Inflected intensifiers: The structure-dependence of parasitic agreement Norbert Corver

This article examines parasitic agreement in Dutch, that is, the appearance of an
inflection whose existence is dependent on the presence of a “real” inflection.
Specifically, an intensifying degree word (optionally) carries an inflection that is
associated with a gradable attributive adjective. The article lays bare various properties
of, and constraints on, the phenomenon of parasitic agreement. An important
conclusion that follows from the analysis of parasitic agreement is that this
phenomenon is structure dependent, just like the parasitic gap phenomenon. The structural
configuration that is claimed to be at the basis of parasitic agreement is the
Spec-head relationship.