Anaphora in Norwegian and the Theory of Grammar 9783110849134, 9783110130690

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon
Chapter 2. Types of Anaphors in Norwegian and the Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT)
Chapter 3. Complementarity in Norwegian and Non-argument Reflexives
Chapter 4. Reference to Thematic Roles in Rules of Anaphora and the Command Principle
Chapter 5. Implicit Arguments
Chapter 6. External Implicit Arguments
Chapter 7. Sloppy and Strict Identity, and the Logical Status of Anaphors and Binding
Chapter 8. Dislocated Anaphors and the Loop Model
Chapter 9. Summary
Bibliography
Authors Index
Subject Index
Abbreviations

Citation preview

Anaphora in Norwegian and the Theory of Grammar

Studies in Generative Grammar T h e g o a l of t h i s s e r i e s is t o p u b l i s h t h o s e t e x t s t h a t a r e

representative

of r e c e n t a d v a n c e s in t h e t h e o r y of f o r m a l g r a m m a r . T o o m a n y s t u d i e s d o not r e a c h t h e p u b l i c t h e y d e s e r v e b e c a u s e of t h e d e p t h a n d d e t a i l t h a t m a k e t h e m u n s u i t a b l e for p u b l i c a t i o n in article f o r m . W e hope that t h e present series will m a k e these studies available to a wider audience t h a n has hitherto been possible.

Editors: Jan

Koster

Henk van

Other

books,

Riemsdijk

still available

in this

1. W i m Z o n n e v e l d A Formal Theory of Exceptions Generative Phonology

series:

in

21. Jindrich T o m a n Studies on German

3. G e e r t B o o i j Dutch Morphology

Grammar

2 3 . S.J. K e y s e r / W . O ' N e i l Rule Generalization and Optionality Language Change

7. A n n e k e N e i j t Gapping 9. N o a m C h o m s k y Lectures on Government

20. Gabriella H e r m o n Syntactic Modularity

and

Binding

10. R o b e r t M a y a n d J a n K o s t e r (eds.) Levels of Syntactic Representation 13. H a g i t B o r e r Parametric Syntax 14. Denis B o u c h a r d On the Content of Empty

Categories

15. H i l d a K o o p m a n The Syntax of Verbs 16. R i c h a r d S. K a y n e Connectedness and Binary 17. J e r z y R u b a c h Cyclic and Lexical Phonology: structure of Polish

24. Julia Horvath FOCUS in the Theory of Grammar the Syntax of Hungarian

in

and

2 5 . Pieter M u y s k e n a n d H e n k v a n Riemsdijk Features and Projections 26. Joseph A o u n Generalized Binding. The Syntax and Logical Form of Wh-interrogatives 27. Ivonne Bordelois, Heles Contreras and Karen Zagona Generative Studies in Spanish Syntax

Branching

the

28. M a r i n a Nespor and Irene Vogel Prosodic Phonology 2 9 . T a k a s h i I m a i a n d M a m o r u S a i t o (eds.) Issues in Japanese Linguistics

18. S e r g i o S c a l i s e Generative Morphology

30. J a n Koster Domains and

19. J o s e p h E. E m o n d s A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories

31. Maria Luisa Zubizarreta Levels of Representation in Lexicon and the Syntax

Dynasties

the

Lars Hellan

Anaphora in Norwegian and the Theory of Grammar

¥

1988 FORIS PUBLICATIONS Dordrecht - Holland/Providence Rl - U.S.A.

Published

by:

Foris Publications Holland P.O. Box 509 3300 A M Dordrecht, The Netherlands Sole distributor

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Sanseido Book Store, Ltd. 1-1, Kanda-jimbocho-cho Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 101, Japan CIP-DATA

Hellan, Lars Anaphora in Norwegian and the Theory of Grammar / Lars Hellan. - Dordrecht [etc.]: Foris. - (Studies in Generative Grammar, ISSN 0167-4331 ; 33) ISBN 90 6765 336 5 bound ISBN 90 6765 335 7 paper SISO noor 837.1 UDC 803.96-5 Subject headings: anaphora ; Norwegian language / grammar.

ISBN 90 6765 336 5 (Bound) ISBN 90 6765 335 7 (Paper) © 1988 Foris Publications - Dordrecht No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in The Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

Contents

Preface

xi

Chapter 1. Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon 1.1. Argument relations 1.1.1. Theta-roles, government, and licensing 1.1.2. Predication 1.2. The Lexicon 1.2.1. Lexical templates 1.2.1.1. Organization of lexical templates 1.2.1.2. Conditions on lexical templates; operative templates 1.2.1.3. LL-schemata 1.2.2. LL-mapping rules and lexical derivations 1.2.3. Processes of deletion in lexical templates 1.2.3.1. Deletions relating to the EA-link: passive and middle constructions; implicit arguments . . . . 1.2.3.2. Degrees o f ' p r e s e n t h o o d ' o f thematic roles 1.2.3.3. Deletions of objects 1.2.4. Processes of reassignment and insertion pertaining to the status as EA 1.2.4.1. Promotion to EA 1.2.4.2. NP-movement 1.2.4.3. Further processes of EA-assignment and interaction between processes 1.2.5. Embedding of LLs and split government 1.2.6. Non-verbal LLs 1.2.6.1. Participial adjectives 1.2.6.2. Deverbal nouns 1.2.7. Concluding remarks 1.3. Levels of representation 1.4. Definitions and features of formalism relating to binding and other relations Footnotes

1 1 1 6 13 14 14 15 18 20 22 22 25 27 28 28 29 33 37 41 41 43 45 46 49 52

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

Chapter 2. Types of Anaphors in Norwegian and the Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT) 2.1. The anaphoric elements 2.1.1. seg/sin 2.1.2. Se/v'self 2.1.3. Egen 'own' 2.1.4. Hverandre 'each other' 2.2. Selv and hverandre: the Specified Subject Constraint and the co-argument relation 2.2.1. Main facts concerning selv and hverandre 2.2.2. The role of independent targeting 2.3. Seg-reflexives 2.3.1. Long distance properties of [seg] NP and sin 2.3.2. Predication as a governing factor for jeg-reflexives 2.3.3. Argument predication versus non-argument predication 2.3.4. The 'target-hitting' effect 2.4. Relations identifying targets for selv and hverandre 2.4.1. selv and PIT 2.4.2. Hverandre and PIT 2.4.3. Concluding remarks 2.5. The Tensed S Condition on Norwegian anaphors 2.6. PIT and typologies of anaphors 2.6.1. The target relations of PIT 2.6.2. Connectedness versus Containment anaphors Footnotes Chapter 3. Complementarity in Norwegian and Non-argument Reflexives 3.1 The issue of complementarity in Norwegian 3.1.1. The diversity of binding-domains in Norwegian 3.1.2. Complementarity in Norwegian 3.2. Complementarity with regard to selv and non-argument reflexives 3.2.1. Main rule 3.2.2. Skamme seg 'be ashamed' 3.2.3. Vaske seg 'wash oneself 3.2.4. A p n e s e g ' o p e n ' 3.2.5. Spise seg til d°de 'eat oneself to death' 3.2.6. Some general questions concerning non-argument [seg] NP 3.2.7. Conclusion 3.3. Complementarity with regard to seg/sin

59 59 59 63 64 66 66 67 70 73 73 73 75 77 79 79 81 83 84 87 87 89 95

99 99 99 101 104 104 106 108 113 118 126 129 130

Contents 3.3.1. Main rule 3.3.2. Speaker's versus binder's perspective 3.4. The Generalized Complementarity Principle 3.5. Complementarity, non-corefence, and certain principles 3.6. Summary Footnotes Appendix to Chapter 3

vii 130 131 135 pragmatic 139 142 143 148

Chapter 4. Reference to Thematic Roles in Rules of Anaphora and the Command Principle 4.1. Special properties of NP-internal binding 4.1.1. A semantic co-argumenthood restriction on seg 4.1.2. Linear precedence 4.2. Role-command in NPand VP-internal binding 4.2.1. First evidence 4.2.2. An alternative analysis 4.2.3. Seg and role-command 4.3. Role-command of seg and chain formation 4.4. The general role of role-command 4.4.1. Hverandre in sentential structure and role-command 4.4.2. A principle of command Footnotes Chapter 5. Implicit Arguments 5.1. Functioning of RPs as binders and bindees 5.1.1. Illustration of the formal mechanism 5.1.2. Implicit Arguments in NPs 5.1.3. Implicit Arguments in other constructions 5.2. PRO versus RP: The Visibility factor 5.2.1. Seg-reflexives and the visibility contrast 5.2.2. Determinate Anchors 5.2.3. Further differences between PRO and Argument 5.3. The formal representation of visibility Footnotes

153 153 153 155 156 156 157 160 161 166 166 167 168 171 172 172 175 180 181 182 184

Implicit

Chapter 6. External Implicit Arguments 6.1. Antecedent-Contained Anaphors and external arguments acting as binders in P-structure 6.1.1. Antecedent-Contained Anaphors (ACA) 6.1.2. Semantics of ACA-constructions 6.1.3. Binding in P-structure

186 190 192 195 196 196 199 201

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

6.2. PRO 6.2.1. Motivation for and distribution of PRO 6.2.2. Licensing of PRO 6.3. Properties of P-structure 6.3.1. Relation to some notions of Williams 6.3.2. The Theta-Criterion and the Projection Principle . . . . 6.4. Antecedent-contained anaphors and the i-within-i condition 6.5. Concluding remarks Footnotes Chapter 7. Sloppy and Strict Identity, and the Logical Status of Anaphors and Binding 7.1. Sloppy identity 7.1.1. Statement of the issue 7.1.2. Ha'ik's proposal 7.1.3 The new proposal 7.2. An account of VP-deletion/anaphora based on A.-abstraction 7.2.1. The analysis of sloppy identity 7.2.2. The analysis of strict identity 7.2.3. An empirical prediction 7.3. The semantic interpretation of binding 7.3.1. Binding as co-variation 7.3.2. Recalcitrant data to the assimilation of binding with co-variation 7.3.3 Implementing the view that binding equals co-variation 7.3.4 Dependent Names 7.3.5. On the status of the level LT 7.4. Summary Footnotes Chapter 8. Dislocated Anaphors and the Loop Model 8.1. The need for a movement process in the analysis of whconstructions 8.2. The NP-structure Model 8.2.1. The relevant form of the model 8.2.2. Problems for the NP-structure Model 8.2.2.1. 'Surface reflexives' 8.2.2.2. External anaphors 8.2.2.3. Binding of LT-variables representing external reflexives 8.2.3. Problems for a reconstruction model 8.3. The Loop Model: main structure 8.4. Further properties of the Loop Model

204 204 208 210 210 213 216 222 223

227 227 227 228 232 234 234 236 239 240 240 243 244 246 248 249 250 253 253 258 258 259 259 262 265 266 267 274

Contents 8.4.1. Role of the COMP-node and the status of X P 8.4.2. Item-specificness of the external link 8.4.3. The loop process as formally optional 8.4.4. 'Anywhere' application of rules; surface reflexives 8.4.5. P-structure in the Loop Model 8.4.6. Composition of w/i-loops 8.4.7. Loops and Parasitic gaps 8.4.8. 'Sloppiness copying' as a loop on L F 8.4.9. Binding of external anaphor-variables in LT 8.5. Summary Footnotes Chapter 9. Summary

ix 274 275 276 278 279 280 282 283 284 288 288 291

Bibliography

297

Authors Index

303

Subject Index

305

Abbreviations

309

Preface

This is a study of the anaphoric system in Norwegian and various theoretical consequences to be drawn from that system. The consequences bear partly on the theory of anaphora binding in general, partly on more specific issues in syntax and semantics. To mention the developments pertaining to binding theory first, they may be seen in relation to the principles [A] and [B] of the standard Government and Binding Theory (GB) of Chomsky 1981 and related work. These principles go as follows: [A] An anaphor is bound in its governing category. [B] A pronominal is free in its governing category. We argue that these principles, which are based essentially on English, cover only a very limited subpart of what constitutes a possible anaphoric system. Our proposal for a more general set of principles takes Norwegian as its point of departure, but the values of the parameters proposed are not limited to factors found there. Very briefly, the main principles proposed are the following: 1. The Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT), which says that the target of an anaphoric binding relation (i.e. the binder of the anaphor), must serve as target of some other significant relation as well. It is in terms of such relations, rather than various types of intervening material, that binding relations are determined. This principle is established in Chapter 2.

2. The Command Principle, proposed in Chapter 4, which says that a binder must stand in what we call a command relation to the anaphor. This principle highlights the circumstance' that a binder is in a superiority relation to the bindee. Whereas standard GB recognizes only c-command and, to some extent, linear precedence as such relations, we argue in favor of a much richer inventory, including relations of predication, relations within hierarchies of thematic roles, and relations of perspective or point of view (also known under the name of 'logophoricity'). The relevance of all of these relations being demonstrable in Scandinavian, they are well known to play a role also in other languages, and our 'Command Principle' is a step in the direction of bringing them together in one unifying principle.

xii

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

3. The Generalized Complementarity Principle (of binding domains of anaphors and non-anaphors). In English, complementarity effects obtain between reflexives and pronominals and are stated in standard GB through the conjunction of principles [A] and [B] given above. In Norwegian, such complementarity is seen to obtain also between different types of anaphors. On this basis we state a complementarity principle of a more general form than has so far been currently assumed, using anaphoric words, rather than anaphoric phrases, as the crucial items inducing complementarity. This issue is treated in Chapter 3. Here we also address the phenomenon of non-argument reflexives, which is the main apparent counterexample to the complementarity principle as we state it. In addition to developing these aspects of binding theory, Chapters 2, 3, and 4 also provide the main descriptive part of this book and serve as a basis for what is said in the later chapters. An aspect of reflexives distinct from their possible binding domains is their interpretation in terms of the distinction 'variable/constant' from standard logical theory. This issue is tied to aspects of the behavior of quantified noun phrases and the phenomenon of verb phrase deletion or anaphora. A common assumption being that reflexives can be construed as variables in the logical sense, their behavior in Norwegian will be seen to motivate a more nuanced view. This is the topic of Chapter 7. Reflexives also shed important light on the phenomenon of 'permutation', or dependencies between constituents fronted to sentence initial position and 'gaps' inside the sentence. Norwegian has rich possibilities of such fronting, with reflexives showing up inside the fronted constituents, and allows the phenomenon to be addressed in its full complexity. We argue that these constructions in a crucial way involve movement processes, organized according to what we call the Loop Model. This model is developed in Chapter 8. Argumenthood, a key notion in Grammar in general, appears to be able to 'degenerate' along two dimensions: the 'degeneration' can affect the extent to which a phonologically realized item has content, as exemplified by the phenomenon of non-argument reflexives (see 3.2), and it can affect the extent to which grammatically significant thematic roles are syntactically manifest, as will be exemplified by the phenomenon of Implicit Arguments. The latter phenomenon is the main topic of Chapters 5 and 6. Here we show the way Implicit Arguments function as binders of anaphors, and we develop a format for their formal representation which allows their participation in binding relations to be explicitly stated. This formal analysis

Preface

xiii

is integrated in an overall conception of the organization of the Lexicon. The key idea is that in the formal representation of Implicit Arguments, special access is needed to the content of lexical entries. This access is ensured by the level of P-structure, a special interface between Lexicon and the grammatical derivation of sentences. The organization of the Lexicon also pertains to the analysis of non-argument reflexives presented in Chapter 3. The theory of the Lexicon we develop is in line with some recent developments within GB, and shares features with the Lexicon as conceived in other frameworks; it is outlined in detail in Section 2 of Chapter 1. Shorter sections of that chapter give an overview of other features of the framework. The overall reference frame of this work is GB. It should be clear from what has been said, however, that this is not an investigation wholly within the frame of standard GB. First, the general binding theory argued for is quite different from that of standard GB. Second, a theory of levels of representation in grammatical derivations is proposed which differs very much from that of standard GB, and although it bears some resemblance to the 'NP-structure' model of van Riemsdijk and Williams 1981, it differs from this one as well. Third, the proposals concerning the Lexicon, along with the level P-structure, go well beyond existing analyses. What the sum of these proposals constitutes is still within the overall conception of grammar represented by GB; this is apparent, for example, in the principal status given to relations, among which government and binding play a prominent role. As a consequence, most of the discussion and exposition is related to the GB literature. As a guide to the reader, those who want to get a quick idea of my version of the binding theory may well skip most of Chapter 1 to begin with (except 1.3-4) and go directly to Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 8. Chapter 7 may likewise be read without having been through all of Chapter 1. On the other hand, an appreciation of the proposals in Section 3.2, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 require familiarity with what is said in Chapter 1. In addition, Chapter 1 provides the intuitive basis for the present model, and presents some background of Norwegian syntax relevant for the analyses of anaphors. This book has developed in various stages over the last 5-6 years, with an intermediate full version completed in 1983.1 am grateful for the constant support from staff and students in the Linguistics Department in Trondheim throughout the whole period; particular thanks go to Lars Johnsen and Anneliese Pitz for fruitful discussions as well as practical help in the preparation of the final manuscript. Another source of inspiration has

xiv

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

been the community of linguists involved in the Scandinavian syntax projects, including Elisabet Engdahl, Kirsti Koch Christensen, Toril Fiva, Tarald Taraldsen, Tor Afarli, Anders Holmberg, Hoskuldur Thrainsson, and Christer Platzack. Furthermore, the work has benefitted greatly from conversations with and comments from the following people: Henk van Riemsdijk, Barbara Partee, Maria Luisa Zubizarreta, Martin Everaert, Greg Carlson, Frank Heny, Margaret Nizhnikov, N o a m Chomsky, Torbjorn Nordgard, Carol Neidle, and Isabelle Haik. I have had the privilege of presenting material from this book at many places, first of all at the University of Trondheim, and furthermore at the universities of Troms0, Bergen, Lund, Groningen, Tilburg, Nijmegen, Amsterdam, at U F S A L , Brussels, at M I T , at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and at the University of Ottawa. Audiences in all these places have given very helpful comments. I am grateful to the University of Trondheim and to The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities ( N A V F ) for travel grants and other financial aid. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my family, whose continuous support has been an invaluable help.

