Feature inheritance and the syntax of lexical VV compounds

This paper points out a correlation between the presence of productive lexical VV compounds and the lack of object φ-agreement in comparative perspectives. Japanese abounds in lexical VV-compounds (Fukushima 2005), in which neither heads are functional nor auxiliarized unlike syntactic or aspectual compounds (Kageyama 1993). I focus on such VV-compounds, following the assumption in Distributed Morphology that they are formed in Narrow Syntax (Nishiyama 2008). The aim of this study is twofold: Observing seven languages, I demonstrate that a language can form productive VVs if it lacks object-verb φ-agreement. Then, I propose a formal account of the syntax of VV-compounds.