Arabic) that ɸ-Agree with an element which undergoes a phonological deletion at PF, i.e., a pro, results in the occurrence of a ɸ-inflection of the goal on the relevant probe. This occurrence is imposed by the effects of a suggested interface condition, named as The Agree Identification Condition, which requires a phonologically null goal to be ɸ-identified through a co-varying ɸ-inflection on its probe. Such an analysis directly accounts for the intriguing observation that ɸ-inflections in Arabic do not occur on heads (e.g., verbs and prepositions) when the latter ɸ-agree with an overt DP. Additionally, this article shows that the effects of this condition do not arise when the Agree relation occurs between a probe and an unpronounced goal which is a member of a movement chain. When one link of the chain (e.g., the higher copy) is overt, no ɸ-inflection of the goal would appear on the probe. This suggests that when a probe ɸ-agrees with a goal which constitutes one link of a movement chain, the Agree relation holds between the probe and the whole chain.