Object agreement and grammatical functions: A re-evaluation

This paper discusses object agreement in the Uralic language Khanty (also known
as Ostyak). The availability of object agreement in this language has been linked
(Dalrymple & Nikolaeva 2011) to the grammatical function that the object bears, an
analysis that if correct, would provide a strong argument in favour of the presence
of grammatical functions in Universal Grammar. I provide a critical re-evaluation
of the object agreement data, and show that they can be equally handled in a con-
figurational account. This paper has further consequences for what constitutes a
spell-out domain. Following Baker (2015) I argue that differential object marking
properties can come about due to the position of the object and what counts as
a spell-out domain in that language, which is determined by the strength of the
lower phase head v.