ABSTRACT
This chapter provides more fundamental analysis of the nature of agreement phenomena. It discusses some consequences, looks to further areas of research arising out of Discourse-Linking Theory (DLT), and examine some of the issues that still need to be resolved. It shows that a discourse-based relation which carries information about the properties of discourse referents. The consistency associated with agreement is consistency at the level of discourse, not in the domain of morphosyntax and not in the domain of described objects. Since agreement is concerned with the expression of properties, the value of observing agreement phenomena is that they can tell people something about the relevance of various cognitive dimensions in determining the form of human language. This dissertation has explored the way in which language carries information. The major finding of this endeavour is that situated information. The information that can only be determined in actual discourse situations is crucial in understanding the form and distribution of agreement morphology.