Chapter 1

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

Nothing being said about anaphors as such in this chapter, our aim is to lay out in a general and explicit way the framework on which subsequent analyses of anaphors are based. The framework is to be seen as a variant of Government-Binding Theory (GB). Section 1 presents some basic notions and assumptions, essential to most of the results of later chapters. Section 2 gives an outline of the organization of lexical entries, implementing many of the assumptions from Section 1, and presenting the derivational dimension of lexical entries. Various phenomena of Norwegian syntax are also described and analyzed here, partly for the illustration of the formal model presented, but also as a background for the analysis of anaphors to follow in later chapters. Section 3 briefly outlines the overall organization of the grammar, and Section 4 presents a necessary minimum of formal notation and definitions concerning grammatical relations in general and binding in particular.

1.1. ARGUMENT RELATIONS

1.1.1. Theta-roles, government, and licensing One of the main functions of Grammar is to serve as a tool for the expression or description of what we may loosely call situationsThese, which are in a sense the building blocks of reality, may be regarded as decomposable into one or many 'things', on the one hand, and an activity or state/ quality on the other. For instance, John kicking Peter is a situation decomposable into the 'things', John and Peter, and the activity of kicking, which ties the things together so as to constitute a situation. In general, we will call the activity /state/quality of a situation the situation concept and the 'things' of the situation the arguments of the concept. Arguments can be singularities or pluralities, abstract or concrete, etc., possibly situations by themselves. When a concept has two or more arguments, they generally play different roles in the situation: when John kicks Peter, for instance, one of the

2

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

arguments has the role of AGENT, the other the role of T H E M E (also called PATIENT). According with the GB terminology, we call such roles thematic roles or theta-roles (9-roles). Different concepts involve different roles, the selection of roles by a concept commonly being called thetarole assignment (to the arguments). Given a concept C, it seems that we can distinguish roughly between three types of theta-roles: 1. Those which are necessarily understood as being played in a situation constituted by C; 2. those which are logically or naturally easily associated with C, but need not obtain in a situation constituted by C; and 3. those which are not associated with C at all, and are hence absent from any situation constituted by C. Type 1 we call central theta-roles of C; type 2, marginal theta-roles of C. Typical marginal theta-roles of verb concepts are carried, e.g., by time and placeadverbials. Note that the distinction in 'obligatoriness' between type 1 and 2 is not one of obligatoriness of expression: thus, for a verb like eat, the role of what is eaten is equally central whether the verb occurs with an object or not. In general, Grammar has much of its architecture determined by the following two concerns: that of representing the relation between a concept and its arguments and that of making theta-roles identifiable. For the first task, Grammar primarily uses the relation government-, this is a relation between linguistic items such that, typically, the item expressing the situation concept 'governs' the item expressing the situation argument. These items will be called governor and governee, respectively, and we often call governees arguments of their governors, with the 'argument o f relation then identified as a purely syntactic relation. When confusion is to be avoided, we speak of arguments in the latter sense as syntactic arguments, while arguments in the sense of 'argument of concept' are called semantic arguments. (Extensions of the notion 'argument' will be considered at certain points below, including 1.2.6.2 and 2.2.) Although an item typically will not have the status as one of these argument types without also having the other, there are cases of discrepancy, such as, for example, with the expression rely on NP. Here the NP functions semantically as an argument of rely, while syntactically, it is an argument of on. Another example is the Tense-morpheme, or more abstractly the constituent Infl, which governs the subject NP without giving it a theta-role. Hence, the two types of argumenthood must be kept distinct, and government cannot be seen as a direct expression of semantic argument-taking, but only as syntactic device typically used for signalling it.

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

3

Government in most instances is characterized by the following properties: 1. The governor is a word, of category Verb or Preposition, or is a functional constituent, such as Infl or Determiner; the governee is a maximal projection (see further in 1.1.2). 2. The governor and the governee are adjacent. 3. The governor determines particular properties of the governee, such as its case. The last two of these characteristics are not absolutely necessary: in the first place, items like adverbs and indirect objects can intervene between governor and governee; and second, the language may lack case and other properties of the type determinable by governors. Whether this suggests that government is ultimately a syntactic primitive, not exhaustively definable in other terms, is a matter we will not pursue here. Later, we suggest further characteristics of government. 2 Consider now the ways in which theta-role assignment is expressed. The word-classes capable of expressing situation concepts are Verb, Adjective, Noun, and Preposition. The exact nature of the theta-role carried by a given argument is largely a function of the concept it is an argument of, for which reason labels like 'attacker', 'attackee', etc., are appropriate. Still, equivalence classes of such 'fine-grained' roles are discernible, such as AGENT, EXPERIENCER, GOAL, THEME, and the like (even though both the exact inventory of such roles and their precise definitions are far from clear). 3 Conceivable types of systematic expression of such roles are the following: 1. A specific role (type) has a specific type of syntactic expression. 2. Whenever a concept has two or more arguments, it is predictable from the roles of these arguments what their syntactic expression will be. Involved here is thus a function from n(>l)-tuples of roles to syntactic expression, which we may call FQ. Both of these ways are further commented on shortly. 3. A third way in which theta-roles receive systematic expression is when syntactic processes are sensitive to the theta-roles of the items involved; Chapter 4 is devoted to such a case. We adopt the distinction commonly made between external and internal arguments of a concept (and the word expressing it). An external argument of a verb is an argument expressed by an NP occurring outside of the maximal projection of that V (i.e., the dominating VP), while an internal argument is expressed inside VP; a corresponding distinction holds for projections of A, N, and P, in ways to be commented on later. The distinction is supposed to hold also for languages where the identification of a VP is more problematic than it is for English or Norwegian, but we will not at this point try to provide a more general definition. Consider first the role-realization through internal arguments. As mentioned, all of the word-classes V, N, A, and P can express concepts

4

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

(even though not all prepositions do), whereas only V and P govern. Also, within the class of verbs, there are some which take complements but do not function as governors, such as rely. In general, when a conceptword assigns a role to an internal argument without governing that argument, a preposition acts as a governor of that argument, like the on accompanying rely. Arguments which receive their role in this constellation will be called indirect arguments of the concept word in question, following Marantz 1984, whereas arguments receiving their role without prepositions intervening are called direct arguments (of the conceptword). The preposition governing the indirect argument may perhaps be viewed as a role-assigner itself, since it uniquely identifies a role (in the context of the concept-word), but it should not count as a concept-word - it only assigns a role compatible with the roles of the associated conceptword, as a kind of delegate assigner. Since specific roles can be associated with specific prepositions, this strategy provides a very rich mechanism for determining/encoding thematic role (from the viewpoint of the conceptword). It is used generally for nouns and adjectives, and to a large extent also with verbs (such as rely). It exemplifies the first of the types of systematic expression of theta-roles mentioned. Prepositions with this function include those in talk with, talk about, look at, base on, give to, and the like. They are distinct from temporal and locative prepositions like in under the table, after the soccer-match, etc; these count as full concept-words. The second mechanism for theta-role assignment to internal arguments is through government, i.e. assignment by a concept-word to its direct argument. This is where the function Fq from n(>l)-tuples of theta-roles to syntactic expression enters the picture. We assume that this function has as its values just two positions: that of external argument, relative to the input concept, and that of the (unique) direct internal argument of that concept. Given an ordering of all conceivable theta-roles, for any pair of roles to be related to these two positions of a concept-word, the function relates the role ranked highest in this ordering to the external argument position and the other role to the internal argument position. The exact nature of the roles is then determined by the concept, being 'attacker', 'attackee' if the concept-word is attack-, 'liker', 'likee' if the concept-word is like, etc. Thus, the direct internal argument has its thetarole determined through its governee-relation to the concept-word. Government hence not only serves to signal the presence of a theta-role assignment relation, it also serves to identify theta-roles. For the identification of the role of an internal argument through government to be unique, it is necessary that no more than one internal argument be governed by a concept-word. This raises a question about

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

5

double object constructions, like give John a book, where we call John an indirect object (10) and a book a direct object (DO). We will hold that indirect objects are not governed by the preceding verb, and that their thematic role is primarily configurationally determined, the identifying configuration being roughly 'V XP' in languages like English and Norwegian, where XP is NP, AP, or PP. 4 The role reserved for this context appears to be largely fixed as B E N E / M A L E F A C T I V E or E X P E R I E N C E R ; and contrary to what is generally the case for direct objects, 5 this role need not be among the central roles of the concept-word involved. For instance, in Norwegian slakte Esau en sau 'slaughter Esau a sheep', Esau is an IO, but the B E N E F A C T I V E role can hardly be counted as a central one with regard to slakte 'slaughter'. On the assumption that roles encoded through government are in general central roles, this indicates that IOs are not governed, which most likely entails that the mechanism for assigning role to IOs is not concept-word dependent. The constancy of the roletype associated with IOs, paired with the fixedness of context for IOs, then suggests that this mechanism is configurational. (This is then another instantiation of the first type of theta-role assignment mentioned earlier.) We take the view, more or less explicit in G B theory, that any N P (and other maximal projections as well - see later) has to be licensed; this is to say, any N P has to serve some function in virtue of which its occurrence counts as licit. Often this function is tied to a particular word, viz., when that word governs the NP. We then say that the N P is licensed via government. Abstract Case in GB, which is assigned under government, seems to be essentially a feature signalling licensedhood, with the 'Case Filter' (requiring any phonologically realized N P to have Case) serving as the formal requirement that NPs be licensed. Given our present assumptions concerning indirect objects, what licences IOs cannot be government. Rather, we take their licensing factor to be the fact that they have their theta-role assigned configurationally. This notion of licensing will be developed and referred to in various places in the following: in 1.2.1.2 below, we state more explicitly how it relates to IOs; and in 1.4, we propose features of its formal implementation. In 5.3, we mention how it applies to Implicit Arguments, a notion defined in 1.2.2.3. At this point, let us remark only that 'licensing' in the present framework will replace the notion 'abstract Case' taken as a licensedhood notion, since the scope of abstract Case is tied to government. Summing up these remarks, we have now argued that indirect objects are subject to what may be called configurational theta-role assignment', in contrast, direct objects undergo theta-role assignment via government.

6

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

The third possibility considered, that of indirect arguments governed by a preposition, is theta-role assignment via a preposition. These seem to be the main ways in which internal arguments receive a theta-role in languages like English and Norwegian. In other languages, case and agreement marking possibly represent further alternatives, but we will not go into these possibilities here. In terms of phrase structure, we always represent a governee as a sister of its governor X° (X = V,P, Infl or Det). A theta-role assignee of X° (X = V,P,A, or N) is then either an NP governed by X° (X = V or P) or, if it is an indirect argument, an NP inside a PP occurring as sister to the X°, i.e., either of the NPs in (1): (1)

a.

X1

/ \NP

X°

b. X°

X1

/ \PP

/\NP

P

Sisters of X 1 are generally seen as adjuncts relative to X°, that is, optional and neither governed by nor related as central theta-roles to X°. In the following section, we turn to the general status of X 2 -constituents, the notion of predication and the function of external arguments. 1.1.2.

Predication

For all X = V,A,N, or P, the projection X 2 normally counts as a predicate in the following sense: (2)

A predicate is an expression P, headed by X°, which lacks one NP in order to constitute an expression denoting a situation, where this NP is a semantic argument of X°.

Predicates are thus defined here as semantically monadic, or uni valenced, expressions. The NP by which they get fully saturated (so as to denote a situation) may be called the final saturator of the concept expressed by X°. The only case of an X 2 not functioning as a predicate in this sense is when a V2 occurs with an expletive subject, like in (3): (3)

a. b. c.

It rains It surprises me that she came There arrived a cat

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

7

Here the V2 is fully saturated by itself. The most typical configuration of saturation of an X 2 functioning as a predicate, is (4), the NP functioning as final saturator with regard to X° (the dominating node may well have further daughters, such as Infl, and sometimes a V, as may be assumed in the analysis of, e.g., make John go)(4)

This constellation we call predication. In its prototypical case, it involves semantic saturation in the way mentioned, but we will also subsume under it the type of subject-VP relation exemplified in (3). The definition of predication will thereby be as follows: 6 (5)

Predication =def a constellation of the form NP X 2 where either X is a predicate saturated by NP, or X 2 is saturated already, but belongs to a category which is typically a predicate saturated by an NP in the position in question.

The last part covers the cases in (3). In either case, the NP will be called a subject of the predicate, and a predication subject, regardless of whether it also functions as a nominative subject of a clause. In the formal notation, predication will be marked as a relation on a par with relations such as government, binding, and others; see 1.4 on the general format of notation and 1.2.1.1 on the place of the predication notation in lexical description. From a semantic viewpoint, it might have seemed reasonable to include also the configuration (6) as it appears in (3) under the notion of predication, thereby subsuming all cases of final saturation under that notion: V

(6) V1/2

NP/S

The notion that is grammatically relevant for our purposes is (5), however, so that the configuration (4) will count as a necessary part of predication, and (6) is not subsumed under it. Another constellation which is not subsumed under predication in the sense of (5) is (7), found in Topicalization and Constituent Question constructions:

8

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

XP

S1

XP

C1 in the terms of Chomsky 1986)

Likewise for relative clause constructions. To the extent that saturation of monadic expressions is involved in these structures, it is of a very different kind than that covered by (5), and with quite different grammatical consequences. See 2.3.3 for some discussion. It seems essential to our notion of 'predication' that the item predicated be a single constituent. A possible implication may thereby be that this notion is relevant only for languages with a high degree of 'configurationality', such as English and Norwegian. Assessing to what extent characteristics of 'predication' arise in less configurational languages, however, is a question which will lead us too far beyond the scope of the present work, so we must leave open to what extent the present notion is generalizable to other languages. Our notion of external argument will correspond to that of predication: (8)

The external argument (EA) of a given X° =def the predicationsubject of the X 2 headed by X°.

It is conceivable that in less configurational languages, while the notion of 'predication' might be less relevant there, arguments sharing many of the characteristics we here attribute to 'external arguments' could still obtain; in such a situation, it might then be fruitful to separate the notions of 'predication' and 'external argument'. Again, we will not explore this possibility. 2

2

2

2

2

Among the instantiations of X , i.e., V', A , 1ST, and P' , we treat all of them as maximal projections; and so, by abbreviation, V2 = VP, A 2 = AP, and P 2 = PP. The maximal projection N 2 , however, is not what is normally called an NP; rather, we assume that NPs in the usual sense are headed by the Determiner (D, or Det), which takes N 2 as a complement (see Hellan 1986b and Abney 1986 for justification of such an analysis). NPs thus ought to be labelled 'DP', with the following structure:

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon (9)

/

D

DP

\N

9

( = NP) ( = CnP)

N° To avoid unnecessary clash with normal usage, we still use ' N P ' with its traditional extension, i.e. = DP, and for N 2 we use ' C n P ' as the only abbreviation (for 'common noun phrase' - cf. Montague 1974). The discussion so far concerning predication has drawn mainly on verbal constructions. Looking at the other types, we see that configuration (4) appears not to be very typical at all. For adjective and preposition, it appears only in constructions like (10) (with the predicate italicized and the predication-subject in bold): (10)

a. b.

We made him happy. We made him in good shape.

Otherwise, A P and PP are connected to their subject via a copula, as in (11), (11)

a.

He is happy.

b.

He is in good shape.

or they occur as attributes, as in (12): (12)

a. b.

a happy person a person in good shape

Although the structure in (11) does not deviate too strongly from (4), there is no sisterhood between subject and predicate, owing to the presence of the copula. In (12), however, the predicate seems to occur inside its own subject: the N P denoting the entity of which the property expressed by the predicate is predicated is exactly the entire N P containing the predicate. For this reason, we will call the construction-type in (12) subjectcontained predication (for further justification of this way of looking at the construction, see Chapter 6); and in conformity with the definition (8) of'external argument', we count the dominating N P as external argument of the adjective. This configuration of predication seems drastically different from that in (4).

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

10

Turning to nominal predicates, we find they occur essentially in the same configurations relative to their subjects as AP and PP do: (13)

a. b. c.

We made him a Aero He is a hero the hero

The only difference resides in the presence of the Det governing the CnP, by which the CnP is generally one node lower down relative to its predication-subject than AP and PP are. The hero in (13c) is again a case of subject-contained predication, with hero predicated of the denotation of the full NP. For that reason, this dominating NP will count as external argument of hero. It might be thought that Genitive could count as a type of predication-subject for the noun, conforming to (4), judging from cases like John's run, where the running is clearly attributed to John. However, genitives do not in general function as bearers of the property expressed by CnP - in John's house, for instance, it is not expressed that John is a house. We return below to the treatment of derived nominals like run, but hold that, in general, the predication-subject of CnP (and thus the external argument of N) is not the optionally occurring genitive, but rather the boldfaced NP-positions in (13a,b) and the dominating NP in constructions like (13c). Confronted with these apparent exceptions to our claim that (4) is the canonical structure of predication, we will hold that the apparently exceptional patterns emerge as consequences of independent principles and constraints. Constructions manifesting these exceptional patterns will be shown to be analyzable in accordance with (4) at a level of representation we will call Predication Structure, or P-structure\ justification for that analysis is given in Chapter 6. Accordingly, it is possible to claim that all instances of predication are grammatically represented, at some level or other, on the canonical form (4), i.e., with the predicate and its subject as sister constituents. We briefly suggest along what lines the apparent deviation of non-verbal predication from the pattern (4) can be accounted for. Let us assume that sentences have roughly the structure (14), leaving open whether a binary branching is rather to be preferred and whether Infl is the head of S; either possibility is compatible with what we say in the following: (14)

S NP

Infi

V

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

11

We assume, as said above, that the class of syntactic governors includes V and P as 'content'-categories and Infl and Det as 'functional' categories (cf. Chomsky 1986, Abney 1986, Hellan 1986b). Furthermore, we assume that not only NPs but all maximal categories need to be licensed, and that for all maximal categories, being governed is a sufficient means of being licensed. The differential behavior of the various types of predicates can then be described in terms of which governors can license which XPs, and which governors obligatorily co-occur with which XPs. The following table summaries our proposals, ' meaning 'governs' and 'o' meaning 'requires the presence of':

From this table, certain facts follow. First, given that NP contains no Infl, V2 will not have a licenser inside NP, and so will not appear in subject-contained predication. Second, since N 2 has Det as its only standard licenser, it follows why nominal predicates in general do not occur 'bare'. 8 Third, it is a fact that N 2 , NP, AP, non-tensed VP, and PP are unable to create a sentence just by themselves and a subject: some kind of tensed verbal element is always needed. This follows since Infl requires a VP, and tensed Infl is the only item which neither has to be licensed nor heads an XP requiring to be licensed. Of the tensed and the non-tensed variant of Infl, it is the tensed one which is commonly assumed to govern (subject) NP. In Chapter 6, however, we argue that the empty subject of infinitives, commonly referred to as 'PRO', must count as being governed, and in that case, the governor is arguably Infl[-Tense]. 9 If so, the arrow between Infl and NP can be refined as (16), where ' + /-Full' is a (for the occasion arbitrary) feature distinguishing PRO ('-Full') from phonologically realized NP and trace: (16)

Infl[aTense]

>

NP[aFull]

At the level of P-structure, exactly those factors inducing predication-

12

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

patterns in S-structure deviating from the pattern in (4) are eliminated, allowing all predication to be on the canonical format (17) (for particulars, see 6.1.3): (17) NP

Pred.

