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In:Null or Nothing: Zero elements in Romance syntax and morphology
Edited by Peter Herbeck and Natascha Pomino
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 291] 2026
► pp. 27–56

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Spanish VN compounds and the source of valued gender and number features

ORCiD logo with link | Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Published online: 27 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.291.02fab
Abstract
While our current linguistic theories predict that zero elements should exist, sometimes null heads are posited in contexts which have properties that are incompatible with how we expect zeroes to behave. In this article, I provide an analysis of apparent gender and number mismatches involving VN compounds, and some similar prefixed words, and I argue that positing a null nominal for such cases makes the wrong empirical predictions. Instead, I show how adopting a matching theory of agreement and taking seriously the licensing conditions of predicates derives the attested facts without the need to posit a null nominal head or nominaliser.
Article outline
  • 1.The problem
  • 2.Why postulating zero nominals in VN compounds causes greater problems than it solves
    • 2.1The distribution of ‘uno’ and ‘cualquiera’
    • 2.2Prenominal possessives
    • 2.3Languages without articles
    • 2.4Enforcing that affixes are also null
    • 2.5No correlation with pro-drop
    • 2.6Three phonologically null affixes, not one
    • 2.7A derivational affix with a unique behaviour
  • 3.The nature of agreement
    • 3.1Agreement as feature copying and its problems
    • 3.2Agreement as feature matching
  • 4.VN compounds
    • 4.1VN compounds as unsaturated predicates
    • 4.2Advantages of the approach
    • 4.3Prefixed words
  • 5.Putting all together
    • 5.1Extension to all nominals: From Bello to Luján
    • 5.3A problem for extended projections?
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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