Explanation
Grammatical agreement is the formal correspondence of syntactically related expressions in features such as person, number, gender, or case. In “these small houses”, determiner and noun share plural marking; a finite verb may likewise reflect features of its subject. This repetition is not ornamental. It makes dependencies recognisable across distance, helps listeners associate parts of a clause, and reveals which unit supplies the controlling features of a construction. Languages differ substantially in which features surface and where. Agreement therefore leads from individual inflections toward a relational grammar in which separate words display their connection through recurrent formal signals, while mismatches disclose tensions among syntax, meaning, and processing.
Movement of thought
1. An expression bears grammatical features that become relevant to a construction. 2. A syntactically linked or dependent expression receives corresponding formal features. 3. Recurrent signals make affiliation recognisable even across linear distance. 4. Mismatch, semantic agreement, and attraction errors test which element actually controls the relation. 5. Separate words return as formally coordinated components of one construction.
Scientific use case
Corpus studies can annotate targets, controllers, features, and distance in agreement relations. Experiments on attraction errors can test how speakers process competing number or gender features during sentence planning.
Example
In “these houses stand”, plural is visible on the determiner, noun, and finite verb. Separate words thereby carry a recurrent grammatical trace of their relation.
Counterexample
When a verb requires its object in a particular form, the relation primarily concerns government rather than agreement. Coincidentally identical endings without a syntactic feature relation are not agreement either.
Distinction
Distinguish agreement from government, inflection, and accidental identity of form. Inflection supplies forms, government selects a dependent form, while agreement reproduces features of one element on another.
Effect on thought and perception
Agreement binds separate expressions through recurring grammatical features and makes syntactic dependency visible in word form.
Resonance
One feature sounds at several points in a sentence; the forms answer one another and hold the construction together across distance.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Grammatical agreement“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-091-046. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-091-046The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Sapir illustrates grammatical agreement in 1921 with forms such as the farmer kills and the farmers kill. Number on the subject conditions the verb form; the example also shows that -s marks plurality on the noun while participating in singular agreement on the verb. Agreement is therefore coordinated realisation of grammatical features across related expressions, not repetition of one fixed meaning. Sapir documents one historical analysis; the histories of agreement, concord and congruence and later formal models remain open.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
An agreement analysis should identify controller, target, relevant feature and overt realisation. Identity of endings is neither necessary nor sufficient; the grammatical dependency is decisive.
References for the historical section
- Edward Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) · Chapter V, farmer kills / farmers kill and the relational interpretation of number
Original English text read in the Gutenberg transcription. No first-coinage claim, full-book verification or automatic endorsement of the author’s 1921 language classifications and generalisations. Examples require modern descriptive checking before reuse as current language data.