Consider now an issue closely related to that of predication, namely the constraint holding in, e.g., English and Norwegian to the effect that all finite clauses have a ' + FulF subject (in the terms of (16)); assuming the existence of PRO as subject in infinitives, this constraint is in effect that all VPs be preceded by a subject. In Chomsky 1982, the constraint is called The Extended Projection Principle, abbreviated ' E P P ' , and for purposes of reference we use the label ' E P P ' as well. One conceivable way of implementing EPP in terms of the relations in (15)/(16), might be to add a requirement mark to the arrow in (16). This would restrict EPP to hold only for verbal constructions. Another possibility would be to construe E P P as a requirement holding for all types of predicates and categories typically serving as predicates, to the effect that at some level of representation or other, they should occur in the configuration (17). An indication that the second alternative is the correct one would be that in constructions of the form make John happy, the obligatory presence of the N P is due neither to lexical requirement exerted by the verb nor to saturation requirements exerted by the predicate. In make John happy, both types of requirement obtain, and cases where both are missing are not so easy to construct. Thus, in Norwegian synge Jon glad 'sing Jon happy', the lexical type of requirement is missing (since synge 'sing' is intransitive), but not the saturation type (glad being semantically monadic); in make it rain the saturation type of requirement is missing (since rain is fully saturated already), but not the lexical type (since make is obligatorily transitive). A relevant example, though, is given in Norwegian (18), where the expletive det is obligatory: (18)

Vi spylte *(det) speilglatt we flushed it slippery

i gatene in the streets

Here spyle 'flush' is intransitive and speilglatt i gatene is fully saturated, still an expletive preceding the A P is necessary. This follows if we generally require predicates and categories normally functioning as predicates (but exceptionally being fully saturated) to occur in the configuration (17). Our construal of E P P will be exactly this requirement, phrased as (19):

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon (19)

13

EPP (our version): A concept-word must have one (and exactly one) external argument, whether this EA functions as a final saturator or is just an expletive.

In other words, all categories normally functioning as predicates must take part in predication. It does not matter at which level of representation the predication configuration obtains; thus, for cases of subject-contained and copula-connected predication, P-structure will serve as the level where EPP is fulfilled. The circumstance that no more than one EA is possible follows, functionally, from the circumstance that a semantic predicate has only one final saturator. Given the extension of the notion to cover constructions with expletives as well, however, the restriction is explicitly stated as in (19). In 1.2.1.2 we address the exact way in which EPP will be implemented formally.

1.2. T H E LEXICON

Most of the argument relations inside a construction hold as functions of lexical properties: which theta-roles are expressed depends on the words in the construction, and so do the means of expression for the various roles, e.g., the choice of governee, if any, by the lexical heads. To a large extent, argument relations therefore have to be encoded as features of lexical entries. We now outline a format for lexical representation along these lines. The format has some points of resemblance with proposals within LFG, but is explicitly suited for the version of GB developed here and builds in important respects on works such as Jackendoff 1983, Hale and Keyser 1986, Levin and Rappaport 1986, to mention a few. The exact functioning of the Lexicon relative to the other components of the grammar is made clear in Section 3 below. We basically view the grammar as an acceptance device, where lexical entries define templates, accepting occurrences of words whenever they appear in the right environment. A lexical template thus represents a word together with an acceptable environment for it. Since most of what is contained in such a template will have to be part of a lexical representation no matter whether the grammar is seen as an accepting device or a 'generating' device, we mostly refrain from entering into details of implementation; still, the acceptance perspective should be borne in mind throughout. The amount of detail provided in the exposition to follow is necessary

14

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

as a prerequisite to the analysis of Implicit Arguments presented in Chapters 5 and 6 and the analysis of non-argument reflexives given in 3.2. Besides, a number of phenomena of Norwegian syntax will be described. 1.2.1. Lexical templates 1.2.1.1. Organization of lexical templates A lexical template will have the form of a linking between three distinct layers of information, whence we sometimes refer to templates as Lexical Linkages (LLs). The first, top, layer is called Conceptual Structure (CS): it provides a concept together with its associated theta-roles, divided into central and marginal roles. (In this work we will not use any formal device distinguishing between the two types; we are mostly concerned with central roles.) The second layer is called Lexical Structure (LS): it relates the concept to its lexical realization (i.e., the word, with its syntactic category and morphological features), and the roles to the categories realizing them, typically NPs or PPs; the external-internal argument distinction is also drawn here, and government is marked. The third layer is called Realization Structure (RS): here the exact implementation of the properties marked in LS is provided, in terms of choice of phrase structure configuration, case marking, etc. While the link between CS and LS gives word-particular information, the connection between LS and RS is given by general rules of the language, and thus constitutes an aspect of the Lexicon which is not word-idiosyncratic. 10 (More such aspects are considered as we proceed.) Figure (20) illustrates this structure for the word like; the indices used are token-indices, identifying nodes between LS and RS (more is said about indexing in 1.4): (20)

CS:

'like'

LS:

[like]v

EXPERIENCER

THEME

EA iNP governs

jNP

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

15

The way (20) acts as a template is as follows: once an occurrence of like is identified in an input string, it will be accepted if it occurs in the phrase structure configuration defined by the RS, and this phrase structure is annotated according to the information given in CS and LS; that is, (20) will accept a structure of the form (21):" (21)

.S icNP[Exp]

Infl

iV°

V 2 [pred of: k] I V'

NP

[Theme] [governed by: i]

like

Notice that theta-roles are encoded in syntactic structure. Motivation for this is provided in Chapter 4. The reason for entering theta-roles in a graph format in the lexical templates, rather than just as features on syntactic nodes, is partly that, as we will see, they are not necessarily linked to nodes at the lexical level and partly that various operations on the levels CS and LS to be addressed below are more easily stated given the graph format. On the type of feature exemplified by 'governed by: i', which is the way we formally represent the fact that ¡V in (21) governs the NP, and 'pred of: k', which similarly means that the V2 is predicated of the NP with token-index k, see 1.4. Concerning the predication marking, notice that in the template it occurs in RS only, not in LS. This is because the predicate emerges as a single constituent only in RS. (See the remarks in connection with (5) and (8) concerning the way predication is geared to configurationality.) 1.2.1.2. Conditions on lexical templates; operative templates As was said earlier, not all aspects of an LL are word idiosyncratic information, the relation between LS and RS being one example. This relation is checked by general rules imposing the degree of compositionality of the language in question, acting as wellformedness conditions on LLs. For the present, we consider only the type of configurationality found in English and Norwegian, and so will say very little about this part of the LLs.

16

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

Another example of conditions checking the wellformedness of lexical templates is the function Fq mentioned before, which determines the correct theta-role assignments to NPs marked as EA and as governee relative to a verb. Fq thus is a function such that, for any pair of roles defined within the hierarchy indicated in (22), whenever that pair is included in the CS of a verb and one of the roles is linked to EA and the other to the governee, then Fq ensures that it is the role ranked highest of the two in (22) which is linked to EA. (22)

AGENT

EXPERIENCER/BENEFACTIVE/MALEFACTIVE

THEME A third type of general condition formally acting as an acceptance condition on LLs relates to the licensing of indirect objects (IOs). We assume that IOs are entered in LLs at the level LS, as ungoverned internal arguments of the verb, linked to a B E N E / M A L E F A C T I V E / E X P E R I E N C E R role and realized as NPs occurring as sister to direct object. 12 One reason for including IOs in lexical templates, and in particular at LS, is that IOs are sometimes obligatory, a property we take to be represented at LS. Also, the roles expressed by IOs are often central, which necessitates that they be represented in LL, and this naturally extrapolates to the cases when the roles are marginal, since also then they belong within the CScharacterization of the concept. Figure (23) illustrates: (23)

CS:

'give'

AGENT

BENEFACTIVE

THEME

EA LS:

[give]v

,NP

k NP

governs RS:

jNP^

^ ^ " V

¡NP

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

17

As we have said earlier, all maximal projections have to be marked as licensed. Some are through government, but IOs are licensed in virtue of getting their theta-role configurationally; that is, an NP in the particular position of kNP in (23) is licensed only if this NP is linked to a B E N / EXP-role (and, conversely, an ungoverned NP with BEN/EXP-role is accepted only if it is realized in this configuration). Formally, this is brought about in the following way. A template like (23) is checked by a condition whose formal effect is to confirm the template. What this condition checks for is exactly whether a putative IO fulfills the requirement mentioned. Part of the operation of the confirmed template will now be to mark the IO in an actual input string as licensed, at the same time as it marks the verb, in the environment of which the IO occurs, as accepted. Thus, actual occurrences of IOs are marked as licensed in virtue of forming part of acceptable environments of given verbs; and in order to be admitted as part of such environmental specifications in LLs, the IO inside the LL must meet the condition on configurational theta-role assignment mentioned. A fourth condition checking LLs will serve for the implementation of EPP, as it was formulated in (19). The requirement will be that the LL contains a link marked 'EA'. It does not matter whether this link connects to a role at CS (which it normally will) or not. This fourth condition is unlike the others in that it applies only to a subset of all LLs, namely those which have the status as actual templates, in the terms defined in 1.2.2 to follow. A template fulfilling this condition (in addition to the other three) is called operative, which means that it is used in the actual checking of input strings/trees; if it is non-operative, it can still count as wellformed by the other three conditions and play a role in the derivational history of an operative LL (again a notion to be defined in 1.2.2), but it does not partake in the checking of input strings. The effect of thus incorporating EPP into operative LLs is that a word serving as head in a subject-contained predicate will get accepted only in P-structure, since the EA appears in its canonical position only at this stage. All syntactic factors on which the occurrence of such a word depends should then be fully represented in P-structure, not only in the syntax, so that a proliferation of alternative templates suited for different levels can be kept to a minimum. For adjectives, this assumption seems unproblematic (adjectives like alleged not being subject to EPP anyway); whereas for nouns, a problem will arise if [1] the position of Genitive has to be referred to in an LL and [2] the Genitive position is not marked in P-structure in such a way that the requirement in question can be enforced there. In 5.2.3 we will see one reason why [1] is probably fulfilled, while

18

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

it seems open for the present whether [2] is the case. For the possibility of the latter, though, the general strategy given for enforcing EPP must be taken with certain provisos concerning nouns. 1.2.1.3. LL-schemata Both EXPERIENCER and T H E M E are central roles for like, and both have to be realized. Some central roles appear to have only optional realization, however, like the THEME of shoot, and all marginal roles are only optional. A given template has no possibility of capturing such facts - its function is only to state of a correct option that it is correct, regardless of whether there are alternative options for the concept-word in question. If there are, this information is available through the existence of a set of alternative templates for that concept word. Some members of such a set may be induced through processes of LL-mapping rules to be addressed shortly; others may have to be specified by list. Some cases of list specification can be given in a compact fashion through the use of LL-schemata. An LL-schema provides all theta-roles relevant for the concept in question and states which of them are obligatorily realized and which are not; and, for both categories, it also says how the roles are realized. For instance, there is a use of shoot which is optionally followed by an NP and/or by a PP, like in shoot bullets at the demonstrators. Here shoot, shoot bullets, and shoot at the demonstrators represent alternative options for this use of shoot. An LL-schema summarizing the options looks like (24) (omitting RS): (24)

CS:

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

GOAL

NP

PP

EA LS:

[shoot]v

NP gvn

The lack of a vertical line from the last two roles indicates that their realization is optional. The schema (24) thus has four different expansions, corresponding to the above examples, that appear as follows:

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon (25)

a.

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

19 GOAL a ,

EA

b.

[shoot]v

NP

NP

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

NP

GOAL a l

EA

c.

[shoot]v

NP

NP

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

GOAL a ,

EA

d.

[shoot]v

NP

NP

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

GOAL a ,

EA [shoot]v

NP

Notice that when the realization of a role is optional, the role itself is entered in CS even when a category providing a realization in LS is absent. The preposition at attached to the GOAL-role in (24) indicates that when a PP realizes the role, the P will be at. This convention comes into play when the function in question of the preposition is partly determined by the verb - that at expresses GOAL is not the general meaning of at, but the function appears in the context of shoot, partly because shoot has GOAL as one of its argument roles. The constellation is thus used in those cases where the NP governed by the P is an indirect argument of the verb. We use this convention whether the PP is optional, as with shoot, or obligatory, as with rely. To further reduce redundancy, we treat PP as the default option of realization for optional arguments, meaning that if nothing is said in a

20

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

schema as to how an optional role is realized, then it is to be realized as a PP. (Therefore, the chosen P is indexed to the role, rather than to the PP in LS of the schema.) With these conventions, (24) is restated as (26): (26)

CS:

'shoot'

AGENT

THEME

GOAL

EA LS:

[shoot]v I

NP

NP I

gvn Given these decisions as to the general format of LLs, we now turn to various types of alternations in lexical frames, which necessitate what we will call LL-mapping rules and a notion of lexical derivation. 1.2.2. LL-mapping rules and lexical derivations An important type of lexical operation will be rules which map lexical templates into lexical templates. As a result, certain lexical items will be associated not with just one template but a set of templates constituting a derivational history for the template which accepts actual occurrences of the word. This latter template is called the actual template/LL of the word, and the templates preceding it in the history, the underlying templates. A template acting as first stage in a derivation is called the basic template, and those following it are the derived templates. A given LL may serve as actual template in one derivation and as an underlying template in another. An actual template must necessarily be operative in the sense defined earlier; but we will see that underlying templates need not necessarily have this status. The operation of LL-mapping rules is often reflected in the morphological constellation (27), where the Affix (preceding or following the stem) serves as a mark that the operation has taken place. (27) ' Stem [Y]

Stem [X]

\ Affix

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

21

Any stem has a lexical template associated with it; and in a constellation like (27), the difference between the LL of Stem[X] and the LL of Stem[Y] may be induced by an LL-mapping rule, taking the LL of Stem[Y] as input and producing the LL of StemfX]. The affixation process itself will be one of the operations specified by the rule. Schematically, such an LL mapping rule will have the form (28); the possible differences between the input and output CSs and LSs are commented on below: (28)

' Semantic interpretation/LF wh-movement

S-structure

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

Al

b. Standard GB-model: Lexicon

I

D-structure Move a S-structure

> LF

The present model differs from the preceding two in at least the following respects: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

It lacks D-structure, but in return has a far more articulate Lexicon, and the configurations of non-operative LLs in many cases correspond to those of D-structure in these models. It includes a level of P-structure, to be further characterized throughout Chapters 5 and 6. The main difference between Pstructure and the other two levels resides in P-structure displaying Implicit Arguments, thereby interfacing with aspects of lexical templates which are hidden at S structure and NP-structure. Pstructure is derived from NP-structure, as displayed in (60) following. Whereas Lexicon in the above models essentially feeds D-structure (through lexical insertion into D-structure), in the present model it communicates with all three levels, in that templates are available for matching, and thereby accepting, pieces of structure at all levels. In the present model, a grammatical derivation is a process of acceptance of input structures, whereas the other models are mainly models of generation. In the preceding models, levels are often thought of as yielding a partitioning of rules and processes into types, such that each rule type is thought to have a specific level of representation as its domain of application. (One example is discussed in 6.3.2.) In the present model, the levels of representation serve only to provide structural opportunities for acceptance of context-dependent items. Our rules, accordingly, function as 'anywhere' rules.

These five points go together as follows: as an acceptance process, the natural starting point for a derivation is S-structure (or actually a phonologically characterized string, but we abstract away from these aspects here): lexical templates and other rules of acceptance will have a first 'pass' on this type of configuration. Some elements may not get accepted at

48

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

this stage, and the S-structure configuration is then turned into an NPstructure configuration, where lexical templates and other rules apply anew. Also after this second turn of acceptance rules, there may remain nonconfirmed elements, and these get a third chance of becoming accepted by being situated in the P-structure configuration derivable from the NPstructure configuration just checked. If non-confirmed items remain after having been exposed in all of these three types of configurations, the string is rejected as ungrammatical. Thus, the sequence of configuration types an item gets exposed to is as follows, a 'level' being characterized by the type of configurations which appear in a string said to be 'at' that level: (60)

Present model (partial picture): Lexicon S-sti

structure

wh-movement 'in reverse'

As said earlier, the properties of - and motivation for - P-structure will be given in Chapters 5 and 6. Motivation for distinguishing between Sstructure and NP-structure is presented in Chapter 8, where we also expand the preceding model so as to constitute what we call The Loop Model. In Chapter 7, we consider two further possible levels of representation, one close to the LF of the standard GB-model, created by the putative process of Quantifier Raising (QR), the other resembling the 'logical translation' structures of Montague 1974 in having (certain) occurrences of bound pronominals and anaphors represented as quantifier-bound variables of the type found in predicate logic. Our tentative name for this level will be Logical Translation (LT). Both of these putative levels, as well as P-structure, represent aspects of what may be called the 'semantics' of constructions; a question may then be asked as to whether we are conceiving of any specific level of 'semantic representation'. The answer is no - 'semantic' information is found partly within the derivational histories of lexical templates, partly at the non-lexical levels, both in the form of annotation with 'semantic' features and in the structures displayed. For most of our purposes (except those in Chapter 8), it is not necessary to distinguish between S-structure and NP-structure, and so we will often refer to these levels jointly as 'syntax'.

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

49

1.4. DEFINITIONS A N D FEATURES O F FORMALISM RELATING TO BINDING A N D OTHER RELATIONS

We assume the following definitions concerning the notions of 'anaphor' and 'binding': (61)

a. b.

c.

An anaphor = det an NP (or other phrasal category) which has to be bound. An anaphoric element = def a word or morpheme whose immediate domination by a phrasal category gives that category status as an anaphor. The domain of an anaphor = dcf the set of configurations where the anaphor occurs with an admissible binder.

Anaphoric elements are thus items like self in English and selv, seg, and hverandre 'each other' in Norwegian; whereas anaphors are items like [himself]NP in E n g l i s h a n d

[seg] N p, [seg selv] N p, a n d

[hverandre]NP in

Norwegian. The notion of binding is taken as a primitive. Although an attempt is made in Chapter 7 to provide a general semantic characterization of the phenomenon, it does not seem definable in any semantic or syntactic terms. In particular, it cannot be identified as coreference, a notion which proves necessary in grammatical description too, but will be kept distinct from that of binding. Comments on coreference are made in 3.5 and 7.3. A purely formal difference between 'binding' and 'coreference' is that binding is treated as logically intransitive whereas coreference is treated as transitive. Thus, if A binds B and B binds C, it will not follow that A binds C; but if B is coreferential with A and C is coreferential with B, C will also be coreferential with A. Binding furthermore will be seen as asymmetrical: if A binds B, it will not follow that B binds A. 29 As for the coreference relation, the semantic identity expressed is of course symmetrical, and it is unclear whether the notion otherwise involves an interesting relation of antecedenthood which is not symmetrical. We will assume that it doesn't, and thus treat coreference as symmetrical. In these terms, a pronominal is defined as an NP (or other phrasal unit) which either refers independently (that is, has a deictic use) or partakes in a coreference relation or is bound. A pronoun is a word which typically, but not necessarily, constitutes a pronominal. Further notions connected to 'binding', such as 'antecedent of and 'be referentially dependent on', are defined in 6.4 and 5.1.

50

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

At all of the levels of representation S-/NP-/P-structure, at least the following argument relations and related information will be encoded: (62)

1. Government 2. The semantic 'argument of a concept' relation 3. The theta-role assignment relation 4. The theta-roles of NPs 5. Predication 6. Binding 7. Coreference

As a general mechanism for expressing relations, we use a combination of token-indexing and what we will call pointer indexing. Token-indices identify nodes in a tree uniquely, so that each node carries a token-index distinct from the token-index of any other node. (The 'size' of the tree depends on the scope of the representation; in principle, whatever the scope is - a sentence, a text etc. - all nodes will be distinguished this way. This point becomes relevant in 7.1.) Pointer-indices point to nodes in a tree, distinct from the node carrying the pointer-index, identifying the node pointed to by the token-index of the node pointed to. A pointerindex thus functions essentially like an arrow, and, for perspicuity, we often use arrows rather than pointer-indices in illustrative diagrams. When a node A bears a certain relation R to a node B, we represent this by assigning A a pointer-index annotated 'R', pointing to B. For instance, the government relation holding between against and me in against me will be represented as follows: (63)

PP ¡P

I against

jNP g vd -bv:i

Ime

Token-indices here are put as left subscripts; pointer-indices, as right subscripts. (We leave open at this stage whether one would also want to annotate ¡P with an annotated pointer-index 'governs ¡NP\) For the other relations entered, we use the annotations arg-of, th-from, pred of, b (or bound by) and cor. Thus, the 'be bound by' and the 'be coreference related to' relations are represented as in (64) (coreference being symmetrical, (64b) entails that A be marked as 'coreference related' to B as well):

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon (64)

a.

¡A

Bbound by : i

b.

iA

Bcor : i

51

Token-indices will generally be displayed as integers; however, we assume that they really have the form of ordered triples of the form < i , a , C > , where T is an integer, 'a' is a combination of those features which generally partake in agreement in the language in question, and 'C' is a category. In each case, 'a' and 'C' are the features and category of the node marked by the token-index, and 'i* distinguishes this node from all other nodes in the tree characterized as C[a]. The schematic representation of binding will thereby be (65), rather than (64a): (65)

Binder: A

Bindee: B [ b ] b o u n d by: < i , a , C >

'b' is here the set of agreement-features of B. This format allows us to state in a very simple fashion the fact that a binder generally agrees with its bindee: in the schematic form (65), a requirement will be that a equals b. This requirement is stateable as a purely local condition on the node B; the connection between A and B is taken care of by the type of bindingrule defined for B. Further applications of the format can be found in the formalization of, for example, verbal agreement and in the formal construction of binding relations in P-structure (see 6.1.2).30 When speaking explicitly about binding-rules, it may be convenient to fix on a general format for expressing the functioning of a grammatical rule as a confirmation or acceptance rule. In the present work, we assume that all items which depend in some way or other on context are provided with an illformedness mark - say the mark ' * ' - at the beginning of a syntactic derivation. This mark is associated with whichever formal feature of the item codifies the dependence. The application of rules throughout the derivation then consists in the removal of these illformedness marks whenever the items for which the rules are defined are correctly distributed. For instance, application of a lexical template will have the effect of removing the ' * '-mark initially associated with the word for which the template is defined, whenever that word actually occurs in the environment defined by the template. Licensing of maximal categories is formally expressed through the removal of a ' * ' initially associated with the occurrence of the maximality feature itself. Levels at which the checking generally takes place are, in the order, S-structure, NP-structure, and Pstructure (cf. 1.3).

52

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

In line with these stipulations, an item carrying a pointer index of binding is provided with an illformedness symbol at the beginning of a grammatical derivation, tied to the pointer-index. The formal function of rules of anaphora is that of deleting the *-symbol whenever the anaphoric or pronominal element occurs within the kind of domain defined for it. Like lexical templates, these rules may in principle apply at any of the levels S-structure, NP-structure, or P-structure, as long as there are *-marked items calling for their application. 31 (Coreference marking will not be accompanied by * -marking, owing to considerations expressed in 3.5, with consequences noted in 8.4.3.) Also traces are marked as bound and thus have a *-mark initially in the derivation, removed by wellformedness conditions. Different conditions apply to wh-traces and NP-traces, which are thus inherently marked as the former or latter. Conditions on wh-traces necessarily apply in Sstructure, since NP-structure is essentially defined by the absence of whtraces, whereas NP-trace conditions may apply at any level. Further empty elements which can be marked as bound are PRO and implicit arguments. With these preliminary remarks, we turn to the main principles governing the behavior of anaphors in Norwegian. FOOTNOTES 1. The statements of this and the following paragraph are hardly original. The focusing on something like situations can, within this century, be traced back at least to Wittgenstein 1917; most recently, Situation Semantics (cf. Barwise and Perry 1983) develops the notion, but it plays a clear role also in semantic frameworks like those of Montague 1974 and Jackendoff 1972, 1983, to mention a few. The emphasis on roles may have started with work by Fillmore and Gruber in the sixties, for instance Fillmore 1969 and Gruber 1965, and is carried on especially in Jackendoff op. cit. 2. We regard government essentially as a lexical property, and not as a property defined in terms of phrase structure configurations (as is otherwise a current conception - see, for example, Aoun and Sportiche 1983, Chomsky 1986). It may still be possible to see certain phrase structure configurations partly as encoding governmental relations - see end of 1.1.1. 3. For proposals for definitions of theta-roles, see references to Fillmore, Gruber and Jackendoff in footnote 1. We will not attempt to give any definitions here; the idea we have is a somewhat 'neo-platonistic' one, the level of a role in the hierarchy reflecting the extent to which its bearer partakes with initiating force and consciousness in the situation in question. 4. The exact nature of the 10 configuration deserves a few comments. Based on some facts from Norwegian, we will suggest that the IO together with the succeeding constituent XP ( = NP, AP, or PP) constitutes a phrase-like constellation which we will call a group, where the XP has certain head-like properties. We show this for the case where XP is a direct object.

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

53

First, whatever process/principle lies behind the possibility for a verb like eat to occur without an object (see 1.2.3.3 for discussion of the process) cannot affect a D O when an IO is present, whereas an IO can be omitted from a frame in the presence of a DO; (i) illustrates: (i)

a. b. c. d.

Vi we Vi we *Vi we Vi we

ga gave ga gave ga gave ga gave

Jon en bok Jon a book en bok a book Jon Jon (av fullt hjerte) (of full heart)

This may be seen as a head-like behavior of D O with regard to the sequence IO-DO, in that one cannot in general remove the head of a phrase without removing the whole phrase. Since the DO is not a word-level category, as phrasal heads generally are, and there are typical things which phrases can do but the present kind of sequence cannot, such as undergo movement in one piece, we refer to this type of sequence as an object group (OG). A second head-like property of DO with regard to OG is treated in 1.2.4, being that the process called Promotion to EA (defined in 1.2.4.1) can affect arguments functioning only as DO, not IO; to illustrate, from the construction in (iia), we can form only the one in (iib) with the same meaning, not the one in (iic): (ii)

a. b. c.

Det ventet Jon en overraskelse there awaited Jon a surprise En overraskelse ventet Jon a surprise awaited Jon Jon ventet en overraskelse Jon awaited a surprise

These cases suggest that D O is in some sense a prominent member of the OG, which supports regarding it as head-like. A third head-like property of DO appears in the circumstance that in presentational constructions, the NP inside VP required to be indefinite is the DO, not the IO; cf. (iii): (iii)

a. b. c.

*Det there Det there *Det there

ventet Jon overraskelsen awaited Jon the surprise ble gitt Jon en bok was given Jon a book ble gitt Jon boken was given Jon the book

This selection of D O to be the indefinite NP follows a common pattern for realization of case- and agreement-marking inside phrases, once we look upon the DO as in some sense the head of the OG. Aside from object group constructions, IOs also appear in constructions like (iv):

54 (iv)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar a.

b. c.

Jon Jon 'Jon Jon Jon Jon Jon

er meg en idiot is me an idiot is an idiot t o / f o r me' er meg litt tvilsom is me a bit d u b i o u s er meg til stor glede is me to great pleasure

Assuming that the predicative constituents N P , A P , a n d P P in these constructions head groups in a similar way as D O s do according to the above suggestions, the general position of IOs can be depicted as follows:

(v)

XP 5. Exceptions to the claim that D O s generally represent central roles seem to be essentially of two types, illustrated in (i) and (ii): (i)

a. b.

J o h n lived a h a p p y life J o h n walked a long walk

(ii)

a. b.

J o h n fled the city T h e horse j u m p e d the fence

In (i), exemplifying 'cognate objects', it is questionable whether the objects are semantic a r g u m e n t s of the concept at all - if anything, their reference seems to be the whole situation of which the concept-word is the concept. In (ii), the objects represent a content which is m o r e standardly expressed by PPs, and probably should be treated as having theta-roles marginal relative to the verb. Leaving the treatment of these exceptional cases o p e n , we maintain that there is a greater f r e e d o m for IOs to express marginal theta-roles t h a n there is for D O s . 6. F o r similar a n d related definitions, see Rothstein 1983 and Hellan 1980b, 1983. 7. Infl is taken here essentially as the f a c t o r ' + / - T e n s e ' , possibly with f u r t h e r properties as well, such as discontinuously f o r m i n g a constituent with the complementizer/infinitival m a r k e r . We will not assume t h a t it is specially involved in agreement - o u r concept of h o w agreement works formally is given in f o o t n o t e 17 of C h a p t e r 3. 8. 'Bare' NPs, i.e. N P s consisting only of a C n P , clearly do exist (more widespread in Norwegian t h a n in English). Assuming that the C n P also in these cases is licensed and requires to be licensed, we must hold that certain special licensing factors a p a r t f r o m Det are available for C n P . On the conditions for occurrence of bare N P s in N o r w e g i a n , see Hellan 1986b. 9. It is possible t h a t the governor of P R O should be seen as being the infinitival m a r k e r to/ft in c o m b i n a t i o n with the infinitival verb-form; if so, we avoid having to deal with double government of the object in Acl-constructions like We saw him come (and its Norwegian counterpart). 10. We do not take a stand as to whether, in cases where a p h r a s e structure configuration is to be assumed, this configuration will have to be (at least partly) specified by s o m e t h i n g

Theoretical

Preliminaries

and the

Lexicon

55

like classical phrase structure rules, or is fully derivable f r o m o t h e r factors (see Stowell 1981 and much later discussion). (In any event, we have of course 'eliminated' the 'Phrase Structure C o m p o n e n t ' of classical generative models in the trivial sense of not having a special generative PS-component outside the Lexicon.) 11. In Hellan 1984b a n d H i g g i n b o t h a m 1985, procedures of sentence a c c e p t a n c e / i n t e r p r e t a t i o n are p r o p o s e d which insert NPs into something like t h e t a - f r a m e s of the verbs involved; these procedures start f r o m the b o t t o m of the tree and proceed upwards, applying to the subject N P as the last item (a design having clear resemblances to M o n t a g u e 1974). In the present system, it is left open whether, when templates apply to an input string, there should be an o r d e r i n g as to which links between syntactic items a n d theta-roles are checked first. A notion like that of 'final s a t u r a t o r ' (used in connection with predication) might suggest t h a t there should, but we will not p u r s u e that issue here. (While concerns a b o u t a u t o m a t i c parsing are immaterial to our overall concerns here, the issue is still illustrated in an implementation of the present system in a Prolog-based parser in J o h n s e n , forthcoming.) A distinct issue, s o m e w h a t related to the one m e n t i o n e d , is whether or not External Arguments should be specified as parts of lexical entries; Hale and Keyser 1986, f o r instance, argue they should n o t , a n d likewise Jaeggli 1986 and Safir, f o r t h c o m i n g , to mention a few. One potential point in favor of this position would be if the (fully specified) theta-role of an E A is assigned only compositionally, i.e. as a f u n c t i o n of all the constituents of VP together, as argued e.g. in M a r a n t z 1984. In o u r view, n o fully convincing d e m o n s t r a t i o n of this point has yet a p p e a r e d (but see Jaeggli op. cit. f o r recent arguments). A n o t h e r f a c t o r is the great variability in the way EAs get realized, ranging f r o m Subject to the d o m i n a t i n g N P in subject-contained predication. This point is t a k e n care of by the existence of P-structure in o u r analysis, where all predicates d o get an EA. 12. See f o o t n o t e 4 above for a possible refinement of the analysis. 13. T h e current discussion of this type of example was initiated by Manzini 1983; for f u r t h e r references, see f o o t n o t e 1 in C h a p t e r 5. 14. F o r a radically different type of a p p r o a c h , which puts all the relevant mechanisms inside the syntax, see Roberts 1985 and Baker 1985. 15. On the term ' a r g u m e n t ' , see otherwise 1.1.1 a n d 1.2.6.2, plus some discussion in 5.1.2 concerning the relation between RPs and a m o r e syntactically geared notion of ' a r g u m e n t ' . 16. On 'anti-passive, see e.g. M a r a n t z 1984 and references there. Concerning the present rule, a question is whether the alternations might not be stated t h r o u g h a single LL-schema, rather t h a n by means of an L L - m a p p i n g rule; thus, the schema (24) for shoot above just misses the option of PP, c o m p a r e d to the generation process now in question. We leave this possibility open here. 17. This rule bears a clear resemblance to the ' a d v a n c e m e n t laws' of Relational G r a m m a r - see e.g. contributions in Perlmutter (ed) 1983. 18. The type of examples in (b) and (c) goes straightly against the so-called 'Burzio's generalization', f r o m Burzio 1981, according to which a verb assigns an external a r g u m e n t theta-role only in case it governs an object. Since it is unclear what kind of status this statement should have, aside f r o m descriptively covering the situation in a fair a m o u n t of languages, we will not elaborate on possible theoretical consequences of this type of facts. 19. The illformedness of examples like (43e) is telling evidence against the possibility of analyzing the sequence V-Prep in 'pseudopassives' like (41d) as a single verb, resulting f r o m some kind of 'reanalysis'. 20. See 1.2.4.3 f o r one type of construction, exemplified by * Det ble kokt av vannet 'there was boilt by the water', which could c o u n t in favor of using trace. 21. Such a contrast in location is p r o p o s e d in Afarli, f o r t h c o m i n g , serving as a m o r e crucial ingredient in an account of the contrast between passives and unaccusatives illustrated by (41) a n d (43).

56

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

22. This reference to the centrality of theta-roles supports the treatment of NP-movement as a lexical rule, since the relevant information may well be available only in the Lexicon. (See Bresnan 1982a for a similar point.) Given the fact that theta roles in general are entered in the syntax, though, with pointers as to where they come from, marking centrality in the syntax would not be a big addition to the specification of NPs already available. 23. Another variant of the proposal might be tied to the position that only internal arguments be linked (cf. second part of footnote 11 above for this position), so that the requirement on the EA of a given verb, for passive formation to apply to it, would be that it not be linked. Such a use of the notion 'be linked' would in our framework correspond to a mark that the argument was internal at the initial stage of the derivation, that is, it could serve as a piece of global information. 24. One could speculate that a reason why incorporation takes place only inside LLs where both a and ¿3 are specified, is that LLs generally prefer to have only one lexical item specified, a situation which is brought about by the process. A reason why double specification of this kind is not preferred might in turn be that it requires a scope extending across maximal projections. 25. A next question is then whether this LL of /3 should be an operative LL - i.e., one demanding an EA. From the circumstance that det 'it' in the examples (i) can be understood as an expletive, it is reasonable to conclude that the answer is yes, the incorporation process apparently taking place after Expletive Insertion has applied, to fulfill EPP: (i)

a. b. c.

Vi we Vi *Vi

gjorde det vanskelig made it difficult vanskeliggjorde det vanskeliggjorde for

for Ola (a...) for Ola (to...) for Ola (a...) Ola (to...)

Data are not crystal clear, however, in this area. 26. For various approaches to this question, see Levin and Rappaport 1986. 27. See Hellan 1980a for an analysis where the EA-introducing rules are tied to a typetheoretic approach extending Montague 1974, where the EAs are differentiated in terms of their logical types rather than substantive theta-roles. 28. Among alternative lexical frameworks, a model developed in Zubizarreta 1987, may turn out to represent a more restrictive version relative to the present framework: in her model, reference to thematic roles is highly restricted, so that her counterpart to our CS has mainly only argument slots, together with indication of chosen preposition and marking of what becomes EA (corresponding to our annotated link). She otherwise has a level much like our LS, but in addition imposes an ordering of lexical operations (corresponding to our LL-mapping rules) such that those affecting the CS-like level all apply prior to those affecting the LS-like level. By further restricting the LS-like level to be relevant only for verbs, a range of phenomena are analyzed in a systematic manner. Space precludes going into a detailed comparison of the frameworks, these comments being mainly to point to possible directions in which alternative concepts may be developed. 29. The decision to treat binding as asymmetrical and intransitive really follows the logic of this notion, and so hardly needs justification. We may point to one case where the system shows its superiority over the traditional view of co-indexing, i.e., the view that it be symmetrical and transitive. In the representation (ii) of (i) (discussed by van Haaften 1983, quoting Solan 1977), both binding notations are used, the one with arrows representing our conventions. (i)

John has himself to consider

(ii)

* 1 John, has himself, S1[C OMP [ Oi] S [PRO; to consider e,]] * I± I* |

Theoretical Preliminaries and the Lexicon

57

By the traditional notation, the wh-trace e, is here marked as 'locally A-bound' by PRO,, contrary to central assumptions of Chomsky 1981, 1982; in our system, however, this construal is effectively avoided, as is desirable. For works concerned with the present type of binderindexing, see especially Higgingbotham 1983, and also Montalbetti 1984, Hellan 1985, Haegeman and van Riemsdijk 1986 (the latter two suggesting extensions to representing quantifier scope as well), and Vergnaud 1985. 30. See footnote 17 of Chapter 3 on agreement. 31. In 7.1.2 we propose a refinement of this formalism, emerging from a treatment of VPanaphora.

Chapter 2

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian and the Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT)

Anaphors with a full-fledged argument status will be shown to fall into two major categories in Norwegian, those governed by a predication requirement and those governed by a co-argumenthood requirement. While it appears futile to try to obtain uniformity between these types in terms like those of the Binding Theory of Chomsky 1981, we argue that a unitary and non-trivial principle can be stated at a more abstract level, to be called The Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT). Section 1 gives an overview of the words and morphemes acting as anaphoric elements in Norwegian, the main ones being seg, sin, selv, and hverandre, the latter a reciprocal element, the others reflexive elements. Section 2 gives a first description of the co-argumenthood anaphors, those composed with selv and hverandre. These anaphors constitute what may be vaguely referred to as short distance anaphors. Section 3 describes the behavior of seg and sin, the key factor for whose behavior is claimed to be predication. A long distance anaphor results when one of these elements occurs without selv. Section 4 then proceeds to provide the unifying principle for the two classes of anaphors, the Principle of Independent Targeting. In Section 5, we discuss the main limiting factor on Norwegian long distance anaphors apart from predication, and argue that this be stated in the somewhat traditional form of a Tensed S Condition. In Section 6, a further factor involved in PIT is considered, namely the point of view/perspective factor as it operates in Icelandic. Here we also discuss a possible typological distinction between containment and connectedness anaphors and link it to the notion of 'long distance anaphor'.

2.1. T H E A N A P H O R I C ELEMENTS

2.1.1. seg/sin As word-forms, seg and sin are traditionally counted as reflexive personal pronouns. They are the only personal pronouns which function exclusively

60

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

as anaphoric elements. From the paradigm (1) of non-reflexive pronouns, we still assume that the first and second person oblique and possessive forms have a reflexive function alongside the non-reflexive, so that the reflexive personal pronouns come out as constituting the paradigm (2): Non-possessive forms

(1)

sg

Possessive f o r m s

plur

sg

plur

subj non sub subj non subj 1.

pers jeg

2.

meg

pers du

deg

han pers hun den det

ham hene den det

(2)

vi

oss

dere dere

de

dem

Non-possessive f o r m s

sg

plur

1. pers

meg

oss

2. pers

deg

dere

3. pers

seg

seg

min (mitt,mine)

var (värt,väre)

din (ditt,dine) hans hennes dens dets

deres

Possessive f o r m s sg min (mitt,mine) din (ditt,dine) sin (sitt,sine)

plur vär (värt,väre) deres sin (sitt,sine)

The reasons for calling all of the forms in (2) reflexive are as follows. First, meg, deg, etc., can occur bound in positions where seg is the only option when the binder is 3.person. This is the object position of so-called 'reflexive verbs', examples being (3): (3)

a.

Jon skammer seg Jon shames himself 'Jon is ashamed'

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian

61

b. *Jon skammer ham Jon shames him c. Jeg skammer meg I shame me 'I am ashamed' d. Du skammer deg You shame you 'you are ashamed' With the classification (2), we can say simply that reflexive verbs - i.e., the listed class containing skamme, etc. - necessarily take reflexive objects, regardless of the person of the binder. Otherwise, if only seg - 3.person - is treated as reflexive, the rule will be that skamme takes only reflexives as object when the binder is 3.person, and otherwise the available pronominal form. Conversely, now, there is a 'non-coreference' principle which allows a bound interpretation in (4), but not in (5): (4)

a.

b. c.

(5)

a. b.

Jon traff noen venner av seg Jon met some friends of himself 'Jon met some friends of his' Jeg traff noen venner av meg I met some friends of me Jeg traff mine venner I met my friends Jon Jon Jon Jon

traff met traff met

noen some hans his

venner av ham friends of him venner friends

The contrast (4c) versus (5b) is particularly clear. With the classification (2), we can say simply that only reflexives allow a bound interpretation in these structures. Otherwise, we would have to say that for the person where there is a reflexive variant, the pronominal is prohibited when one wants a bound interpretation in this structure, while in the other persons, there is no such restriction on the expressibility of a bound interpretation. 1 Assuming this kind of economy argumentation, this analysis will entail that the 'versatile' forms in (2) are lexically either unspecified with regard to reflexivity or doubly specified with both a positively and a negatively specified variant. We assume the latter.

62

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

For convenience, we will refer to the whole class of non possessive wordforms in (2) as seg, and the class of possessive word-forms as sin. Furthermore, we often refer to the entire set of word-forms in (2) as seg. Sin agrees with the head noun in the same fashion as adjectives, but differs syntactically from adjectives in at least two ways. 1. While an ordinary adjective, when preceding another adjective, does not force this second adjective to have a 'weak' form, this is crucially the case with sin (and the possessives in (1) and (2) in general). Thus, as opposed to the possible sterk gammel vin 'strong old wine', where gammel is the strong form, we can have only min gamle vin 'my old wine', with the weak form gamle. In this respect, the possessives function exactly like normal genitival constructions of the form 'NPs'. 2. Possessives, as opposed to adjectives, can follow the head noun, as in vinen min 'the wine mine = my wine', contrary to * vinen sterk 'the wine strong'. In this, the possessives pattern along with genitives like bans 'his' and are in complementary distribution with full non-pronominal NPs, which can succeed the head noun with a genitival function only when preceded by til. In both respects, then, possessives cluster together with genitives involving full NPs and differ from ordinary adjectives; hence, sin is counted as belonging to the category Genitive. A question is whether sin should be analyzed as in (6) at some syntactic level: (6)

Genitive

NP

seg

Points putatively in favor of this proposal include the following: 1. Min etc. have the referential properties of overt NPs. 2. The correspondence meg-min, deg-din, seg-sin (but not vi/oss -vâr) suggest that at some level, these possessives are related to the corresponding nonpossessives by a regular process. 3. The restrictions on sin as to how far away the binder can occur, appear to be essentially the same as for [seg]NP. On the other hand, point 1 may quite conceivably be captured in the semantic analysis; point 2 may be stated as a regularity in the Lexicon.

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian

63

Also, the parallelism under point 3 can be captured without assuming (6) if the categories (7) are both characterized with the same feature, e.g. ' + Refl-I', (7)

a.

NP

b.

Genitive

[ + Ren - I]

[ + Ren - I]

seg

sin

|

|

and the rules with regard to which they behave similarly specify their target category simply as [ + Refl-I] max . In addition, it is not clear what kind of underlying syntactic level (6) should occur at. Hence there is no compelling evidence in favor of (6) as a syntactic analysis, and our joint reference to the words in (2) as seg should be seen mainly as a matter of convenience. 2.1.2. Selv 'self Selv is uninfected, occurring in this form in all persons and numbers. 2 In contrast to seg, selv has many uses where no binding is involved; (8) shows two examples: (8)

a.

b.

Jon Jon 'Jon Jon Jon 'Jon

tente opp i ovnen selv lit up in the stove himself made the fire himself' selv far hente fisken himself gets fetch the fish himself has got to pick up the fish'

An example where selv might appear to be bound, but over a much larger domain than we will associate with the reflexive selv, is (9): (9)

J o n 0nsket Jon wanted

at vi skulle velge ham selv that we should elect him himself

Such occurrences will not count as occurrences of the reflexive selv, which means that we are postulating a certain amount of homophony. This is admissible enough, once the differentiating criteria are reasonably clear. In the present case, a phonological criterion is that the reflexive selv does not require more than normal word stress, whereas an occurrence like the one in (9) does require more, often referred to as 'emphatic' stress. This is a rather intuitive judgment, however - no investigation has so far been attempted to verify this alleged difference on phonological or phonetic grounds.

64

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

As a more semantic basis, selv-occurrences like in (9) appear to be accompanied by some sort of contrastive or focal interpretation, which need not be present with reflexive selv. These are not among the best understood semantic/pragmatic categories, however; so again, the criteria are not of the clearest kind. Syntactically, the most striking fact about the reflexive selv is that in certain configurations, it is required in order for a bound reading to obtain. These are exactly the configurations where selv with the normal stress/noncontrastive non-focal interpretation is otherwise allowed to appear. In other words, this selv has an exclusion-effect of the type to be described in Chapter 3 (see, e.g., 3.1). For instance, in (10), the selv is required in order for there to be a bound reading: (10)

Jon snakket om seg selv Jon talked about himself

Generally, now, such exclusion effects seem limited to elements qualify as anaphoric elements - pronominals never induce exclusion on other pronominals/anaphors, as far as we are aware. This is a reason for categorizing these occurrences of selv as belonging anaphoric category.

which effects telling to an

This cluster of properties - the phonological, the semantic, and the syntactic ones, all of which concur in (10) - thus define the reflexive selv as opposed to non-reflexive occurrences (leaving open whether the latter split up into many subcategories as well). Given ' + Refl-I' as a positive feature characterizing seg/sin, we use ' + Refl-II' as characterization of the reflexive selv. It is somewhat uncertain what word class to include selv in - the function of the non-reflexive version in (8a) is clearly adverbial, and the form selv there may thus possibly be counted as an adverb; quite tentatively, we assume that selv also when forming part of an NP is an adverb. Nothing of importance in what follows hinges on this. 2.1.3. Egen 'own' There is one striking limitation on the distribution of selv, whether reflexive or not: it cannot be part of a genitival NP; thus the examples in (11) are out:

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian (11)

65

a. *Kongen selvs gave the king himself's gift b. *Jon snakket om seg selvs misgjerninger J o n talked about himself's misdeeds

The form to be used instead of selv here is egen 'own': (12)

a. b.

Kongens egen gave the king's own gift Jon snakket om sine egne misgjerninger Jon talked about his own misdeeds

This could indicate that selv and egen are suppletive variants. If so, egen is clearly not a variant only of the reflexive selv, since it has the same possibilities of occurring unbound and bound within large domains as the non-reflexive variants of selv have - (1 la) parallels (8b), and (13) parallels (9): (13)

J o n ville at vi bare skulle se pa hans egen hest Jon wanted that we only should look at his own horse

A question will then be whether the same or similar criteria obtain for egen as for selv for distinguishing a reflexive variant. The vaguer factors - normal versus emphatic stress, and 'normal' versus contrastive or focal interpretation - seem to obtain, egen in (12a) and (13) having the 'nonnormal' characteristics, and egen in (12b) the 'normal' ones; the latter egen also occurs with a distance to its binder similar to what reflexive selv has to its binder. There is no exclusion effect in (12b), though - egne is not necessary in order for sine to be bound, as opposed to the situation in (10). The only configurations where an exclusion effect appears to obtain for egne are only a subset of those where there is exclusion with regard to selv, namely predicative constructions like in (14) and (15); (14)

a.

Jon er sin egen fiende J o n is his own enemy b. *Jon er sin fiende

(15)

a.

Vi kalte ham sin egen fiende We called him his own enemy b. *Vi kalte ham sin fiende

66

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

It should be noticed that egen is not the only possible 'saving' element here, though - (16) is good: (16)

Jon er sin aller verste fiende Jon is his very worst enemy

So, one might conclude that what is needed in the predicative construction is only a somewhat heavier prenominal constituent than just sin. A parallel situation in effect obtains with selv, however, as seen by (17): (17)

Jon fortalte om seg og sin nabo Jon told about himself and his neighbor

Seg alone would be bad, but it is not the form selv which saves the occurrence of it in this case. Given that this circumstance, however analyzed, will not reduce the relevance of the exclusion effect as justification for counting selv as an anaphoric element, the possibility of (16) should certainly not go against counting egen as an anaphoric element either. The question how far the exclusion-criterion should be applied in principle concerning anaphoric status will be returned to in 3.2.1. As for the status of egen, it seems conceivable that it be counted as an anaphor, at least in some uses. Whether it is a suppletive variant of selv is more uncertain, since the domains of their exclusion effects do not fully coincide. The question deserves further investigation. 3 In what follows, very little is said about egen (but see 5.2.2 for some remarks). 2.1.4. Hverandre 'each other' Hverandre is the reciprocal element and is uninfected like selv. It is used exclusively as an anaphoric element.

2.2. SELV A N D HVERANDRE: T H E S P E C I F I E D SUBJECT C O N S T R A I N T A N D T H E C O - A R G U M E N T RELATION

This section shows the relevance of the Specified Subject Constraint (SSC) from Chomsky 1973 as a first formulation of conditions on reflexives composed with selv (i.e. seg selv and ham selv, no discrimination being made between them in this section) and on the reciprocal hverandre. Questions are then raised concerning the nature of this constraint, to be pursued in later sections of the chapter.

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian

67

2.2.1. Main facts concerning selv and hverandre Anaphors with selv and hverandre allow for all of the binding relations depicted in (18), where the leftmost N P can be a clause subject, an object preceding an object predicative (what we may refer to jointly as predication subjects), or a genitival NP; and no such N P can occur in the dotted areas. The examples that follow exemplify the relations, with the anaphor and its binder indicated in boldface. (18)

NP

(19)

Relation a. Vi We b. Vi We c. Vi We d. Vi We

(20)

1: fortalte told fortalte told snakket talked snakket talked

Jon om ham selv Jon about him self dem om hverandre them about each other med Jon om ham selv with Jon about him self med dem om hverandre with them abouteach other

Relation 2: a. Jon fortalte meg om seg selv Jon told me about seg self 'Jon told me about himself b. De fortalte meg om hverandre They told me about each other c. Vi gjorde Jon glad i seg selv We made J o n fond of seg self d. Vi gjorde dem glad i hverandre We made them fond of each other e. Jon's angrep pa seg selv var en overraskelse Jon's attack on seg self was a surprise

68

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar f.

(21)

(22)

Deres angrep pa hverandre var en overraskelse Their attack on each other was a surprise

Relation 3: a. Jeg fortalte dem I told them b. Min beretning til My report to ledet dem pleased them

om hverandres bilder about each other's pictures dem om hverandres bilder them about each other's pictures

Relation 4: a. De fortalte meg om hverandres bilder They told me about each other's pictures b. Jeg gjorde dem glad i hverandres bilder I made them fond of each other's pictures c. Deres skryt av hverandres bilder var en pine Their bragging of each other's pictures was a pain d. De brente seg pa gnistene fra hverandres They burned themselves on sparks-the from each other's snadder pipes e. Jon's og Per's eiendommer i hverandres hjembyer Jon's and Per's properties in each other's home towns

The examples in (23), in turn, are informed (intervening 'subjects' being italicized): (23)

a. *Jon h0rte meg snakke om seg selv Jon heard me talk about seg self 'Jon heard me talking about himself b. *De h0rte meg snakke om hverandre they heard me talk about each other c. *Jon gjorde meg glad i seg selv Jon made me fond of seg self d. *De gjorde meg glad i hverandre They made me fond of each other e. *Jon h0rte pa mitt skryt av seg selv Jon listened to my boasting of seg self f. *De herte pa mitt skryt av hverandre They listened to my boasting of each other g. *Jon og Marit leste mine boker om hverandre Jon and Marit read my books about each other

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian

69

These facts conform to the Specified Subject Constraint (SSC), as stated in (24) (from Chomsky 1973, p. 254): (24)

N o rules c a n i n v o l v e X , Y ( X s u p e r i o r t o Y) in t h e s t r u c t u r e ...X...

[...Z...

- WYV. . . ] . . .

w h e r e Z is t h e s p e c i f i e d s u b j e c t of W Y V .

'Specified subject' is here understood so as to include predication subjects and genitival NPs. The statement (24) may serve as a starting point in determining the domains of selv and hverandre. Selv and hverandre differ in at least the following respects: 1. As noted in Section 1, selv is incapable of occurring in genitival position, whereas hverandre can. 2. The possible 'distance' between selv and its binder is more restricted than that between hverandre and its binder. Thus, hverandre has an ability to occur in the locative position exemplified in (25), whereas selv cannot: (25)

a.

b.

Hun kastet meg fra seg (*selv) She threw me from seg self 'She threw me away from her (self)' De kastet meg til og fra hverandre They threw me to and from each other

A related point is shown by the contrast in (26): (26)

a.

Jon Jon b. ??Jon Jon

og and leste read

Marit Marit noen some

leste noen omtaler av hverandre read some reports about each other omtaler av seg selv reports about seg self

The tendency emerging from these examples is that selv requires to be part of an NP serving as argument (direct or indirect) of the same head as its binder is an argument (direct or indirect) of. NPs serving as arguments of the same argument-taker (be it semantically or syntactically) we call strict co-arguments. Thus, the requirement on an anaphor composed with selv is that it serve as a strict co-argument of its binder. Hverandre is not restricted this way (although in a wider sense of 'co-argument', to be defined later, hverandre will be seen to behave as a co-argument of its binder). A tentative descriptive statement may thus go as (27):

70 (27)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar a. b.

selv must be bound by a strict co-argument, SSC applies to both selv and hverandre.

As far as selv is concerned, (b) is most likely to be redundant, but we keep (27) in this form. That the notion of 'argument' involved covers both the syntactic and the semantic sense means that in the Acl-construction (28), syntactic co-argumenthood is the licensing factor: (28)

Jon horte seg selv bli omtalt Jon heard himself be talked

about

The classification of Genitives as arguments or non-arguments is a matter of some dispute in the literature; thus, Grimshaw 1986 and Zubizarreta, forthcoming, call Genitives 'Adjunct Arguments', the adjunct status being based primarily on the optionality of this constituent. Since semantic argument status is sufficient for qualifying as 'argument' in the sense now in question, syntactic optionality of Genitives is not a countercase to (27a), even in the Grimshaw/Zubizarreta use of the term. In the later extension of co-argumenthood to apply also to the binding of hverandre, however, a deviance also from the semantic criterion of co-argumenthood will be made, relying on an assumption that Genitives count as arguments syntactically. For present purposes, this is still more a matter of terminology in connection with the statement of rules for anaphors than a specific stand taken with regard to the analysis of Genitives. 2.2.2. The role of independent

targeting

Given (27a), the examples with selv in (29) would seem exceptional if only lexical material were taken into account, since the indicated binders and the selv-anaphors are not co-arguments in these cases. (29)

a.

b.

c.

Jon De Jon They Jon De Jon They Jon De Jon They

lovet

meg (—) a

snakke om

seg selv hverandre promised me to talk about him self each other ble gjort (—) glad i seg selv hverandre was made fond of him self were each other forekommer meg (—) â beundre seg selv hverandre appear (to) me to admire him self each other

71

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian

Once the understood subjects of the embedded infinitives - indicated by '(—)' - are treated as binders of the anaphors, however, these constructions cease being exceptions to (27a). In (29a), this empty category is PRO; in (b,c) it is NP-trace. They serve what we may call a 'mediating' function for providing a reference for the anaphors. The lack of such a mediating function in (30) is due to different control properties of be 'ask', PRO here being bound by meg 'me' and thus functioning like an intervening subject with a blocking effect, like those in (23). 4 (30)

a. *Jon Jon b. *Jon Jon

ba meg PRO snakke om seg selv asked me talk about himself og Marit ba meg PRO snakke om hverandre and Marit asked me talk about each other

Because of choice of controller due to the verb, PRO/trace is no possible binder of the anaphors in (31) either: (31)

a. *Jeg I b. *Jeg I c. *Jeg I d. *Jeg I

lovet promised lovet promised forekom appeared forekom appeared

Jon (—) Jon dem (—) them Jon (to) Jon dem (to) them

a snakke om ham selv to talk about him self a snakke om hverandre to talk about each other (—) a like ham selv to like him self (—) a like hverandre to like each other

These examples differ from (30) in one respect, namely in that here the alleged binder is adjacent to the intervening 'specified subject', whereas in (30) and (23), this subject is separated from the alleged binder by a verbal expression. This circumstance in the first place makes it clear that the SSC is not essentially a principle concerned with distances, in the sense that the specified subject somehow represents the end point of how far a binding relation involving the anaphor can extend. That would not explain why the examples in (31), where the over-extension is so minimal, are so sharply out. (Also, such a distance conception of SSC harmonizes badly with the fact that hverandre can be separated from its binder by a fair amount of lexical material.) What, then, is the nature of the constraint at work in (31)? There are at least three possibilities compatible with the facts in (31). 1. Once there is a specified subject, there is also a category comprising the subject and the anaphor which constitutes a fence for binding relations. Such categories would be S and NP, primarily. Call this the category fence

72

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

conception of the SSC. C o m m o n ways of referring to S and N P as 'bounding' categories might suggest such a conception. 2. In (31), the indicated binding relations constitute a configuration of crossing dependencies, as depicted in (32) (for (31b)): (32) S

V

NP

S

This could be posited as the source of the ungrammaticality of (31), while for (23) and (30), where there are no similar crossings, an account in terms of distance would have to be maintained. This solution thus amounts to splitting the SSC into two principles. 3. The crucial factor is a principle of hitting a target, the target position being the one of the 'specified subject', and the principle being that this and only this position qualifies as a binder of the a n a p h o r in question. Such a principle would apply in uniform fashion to all of (23), (29a), and (31), explaining why the distance between the 'specified subject' and the alleged binder in these cases doesn't matter, since the alleged binder in these cases simply is the wrong NP, no matter how close it is to the right one. As a conception of SSC, we refer to this one as the target conception. A precise formulation of it will be developed as we proceed. In what follows, it is this third conception of the SSC we will adopt. Positive evidence for this conception, as well as weaknesses of the first and the second conception, will emerge in view of facts concerning seg addressed in the next section. After having brought these points out, we continue in 2.4 with a more detailed treatment of selv and hverandre according with the target conception.

73

Types of Anaphors in Norwegian 2.3. SEG-REFLEXIVES

2.3.1. Long distance properties of[seg\NP and sin We saw in the preceding section that seg selv obeys the SSC. The following examples show that [seg]NP can be bound across intervening 'subjects', be they Acl-objects, controlled PRO, or genitives; the last example shows that the number of such intervening subjects is not upward bounded. (33) a. b.

c. d.

Jon horte oss snakke om seg Jon heard us talk about seg Jon bad oss snakke om seg Jon asked us talk about seg 'Jon asked us to talk about him' Jon likte din artikkelom seg Jon liked your article about seg Jon bad oss forsoke a fa deg til a snakke pent om seg Jon asked us try to get you to talk nicely about seg Jon asked us to try to get you to talk nicely about him

Similar examples obtain with sin. From this, we conclude that these reflexives do not obey the SSC, as it is stated in (24). In Chapter 3, Section 2, we consider a class of [seg]NP constructions where the reflexive does obey a locality restriction, and hence SSC; we call these non-argument reflexives, for reasons to be given there. The above conclusion thus holds only for the complementary class - argument reflexives. The main upward bound on the binding domain of argument seg/sin is the tensed S. a Agrees-with: < i , b , Y >

'a' and 'b' are here specified sets of features relevant in agreement for the category in question, and 'R' is a relation such as predication, attribution or binding (even government, in a language with verb-object agreement). The triples associated with 'R' and 'Agrees-with' are pointer-indices identifying the item to which the relation is borne, i.e. an item with token index < i , a , Y > , where 'a' represents the morphological features of the item and Y the main category. In such a constellation, the following condition holds: (ii)

a= b

That is, whenever XP agrees with an item Y, then XP must stand in a relation R to exactly that item, and the relevant morphological agreement-features must be identically specified in Y and XP. Furthermore, we let acceptance of R entail acceptance of the agreement-relation. That is, we associate the pointer-features with ' * ' at the initial stage, with the convention that as soon as the ' * ' associated with 'R' is removed, then the ' * ' of 'Agrees-with' is also removed. Inside XP, we may assume that the agreement-feature percolates to all those constituents where agreement shows up, and that (ii) is imposed on all of them (while these lower nodes are not specified for 'R'). Acceptance of the topmost occurrence entails acceptance of all the lower occurrences. Turning to the proposal that seg in skamme seg be seen as an agreement-marker, it will be implemented as indicated in the structure (iii), using the conventions just introduced:

S

(iii)

_ NP tokenindex:

a Pred-of: < i , a , N P > Agrees-with: < i , a , N P > NP

V"

Jon

ikammer

Bound-by: < i , a , N P > Agrees-with: < i , a , N P > + Refl - I - Refl - II

seg

Complementarity

in

Norwegian

147

'a' here equals 3.person. (In English, singular would also be marked, and 3.person sg. would percolate to V°; we ignore here other morphological features such as tense.) Here seg is checked and confirmed for its binding specification and, on the NP-node, the agreementfeature is accepted as a consequence. On the VP node, the predication-feature is accepted, and the agreement feature consequently. (If on V°, an agreement-feature would be accepted as a consequence of its being accepted at VP-level.) Explication of further technical details would lead too far, but this will serve as an illustration of the point in the text. 18. Among them are the types exemplified in (i) and (ii); discussion of (i) is found in Taraldsen (1981 and forthcoming), discussion of counterparts of (ii) in Dutch is given in Everaert 1986. (i)

la seg se let oneself see 'make it such that one is seen'

(ii)

interessere seg for interest oneself for 'be interested in'

A further type is the one found in genitival constructions like (iii), discussed in Fiva 1985: (iii)

Per sin bok Per his book 'Per's book'

19. Really, of course, we are talking of the denotation of the binder, the binder being a linguistic expression. 20. Dahl 1980 observes that seg has a tendency (albeit is not forced) to take animate binders; this might be linked to the present discussion by saying that the binders ought to be possible perspective-holders. By the use of possible, we cover all those cases where seg is obligatory without concern about point of view, like in (i): (i)

En mengde er unionen av sine delmengder A set is the union of its subsets

We also cover cases where seg must be construed positively as not belonging to the point of view of its binder. An example is discussed in Hellan 1981a, residing in a construal of (ii) where the description including sin must be construed as being provided by the speaker, not by the binder of sin: (ii)

Martin tror Jon skal gifte seg med sin egen kone Martin thinks Jon shall marry his own wife

(It may be noted that with seg selv, such speaker-construal is impossible; an account of why is proposed in Hellan 1987.) The proposal in the text predicts that such readings should be impossible if the reflexive is long distance bound, since in such cases the reflexive, by this proposal, has to be within the binder's construal. That is, in (iii), sin ought to be within Jon's construal, which means that sin egen kone can hardly be within the speaker's construal, and so (iii) must necessarily have the implication that Jon is planning a divorce or something:

148 (iii)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Martin tror at Jon vil be deg gifte deg med sin egen kone Martin thinks Jon will ask you marry his own wife

This prediction may well be true; but the case also nicely illustrates the elusiveness of the factors in question. 21. See for instance Yang 1983 and Mohanan 1982. 22. A formal implementation of the 'markedness' aspect of this principle would be built on the format of (74), in making any addition of specifying conditions to this pure format count as 'costly'; such conditions would generally specify respects in which complementarity fails to hold. 23. The possibility for ' * ' to mark a whole set might suggest that the feature-matrix of a node really consists of the power-set of the possible features of relevance, the specified features ordinarily entered in such matrices thus being unit-sets of features. 24. The present mechanism was first proposed in Hellan 1978. Chomsky 1980, Appendix, provides a system for English whose effects parallel those of the present system. Instead of providing an impossible binding-relation with a ' * ' on the putative bindee, his system rather lists, through a set of indices, those NPs in a structure which a putative bindee cannot have as its binder. This algorithm can presumably be extended to deal with the more complex situation in Norwegian; two distinct negatively specified anaphoric features inside a pronominal would have to be associated with distinct sets of impossible binders, the whole NP being unbindable by the union of these two sets. For NPs like [seg]NP or [ham selv]NP, there would be one feature associated with such a set, and the NP would be unbindable by that set. Once a system is worked out along these lines, it may be hard to find substantive differences between the two. Since the flexibility and formal simplicity of the system developed here makes it fully satisfactory for dealing both with complex anaphora systems like the Norwegian one and simpler ones like the English, we will not pursue the alternative from Chomsky 1980. 25. She assumes a corresponding principle concerning hearer's strategy. 26. There we also mention the possibility that a further 'identity' relation, tentatively called identity, could occur, perhaps requiring ""'-marking.

Appendix to Chapter 3 As a succinct summary of the stipulations in Section 4, we provide the full list of possible combinations of specifications of the Refl-I and the Refl-II -features and assignment and removals of ' *'s. In all cases, only a bound interpretation is in question, and selv is always the reflexive selv. A. Well-behavior with regard to both rules (1)

a.

Jon respekterer

seg selv + Refl-I * + Refl-II *

= =

> >

* deletes * deletes

Resulting specification: r+Refl-I ~ [+Refl-II_ 'Jon respects himself

Complementarity in Norwegian b.

Jon h0rte oss snakke om

149 seg 1+ Refl-I *" = > => Refl-II

* deletes no * inserted

Resulting specification: +Refl- Refl c.

'Jon heard us talk about him' Vi fortalte Jon om ham selv P Refl-I ~ |+Refl-II* Resulting specification:

= =

> >

no * inserted * deletes - Refl-: +Refl-

d.

'We told Jon about himself Jon sa at han - Refl-I ' - Refl-II Resulting specification:

i]

kom =

>

=

>

no * inserted no * inserted - Refl-I - Refl-II

'Jon said that he came' B. Well-behavior only with regard to the seg-rule (2)

a.

Jon respekterer

seg + Refl--1*1 - Refl- I I J

= =

> >

* deletes * is inserted

Resulting specification: +Refl-I - Refl-II * b.

'Jon respects himself Jon harte oss snakke om seg selv + Refl-I + Refl-II *

= >

C>

Resulting specification:

* deletes * does not delete

-1 1

+Refl+Refl--II *J c.

'Jon heard us talk about himself Vi fortalte Jon om ham Refl-I ' Refl-II

= > = >

no * inserted * is inserted

150

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Resulting specification:

d.

'We told J o n about him' J o n sa at

p Refl-I \ - Refl-II * han selv kom - Refl-I ~ = > + Refl-II * = >

no * inserted * does not get deleted

Resulting specification: -Refl-I +Refl-I I * 'Jon said that he self came' C. Well-behavior only with regard to the selv-rule (3)

a.

J o n respekterer

ham selv - Refl-I => => + Refl-II *

* is inserted * deletes

Resulting specification: [ - Refl-I *" [_+Refl-II_ b.

'Jon respects himself Jon sâ faren

hans - Refl-I " - Refl-II

= =

> >

* is inserted no * inserted

Resulting specification: p Refl-I Refl-II _ c.

'Jon saw his father' Vi fortalte J o n om

seg selv + Refl-I *

=

>

+ Refl-II *

=

>

* does not get deleted * deletes

Resulting specification: +Refl-I +Refl-II d.

'We told J o n about himself Jon sa at seg + Refl-I * Resulting specification:

- Refl-II

'John said that himself came'

kom 1 =

>

=

>

* does not get deleted no * inserted +Refl-I *" - Refl-II

Complementarity

in Norwegian

151

D. Ill-behavior with regard to both rules (4)

a.

Jon respekterer

Resulting specification:

ham - Refl-I ' - Refl-II

E

= =

> >

* is inserted * is inserted - Refl-I * - Refl-II *

b.

'Jon respects him' Jon traff en venn av

ham selv - Refl-I + Refl-II *

= =

> >

Resulting specification:

* is inserted * does not get deleted

E

Refl-I * +Refl-II *

c.

'Jon met a friend of himself Vi fortalte Jon om seg + Refl-I * Resulting specification:

=

>

=

>

- Refl-II

* does not get deleted * is inserted +Refl-I * - Refl-II *

d.

'We told Jon about himself Jon sa at seg selv + Refl-I * + Refl-II *

kom =

>

=

>

* does not get deleted * does not get deleted

Resulting specification: +Refl-I * +Refl-II * 'Jon said that himself came' Appendix note 1. The binding condition which here prevents seg from being accepted is the tensed S-condition, as discussed in 2.5. As noted there, however, the inherent marking of seg as non nominative adds to the illformedness of this construction.

Chapter 4

Reference to Thematic Roles in Rules of Anaphora and the Command Principle

This chapter presents evidence that certain conditions on anaphors have to be stated in terms of the thematic roles of binder and bindee. A key notion in these conditions will be role command, which we argue to be an instance of a more general notion command, other instances being e.g. c-command and predication-command. A general principle for anaphoric binding is proposed, the Command Principle. This principle supplements the Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT) of Chapter 2, the two together delimiting the range of anaphoric domains on a presumably universal basis. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 1 makes some preliminary observations about binding inside NPs, a domain we have so far said little about. It is shown that for seg-reflexives, neither predication-command nor linear precedence has to obtain, while instead a co-argumenthood condition is in force. Similarly for the other anaphors. Section 2 gives a first set of arguments for the relevance of role-command, based mostly on facts about NP-internal binding. Section 3 continues with arguments based on binding in sentential structure. Section 4 shows that first Norwegian anaphors involve role-command in slightly different ways, and then provides a statement of the Command Principle in its general form.

4.1. SPECIAL PROPERTIES OF NP-INTERNAL BINDING

4.1.1. A semantic co-argumenthood restriction on seg It will be recalled from Chapter 1 that the external argument of N° is the dominating node NP, not the Genitive. It follows that there is no relation of predication between the Genitive and N 2 , and hence there cannot possibly be any predication-command restriction on seg-binding inside NP's. Examples like (1) and (2) now indicate what replaces this condition:

154 (1)

Anaphora a. b.

Jons Jon's Her Here

in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

bok om seg selv solgte godt b o o k a b o u t himself sold well ser vi kongens gave til sitt folk see we the king's gift to his people

In order f o r ( l a ) to be possible, Jon must be u n d e r s t o o d as a u t h o r , a n d no other role (like possessor); in (b), kongen m u s t be u n d e r s t o o d as d o n a t o r , a n d n o other role. These wellformed constructions c o n t r a s t with (2): (2)

a. *Jons venner f r a sin studietid skrev en v a k k e r J o n ' s friends f r o m his time of studying w r o t e a nice n e k r o l o g over h a m obituary on him b. *Jons egne b0ker i ryggsekken sin ble f o r J o n ' s o w n b o o k s in b a c k p a c k his got t o o tunge f o r h a m heavy f o r him

By a host of a n a n a p h o r , let us u n d e r s t a n d an NP containing the anaphor. T h e principle differentiating between (1) a n d (2), a n d between the possible a n d impossible construals of (1), can then be p h r a s e d as follows: 1 (3)

In NP-internal binding (i.e., w h e n the binder is in a n a r g u m e n t position relative t o a n o u n ) of a seg-reflexive, a host of the reflexive a n d the binder m u s t be semantic co-arguments.

By 'semantic c o - a r g u m e n t s ' we m e a n N P s which are either theta-role related to the same n o u n , or r e l a t i o n - b o u n d to the same n o u n - cf. 1.2.6.2 o n these notions. F o r ' b o o k ' , it is reasonable to c o u n t a u t h o r a n d topic as r e l a t i o n - b o u n d a r g u m e n t s , a n d f o r 'gift', similarly with d o n a t o r a n d recipient. In c o n t r a s t , the time of the f r i e n d s h i p in (2a) is hardly relationb o u n d to ' f r i e n d ' , n o r are possessor a n d location to ' b o o k ' in (2b). P r e d i c a t i o n - c o m m a n d entails c - c o m m a n d , a n d once the f o r m e r is n o m o r e in effect, it is not unexpected t h a t also c - c o m m a n d is n o m o r e in force as a condition on binding of the reflexive. This is s h o w n in (4), where fra ' f r o m ' is a full lexical item. 2 (4)

en gave f r a Jon til sin a gift f r o m J o n to his

mor mother

This is even m o r e to be expected, in view of the fact that the essential principle f o r seg now is a c o - a r g u m e n t h o o d principle, resembling t h a t f o r

Reference to Thematic Roles

155

selv and hverandre in verbal constructions. For these, as we have seen, c-command is not a condition either. Notice, now, that the condition on hverandre is not one of semantic co-argumenthood, but of syntactic coargumenthood; thus, in (5), (5)

Jon og Pers hus i hverandres hjembyer J. & P.'s houses in each other's home towns

both the Genitive and hverandres hjembyer have marginal roles relative to hus, still the construction is good. (As we saw from Acl-constructions in Chapter 2, this holds also in sentential constructions.) In 4.4 we return to the significance of this difference between seg and hverandre. 4.1.2. Linear precedence. A second difference between S-internal and NP-internal binding is that the former obeys a requirement of linear precedence between binder and bindee - that the binder generally precedes the bindee; whereas in NPinternal binding, that requirement is not fully in force; cf. (6): (6)

a. b.

en a en a

gave gift gave gift

til to til to

sin mor fra Jon his mother from Jon hverandre fra Jon og Marit each other from Jon and Marit

Cases like (7) are still impossible, showing that the liberality with regard to linear precedence does not extend to genitival position: (7)

a. *hverandres each other's b. *sine venners his friends'

gaver gifts gaver gifts

fra from fra from

Jon og Marit Jon and Marit Jon Jon

(We assume as a general constraint that no anaphor can c-command its binder. This rules out (a), but not (b). To rule out (b), we might say that no host of an anaphor can c-command the binder of that anaphor. This cannot be adopted as a general constraint, however, as it would rule out (21a,b) to follow).

156

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

4.2. ROLE-COMMAND IN NP- A N D VP-INTERNAL BINDING

4.2.1. First evidence We define role command as follows: (8)

X role-commands Y iff X and Y receive theta-roles from the same role-assigner, and X's theta-role is higher than Y's theta-role on a role hierarchy with AGENT on top and T H E M E on bottom, and EXPERIENCER, BENEFACTIVE, and similar roles on an intermediate level.

The first type of facts motivating the introduction of this notion in the treatment of anaphors comes from NP- and VP-internal binding of anaphors. Consider first the contrast (9): (9)

a.

Bekene the books b. *B0kene the books

av Per og Jon om by P. & J. about om Per og Jon av about P. & J. by

hverandre each other hverandre each other

er are er are

til for til for

salgs sale salgs sale

These form a minimal pair, differing only in that in (a), the binder rolecommands hverandre, in (b) not. Since both (10a) and (10b) are possible, (10)

a. b.

boken the book boken the book

av Per om Marit by Per about Marit om Marit av Per about Marit by Per

the contrast brings up a principle of the tentative form (11) for consideration: (11)

Hverandre must be role-commanded by its binder (under conditions...)

In (9a), Per og Jon is AGENT and hverandre THEME; hence the right role-command relation according to (11) obtains, as opposed to (9b), where hverandre has the highest role. Example (11), of course, does not replace any of the conditions stated in Chapter 2 - it is an addition to them. A first adjustment of (11) is necessitated by the contrast (12), comparable to the one in (9), yielding the formulation (13); a host of an anaphor, as said earlier, is any NP in which the anaphor is contained.

Reference to Thematic (12)

(13)

Roles

B0kene av Per og Jon om the books by P. & J. about er til salgs are for sale b. *B0kene om Per og Jon av the books about P. & J. by er til salgs are for sale

a.

157 noen venner av hverandre some friends of each other

noen venner av hverandre some friends of each other

hverandre, or a host of hverandre, must be role-commanded by the binder of hverandre (under conditions...)

(Notice that this host cannot contain any terminator with regard to hverandre; this is ensured by the rules given in Chapter 2.) Second, the conditions under which role-command becomes a relevant factor have to be specified - in (14), for instance, where Jon og Per ccommands hverandre, (14)

Jon og Pers hus i hverandres hjembyer J o n and Per's houses in each others' home towns

role-command apparently is not a relevant factor. This will be discussed in Section 4.4. 4.2.2. An alternative

analysis

One possible alternative to the approach involving role-command might be to posit a movement rule accounting for the alternating orders between 'av N P ' and 'om N P ' in these examples, so that the order 'av N P om N P ' is taken as basic, and the rule accepting (or determining) the position of hverandre is taken to apply before the movement. Assuming for the moment that usual linear precedence principles for anaphora binding apply inside NPs as they do inside sentences, we predict the illformedness of (9b) and (12b), since the 'basic' form (15) underlying (9b) will have the anaphor to the left of its binder, in general an impossible situation (correspondingly for (12b)): (15)

*B0kene av hverandre om Jon og Per er til salgs the books by each other about J. & P. are for sale

With this set-up, we also predict the wellformedness of (16) without loosening the linear precedence principle for anaphors (likewise for the examples in (6)):

158 (16)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Bokene om hverandres av Jon og Per er til salgs the books about each other by J. & P. are for sale

The only point where theta-roles may possibly enter into this account is in an explanation of why 'av N P ' must precede 'om N P ' in the basic configuration; but if theta-roles are relevant here at all, they at least seem to operate at a kind of lexical level, more in harmony with possible restrictive views of where theta-roles can be referred to. 3 Consider now a contrast found inside VPs, which corresponds to the contrasts within NPs just discussed: (17)

a.

Jeg I b. *Jeg I

snakket talked snakket talked

med dem with them om dem aboutthem

om about med with

hverandre each other hverandre each other

Since the sequence 'med N P om N P ' may in principle alternate with the sequence 'om N P med NP', as shown in (18), (18)

a. b.

Jeg I Jeg I

snakket talked snakket talked

med J o n om Marit with J o n about Marit om Marit med J o n about Marit with J o n

one possible way of accounting for the contrast in (17) will be to invoke the role-command condition (13), assuming that the role of I N T E R L O CUTOR ranges higher on the role hierarchy than the role of what is talked about (presumably T H E M E ) . However, the approach involving a movement rule also suggests itself, deriving the sequence 'om N P med N P ' from the sequence 'med N P om NP', and with the rule determining correct placement of hverandre applying before the movement; (17b) is then bad because (19) is bad, where the anaphor precedes the binder: (19)

*Jeg snakket med hverandre om dem I talked with each other about them

This time, however, the movement approach runs into a problem. On the assumptions of this approach, it should be possible, from the wellformed (17a), to derive (20); but (20) is illformed: (20)

*Jeg snakket om hverandre med dem I talked about each other with them

Reference to Thematic

Roles

159

This seems to suggest that in order to account for the contrast in (17), we in fact need the role-command condition (13). But now, once this condition is needed in the analysis of VP-internal binding, little is of course gained from the viewpoint of restrictiveness regarding use of theta-roles if we still insist on using the movement approach for the cases of NPinternal binding considered. A reasonable conclusion therefore seems to be that (13) should be taken to apply both to the NP-internal and the VP-internal cases of binding of hverandre. It might conceivably be a point in favor of a movement approach if it could make the linear precedence condition valid for all cases of anaphora binding. It is questionable, however, whether a movement approach would be the right means to account for lack of linear precedence constraints anyway, since this phenomenon obtains also in sentential constructions, cases which probably cannot be brought in conformity with the linear precedence constraint via movement rules. Examples are given in (21a,b): (21)

a.

Noen boker om hverandres some books about each others' Ola og Nils O. & N b. Noen boker om dem selv ville themselves c. *Noen b0ker om kyrne sine ville cows their

kyr ville glede cows would please

glede Ola og Nils glede Ola og Nils

The anaphors in (21a) and (21b) directly obey the role-command condition, since Ola og Nils is higher on the role hierarchy than the subject. The anaphors are possible regardless of who is understood as author of the books; hence it is Ola og Nils, and no empty element inside the subject NP (see the following chapter on such elements), which should be taken to generally act as the binder. On this construal, (21c) is predictably out, since sine is not predication-commanded by the putative binder. (We ignore here the pragmatically unlikely reading where Ola og Nils has an authorrole with regard to beker, in which case (21c) would be wellformed as far as the reflexive goes; see 5.2 on such constructions.) But no linear precedence constraint appears to be in force: to construe the examples such that Ola og Nils precedes the anaphor, one would have to assume a rule rearranging the order between 'noen baker om X' and Ola og Nils ordered after the rule accepting the anaphors selv and hverandre, and so that no configuration arises where sine in (c) is predication-commanded by Ola og Nils, so as to accept the binding in (c). I am not aware of any independent evidence for such an analysis. 4 Suppose then that we

160

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

take there to be no linear precedence condition on anaphors in force in NP-internal binding and in 'psych'-constructions such as (21); is there anything these constructions have in common which could explain this commonality? One feature shared between them is that they may both be said to lack a canonical A GENT position filled by an A GENT-, in Norwegian, the canonical AGENT position is the external argument position, and inside NPs, we assume that there is no such position at all, whereas in constructions like (21), this position is not occupied by AGENTs. A descriptive generalization then is that the linear precedence constraint is in force only in constructions which have a canonical AGENT position. Whether a real account of linear precedence conditions for anaphors can be built upon this generalization, though, is a question we cannot pursue here, so the issue of linear precedence must be left open. 5 4.2.3. Seg and role-command Let us assume now that the role-command condition is relevant in the analysis of anaphora constructions, as argued. Above, we looked at hverandre; the following examples show that seg/sin behave in a similar fashion as hverandre: (22)

a. b.

(23)

a. b.

(24)

Her ser vi en gave here see we a gift Et angrep av Jon pa an attack by Jon on

fra Jon til sin nabo from Jon to his neighbor sin nabo vakte stor forferdelse his neighbor created great consternation

Her ser vi en gave til sin here see we a gift to his Et angrep pa sin nabo an attack on his neighbor

nabo fra neighbor from av Jon vakte by Jon created

Jon Jon forferdelse consternation

a. ??Her ser vi en gave til Jon fra sin nabo here see we a gift to Jon from his neighbor b. *Et angrep pa Jon av sin nabo vakte forferdelse an attack on Jon by his neighbor created consternation

The examples in (23) show that the anaphor may precede its binder in NP-internal binding, and the way the examples in (24) contrast with those in (22) will follow from the role-command condition (13), if generalized to cover seg/sin as well as hverandre. A role-command effect may also be spotted in the non-ambiguity of examples like (25): although it is generally

Reference to Thematic Roles

161

possible to interpret a post-nominal 'av NP' as AGENT, the examples in (25) allow only the interpretations indicated in the glosses (concerning hverandre in this respect, see 4.4.1): (25)

a. b.

c.

Kongens bilde av sin hoffmaler henger i hallen the king's picture of his court painter hangs in the hall Jons begravelse av sine naboer brakte tarer frem i Jon's burial of his neighbors brought tears into manges eyne many's eyes Den gamie bydels odeleggelse av sin antikvar the old town-part's destruction of its antiquarian ble forbigatt i taushet was passed in silence

The alternative to a role-command analysis, one appealing to movement and ordering, would suggest itself for the contrasts (22)-(24), as it did in the case of hverandre. For an independent reason, namely the predicationcommand requirement for seg/sin in verbal constructions, alternations with VP-internal binding of seg-reflexives corresponding to the contrasts in (17a,b) will not obtain - both counterparts with seg/sin will be illformed. Hence there is no way of repeating the argument from above against a movement analysis, based on VP-internal binding. Because of the independent status of the reason for this lack of repeatability, however, we are allowed to carry over from the discussion of hverandre the position that role-command is essential in the analysis of (24) and (25). We can thereby replace (13) by the more general (26) (in turn to be revised shortly): (26)

An anaphor, or a host of the anaphor, must be role-commanded by the binder of the anaphor (under conditions to be specified).

4.3. ROLE-COMMAND OF SEG A N D CHAIN FORMATION

As mentioned earlier, cases where the role command condition does not seem to come into play are those where the binder is in subject position; (27) is a clear example: (27)

Jon ba oss hjelpe seg med skoene Jon asked us to help him with the shoes

Here Jon and seg (or any host of seg) are not arguments of the same argument taker, and so they are not in the field of role-command. From

162

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

such examples, a reasonable first step toward a specification of the 'conditions' alluded to in (26) might be to say that role-command is not relevant when the binder c-commands the bindee from external argument position. However, matters are not quite that straightforward, as we now show. In Norwegian (as well as Danish and Swedish), both indirect and direct object in a double object construction can become subject in a corresponding passive sentence; thus, (28) has both of (29) as possible passive variants: (28)

Vi overlot Jon pengene we gave Jon the money

(29)

a. b.

Jon ble overlatt e pengene Jon was given the money Pengene ble overlatt Jon e the money were given Jon

Furthermore, the subject of a passive construction can bind a reflexive; and when the reflexive is seg/sin, it follows from the predication-command condition that the acceptance of the reflexive cannot take place in a configuration corresponding to a Deep Structure level, only at S-structure or NP-structure. This is illustrated by the contrast (30): (30)

a.

Jon ble arrestert Jon was arrested b. *Vi arresterte Jon we arrested Jon

etter after etter after

sin his sin his

ankomst arrival ankomst arrival

Since nothing in the rule for seg/sin as we have stated it so far has been said about where inside a predicate expression seg/sin should appear, we expect that a passive construction like (31) will have both (32a) and (32b) as possible analyses. However, as pointed out to me by Elisabet Engdahl (personal communication), only (32a) is a possible construal: (31)

Barnet ble fratatt sine foreldre the child was from-taken its parents

(32)

a.

Barnet the child b. *Barnet the child

ble was ble was

fratatt e sine deprived of its fratatt taken away from

foreldre parents sine foreldre e its parents

Reference to Thematic Roles

163

Why? It seems that one conceivable account can be eliminated immediately, namely a rule such as (33):6 (33)

In a case where a single NP A-binds both a reflexive anaphor and a trace, that trace must occur to the left of the anaphor.

This rule would correctly discriminate between (32a) and (32b), but would also, incorrectly, rule out (34a), which has (34b) as the only possible analysis: (34)

a. b.

Jon forekom sine venner a vaere distre Jon appeared to his friends to be absent-minded Jon forekom sine venner e a vaere distre

Could rather a role-command principle along the line of (26) provide an account? In double object constructions, the indirect object is generally associated with roles like BENEFACTIVE or EXPERIENCER, roles ranking higher on the role hierarchy than the typical role of direct objects, i.e., THEME. Since the subjects in (32) get their theta-roles transmitted from their traces, the distribution of theta-roles to the binders and the hosts of sine in these examples in fact makes us expect the contrast, given a principle like (26). Figure (35) illustrates: (35)

a.

b.

Barnet ble fratatt e the child was from-taken MALEF ACTIVE Barnet ble fratatt sine foreldre THEME MALEFACTIVE

sine foreldre its parents THEME e

In (35b), the binder of sine has a lower role than the host of sine; hence we expect this construal to be illformed, as it is. We will pursue this course. Then it is clear that (26) must be made relevant for constructions where the binder c-commands the anaphor from external argument position. But in view of examples like (27), it is also clear that the limitations of the relevance of the role-command requirement are geared to c-command from external argument position. To combine both of these considerations, we offer (36) as a first replacement for (26): (36)

If a seg-reflexive (or a host of it) and an element in a chain headed by the binder of the seg-reflexive receive theta-roles from the same role-assigner, then this element must role-command the seg-reflexive (or its host, if there is one).

164

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

One refinement of (36) is called for. As it stands, (36) will rule out (37), since the binder in these cases is THEME, and the host of the reflexive has a higher theta-role: (37)

a. b.

Jon ble Jon was Barnet the child

skutt e av sine fiender shot by his enemies ble overlatt e til sine foreldre was given to its parents

The difference between the cases in (37) and (32b) is that in (32b), two bare NPs are involved; whereas in (37), one of the two arguments is a PP. As (38) now shows, a contrast like the one in (32) turns up also when both arguments are PPs: (38)

a.

Jon Jon b. *Jon Jon

ble was ble was

snakket talked snakket talked

med e om sine venner with about his friends om e med sine venner about with his friends

Hence the amendment of (36) called for is not one which excludes PPs from consideration, but rather one which makes use of the notion peer argument, which we define as follows: (39)

X and Y are peer arguments if they are either both direct arguments (i.e., realized as bare NPs) of the same theta-role assigner, or both indirect arguments (i.e., realized as PPs) of the same theta-role assigner.

Given this notion, we recast (36) as (40): (40)

If a seg-reflexive (or its host) and an element E in a chain headed by the binder of the reflexive are peer arguments, then the element E must role-command the reflexive (or its host, if there is one).

The condition (40) will act as a condition on reflexives on a par with other conditions, such as the predication-command condition for segreflexives and the co-argument condition for selv-reflexives. The way they interact may be illustrated as in (41), where each arrow associated with a condition marks the item pointed to as an acceptable binder for the reflexive, as far as that condition is concerned. Only the position B satisfies all the conditions and is thus accepted as a binder for the reflexive:

Reference to Thematic Roles (41)

165 B

Jon ble antatt e a ha blitt fratatt e seg selv Jon was assumed to have been from-taken himself

L (1 = the co-argument condition on selv, 2 = condition on seg, and 3 = (40))

the predication command

We may notice that the crucial use made of the notions 'A-chain' and 'NP-trace' in (40) gives support to the way these constructs are standardly used in GB-theory, reflected in the present framework (cf. 1.4). The condition (40) has been motivated from examples of S-internal binding. Consider now how it will relate to the cases of NP- and VP-internal binding discussed in the previous section. When the binder is post-nominal or in a PP- or indirect object position inside a VP, this NP is the sole element in its chain; hence the role-command cases from Section 4.2 are directly accounted for by (40), if generalized to all anaphors. In particular, (40) covers the role-command phenomena of NP-internal binding of segreflexives, including the non-ambiguity of the examples in (25): on the assumption that NPs have no external argument positions inside them, the Genitives in these examples must be counted as internal arguments of N and as peer arguments of the reflexive-hosts, once genitival s is regarded as some kind of postposition, which seems reasonable. 7 Before addressing the relevance of (40) for hverandre, let us once more comment on the alternative to a role-command analysis discussed in Section 2, the one invoking a movement rule switching the order of NP- and VPinternal constituents, and applying after the anaphora-rules. Since there is no free variation in the order between the NPs in a double object construction, the only movement process for which there is any evidence in cases like (31), etc., is NP-movement. If this rule could apply after the reflexive-rule, we clearly would predict the contrast in (32) from the contrast in (42), where the reflexive in (b) violates the linear precedence constraint: (42)

a. *Vi we b. **Vi we

fratok from-took fratok from-took

barnet sine foreldre the child its parents sine foreldre barnet its parents the child

166

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

However, the wellformedness of (32a) is hardly predicted by such a derivation (for which reason NP-movement is taken to apply - not only 'before' the reflexive-rules, but in fact in the Lexicon; see also (30)). Hence, we must count examples like (32) as requiring a role-command analysis. 4.4. THE GENERAL ROLE OF

ROLE-COMMAND

4.4.1. Hverandre in sentential structure and role-command Let us now turn to the behavior of hverandre in constructions like (32). (Here, like in 4.2, we largely ignore selv, which however seems to behave essentially like hverandre in the respects in question.) Natural examples are a bit hard to construct, but the following ones seem to show a contrast between seg-reflexives and hverandre: (43)

a.

b.

Gro og Kare

ble

fratatt

?hverandres tilhengere e *sine Gro and Kare were from-taken each other's adherents their Gro og Kare ble snakket om e med ?hverandres venner *sine G.& K. were talked about with each other's friends their

Another difference between seg-reflexives and hverandre is that when bound NP-internally, whereas the seg-reflexive (or its host) must be semantically a co-argument of the binder (see Section 1), this is not so for hverandre when the binder is a Genitive: (44)

Jon og Pers hus i hverandres hjembyer J.& P.'s houses in each other's home towns

Here the Genitive has a possessive role, or a role even more loosely connected to the noun, a situation where a seg-reflexive is impossible (cf. (1) versus (2)). Still another difference is that the counterparts of (25) with hverandre seem slightly more open to ambiguity than (25) do: (45)

a.

Hikon og Olavs bilder av hverandres Hakon and O.'s pictures of/?by each other's hoffmalere court painters

Reference to Thematic Roles b.

Byenes odeleggelse av the cities' destruction of/?by

167 hverandres nabobyer each other's neighbor cities

The upshot of these three observations is that when hverandre is ccommanded by its binder (i.e., the binder being a predication subject or a Genitive), then role-sensitivity conditions are no more (or much less) in force: in (44), there is no condition of semantic co-argumenthood; and in (43) and (45), there is no condition of role-command in play. In both respects, hverandre contrasts with seg-reflexives. How can this differential behavior be stated? 4.4.2. A principle of command Suppose that we subsume all of the notions 'c-command', 'role-command', and 'predication-command' under the general term command (thus giving the term a different meaning than in Langacker 1968). The differences in question can then be captured by assuming a parametrized interpretation of the principle (46): (46)

An anaphor (or its host, if there is one) must be commanded by the binder of the anaphor.

The parameter in question consists of the choice between disjunctive and conjunctive application of the various command-types: for hverandre, we say that (46) is satisfied if hverandre (or its host) is either c-commanded or role-commanded by its binder. For seg-reflexives, both predicationcommand (in sentences)/semantic co-argumenthood (in NP-internal binding) and role-command (in the form of (40)) must hold; and whenever c-command obtains (either as a consequence of predication-command or when the binder is a Genitive), then the role-command principle (40) must be obeyed in addition. This parametrized interpretation of (46) now constitutes the 'conditions' part of (26), now as a separate principle from the role-command rule itself. It may obviously be asked why hverandre and seg should be differentiated in exactly this way, but we have no concrete proposals to offer. 8 The common core of these instantiations of 'command' is a factor of superiority: the gist of (46) is that a binder is in some way or other superior to the bindee. This mirrors the circumstance that it is the binder, never the bindee, which fixes the reference of the two. Thus, the clustering of the notions 'c-command', 'role-command', and 'predication-command' into a single general principle concerning anaphors seems quite natural.

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

If it is natural, we expect similar clusterings to appear in other languages, possibly with other, but related, command relations. Kiss 1987 argues that in the non-configurational Hungarian, the hierarchy of thematic roles plays a role very similar to the one we have argued for Norwegian anaphors, and she shows its relevance also for other binding phenomena. Further investigations will show how widespread the interaction between binding and thematic role hierarchies is. As for further command-relations, the relevance of perspective-command in Icelandic was shown in 2.6.1 and 3.3.2; it seems to govern the behavior of anaphors in a range of languages. Still one notion, perhaps rather trivial, is that of linear precedence (see Kiss op.cit. and Barss and Lasnik 1986 for discussion tying it to other factors); and further ones are conceivable, such as notions tied to morphological case (cf. e.g. Kiss 1981). Probably, a true typology of anaphors on a universal basis cannot emerge unless it is done as a parametrization of the Command Principle (46). In the latter capacity, the Command Principle supplements the Principle of Independent Targeting (PIT) from Chapter 2, which emphasizes the role of the binder as being selected as target for some relation independent of the binding relation. Included among 'target functions' are of course the superior items of command relations; and while PIT per se says nothing about which item in an asymmetric relation serves as the binding target, the Command Principle provides exactly this specification. Hence, the principles PIT and the Command Principle jointly constitute a good basis for a general specification of the possible range of binding relations for anaphors. FOOTNOTES 1.1 am grateful to Barbara Partee for discussion leading to this proposal. 2. For discussion of similar facts in Italian, with a rather different analysis, see Giorgi 1986. In Italian, the corresponding prepositions appear to be 'transparent' to c-command, much like the til-genitive in Norwegian (see footnote 8 to Chapter 7), so that for Italian, an analysis of this type of fact seems possible in terms of c-command. This does not conflict with the Command Principle posited in 4.4, as this principle allows languages to choose different command-relations as operative. 3. An apriori reason for searching for an alternative to an analysis in terms of role-command could be that theta-roles are in general difficult to define and delimit from one another, and so a reasonable research strategy might be to try to reduce the amount o f reference made to specific theta-roles as far as possible. Thus, it is argued in Levin and Rappaport 1986 that such reference be confined to the place in the grammar where grammatical functions are generally linked to theta-roles, which in terms of our framework means that the information encoded at the level CS in lexical templates should not be included in the syntactic structures matched by templates. Belletti and Rizzi 1986 represent a similar view. It may be noted that the issue of encoding specific theta-roles in syntactic representation is distinct from the one of marking a node as to whether it carries a theta-role or not: the necessity of

Reference to Thematic Roles

169

such representation is shown in 3.2.6, to mark whether an occurrence of [seg]NP is to count as belonging to the 'non-argument' type, and is generally assumed in the GB framework. 4. The only configuration which would satisfy the requirements mentioned would be (i): (i)

e ville glede Ola og Nils [noen b0ker om ANAPHOR] would please O. & N. some books about

Belletti and Rizzi 1986 present arguments based on Italian that NPs corresponding to the bracketed NP in (i) should be base-generated in an internal argument position. In their analysis, however, the Experiencer NP follows the Theme NP, which is the opposite order of the one in (i). Also Pesetsky 1987 makes proposals involving movement processes in constructions of this kind, but without opting for the particular order in (i). Afarli, forthcoming, gives evidence that Norwegian 'psych-verb' constructions generally should not be analyzed along the lines argued by Belletti and Rizzi. 5. See footnote 6 to Chapter 3 on another putative case of bindees preceding binders, which might possibly be brought under this generalization as well. 6. A rule similar to (33), except that the binder is in A-bar-position, is proposed in May 1985, Chapter 1; the phenomenon covered by that rule is distinct from the present one, so we are not suggesting that the present considerations carry over to May's proposal. 7. Alternatively, a Genitive could be analyzed as neutral between NP and PP, and thus as non-distinct from both, thereby qualifying as a peer argument of a PP. 8. Seg, as a tendency, is more sensitive than hverandre to semantic factors. In addition to those mentioned earlier, these include perspective command, as we argued in 3.3.2, and a preference for it to have animate binders (cf. Dahl 1980), a factor which might combine with that of perspective command to a requirement that the binder of seg be a possible perspectiveholder (see footnote 20 in Chapter 3). Is there any intrinsic connection between all of these factors which should make the behavior of seg with regard to (46) predictable? Although we cannot see any immediate answer here, the question ought to be pursued.

Chapter 5

Implicit Arguments

In this chapter and the next, we focus on two specific types of non-overt items, one to be called RP (for Referential Phrase), the other being a special type of NP, neither of which can be classified as PRO or pro. We will use the term Implicit Argument for these two types of items. Anticipating some points to be established in these chapters, an initial overall characterization of the term may be 'items with sufficient argument status to enable them, in principle, to take part in grammatical relations such as binding, but which do not appear as syntactic arguments in neither S-structure nor NP-structure'. We will argue that the level where they do occur is P-structure. The present chapter is devoted to RPs. 1 In 1.2.3.1-2, we argued that with regard to S- and NP-structure, thematic roles can have four different degrees of presenthood: they may not be understood at all in a given construction, in which case they have degree 0 of presenthood; they may be expressed by a phonologically full NP or by trace or PRO, in which case they have degree 3. Then there are two distinct types of cases where they are understood, but not overtly expressed: one is the case of AGENT in passives lacking an 'agent-phrase', like The bread was eaten, this role has degree 2 of presenthood. In contrast, the AGENT in a middle construction like The bread eats easily has degree 1. Formally, this difference is encoded in two ways. First, in the actual templates for the constructions in question in their S- and NP-structure representation, a role with degree 2 of presenthood is entered in CS (Conceptual Structure) but not linked to any item in LS (Lexical Structure); whereas a role with degree 1 is not entered in the CS at all, it appears only in the CS of some underlying template. Second, in the special level of representation called P-structure (and in templates defined for Pstructure), roles of degree 2 are realized as empty items of the category Referential Phrase (RP), while roles of degree 1 are not realized at all. Formally Referential Phrases in P-structure thus project directly from roles of degree 2 of presenthood in the syntax. In the sections mentioned in Chapter 1, we hinted at what we assume as the general mechanism for encoding RPs, and on justifying the contrast

172

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between degrees 1 and 2 of presenthood. In the present chapter, we first (Section 1) illustrate more broadly and in detail the functioning of RPs as binders and bindees. We then address the issue of whether there really is a contrast between RPs and the category PRO (Section 2). Reasons are adduced for holding that there is a difference in what we call visibility between these categories (corresponding to the difference in presenthood of the roles expressed: visibility is a property of grammatical arguments, not of roles). For the purpose of formally marking visibility, the mere existence of the level P-structure is not sufficient, as will be shown, and Section 3 gives a proposal for how visibility is to be formally encoded.

5.1. FUNCTIONING OF RPs AS BINDERS AND BINDEES

5.1.1. Illustration of the formal

mechanism2

We first demonstrate explicitly how our approach applies for the contrast addressed in 1.2.3.1, repeated as (1): (1)

a. Bureaucrats are bribed in order PRO to make them happy b. * Bureaucrats bribe easily in order PRO to make them happy

In the syntax ( = S-structure and NP-structure), neither of these constructions contains any binder for PRO. The only difference between them is that in the templates checking these occurrences of bribed/bribe in the syntax, i.e. (2a,b), respectively, (2)

a.

a.

'bribe'

AGENT

[[bribe]ed]v,

THEME I [e] N P

governs b. 'bribe' [bribe]v

THEME I EA NP

I HA NP

Implicit

Arguments

173

the template relevant for (la) contains an unlinked AGENT, while neither a linked nor an unlinked AGENT appears in the template for (lb). That is, A G E N T has degree 2 of presenthood in (la), while it has degree 1 only in (lb). (Because (2b) is derived, by the rule Middle Formation given in 1.2.3.1, from a template where AGENT does occur, A G E N T has degree 1 rather than 0.) This difference in presenthood is now exploited in the following way: From the NP-structure representation, a P-structure representation is derivable for any construction simply by adding empty RPs. Templates accepting P-structures are derivable from actual templates for the corresponding NP-structure by linking up non-linked roles in these templates with empty RPs. That is, from (2a), the template (3) is derived, applicable to P-structure: (3)

'bribe'

AGENT

|

|

[[brib]ed]

[e]RP

THEME |EA NP

| [e]Np

bound by No similar template is derivable from (2b), since here there are no unlinked AGENTs. Hence, when (la) is turned into a P-structure representation by adding an empty RP, the presence of this RP is accepted by (3); whereas if a similar expansion were applied to (lb), the result would not get accepted, since the template (2b) is not expandable into a form corresponding to (3). Consequently, in the P-structure of (la), PRO has a binder, as illustrated in (4) (the rightmost binding relation):

174

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

(4) S

The sentence (lb), in contrast, can not be assigned any P-structure containing an empty RP binding PRO, and this accounts for the contrast between (la) and (lb). 3 It should be noted that the wellformedness of (la) contrasts with the illformedness of (5), read with PRO bound by the AGENT RP: 4 (5)

*John was promised RP [PRO to come]

The account presented so far does not predict this difference. Possibly, it is a requirement that PRO be c-commanded by a binder, be it in Pstructure or syntactically, when PRO is inside a complement of the matrix verb, but not when it is inside an adjunct. Once '[PRO to come]' in (5) is a complement to promise, the fact that RP does not c-command PRO there thus makes (5) informed; whereas in (la)/(4), PRO is in an adjunct, and so need not be c-commanded by RP. It still remains to explain why there should be such differing constraints on PRO in adjuncts and complements. The issue of c-command when RP is a binder will otherwise be addressed in 5.1.2 as well. As is clear from the definition of Implicit Arguments, RPs need not be actual binders or bindees, but they are in principle available for these functions. As long as the relevant lexical template contains sufficiently many syntactically unlinked thetaroles, a wellformed P-structure can thus contain any number of RPs serving neither as binder nor as bindee.

Implicit

Arguments

175

5.1.2. Implicit Arguments in NPs As was said in 1.2.6.2, a deverbal noun, on its 'process' reading, generally has the same theta-roles associated with it as the verb constituting its stem; an additional argument of the noun may be its external argument, which is whatever is referred to by the dominating NP. Sometimes, this EA may have a role definable relative to the verb, such as A G E N T in a case like runner, but quite commonly it will not, like the EVENT referred to in John's run. Except for the external argument, and possibly certain 'internal arguments' as mentioned in 1.2.6.2, arguments of nouns are only optionally realized in the syntax (with PP or Genitive as realizing category). As our formalism has been set up, the role associated with a syntactically optional argument (when no explicit lexical deletion-rule is involved) is entered in the CS of the relevant lexical template, whether it is syntactically linked or not. In the latter case, the role can thus get realized in P-structure as an Implicit Argument; and so an NP with a deverbal noun heading the CnP, on the reading where it involves the theta-roles of the verbstem, can have a rich number of Implicit Arguments. For non-deverbal nouns, and for deverbal nouns on the reading where they have only 'associates' (cf. 1.2.6.2), the number of roles may be more restricted, but the possibility for these roles to get realized as Implicit Arguments should in principle be the same, according to what we have said so far. A partial challenge to this prediction comes from Safir (1986), who argues, from contrasts such as (6), that only roles serving as part of the thetaframe involved in a 'process' reading - what we may call an active thetaframe - can act as Implicit Arguments. (6)

a. ""Treatment sick inspires others b. ?The treatment of diabetics stoned must stop

Adjuncts like sick and stoned as they appear here must be predicated of some argument, and the argument in question is the AGENT argument of treatment. When appearing in an active theta-frame, this argument is identified by Safir as external, in his terminology (where, in contrast to our terminology, the external argument of a noun is the one typically appearing as Genitive), and a basic principle in his theory is that no external argument role can become grammatically operative in an active thetaframe without the internal argument role's being expressed. This is the case in (6b), but not in (a). This means that it is only in (b) that an AGENT is capable, qua being a member of an active theta-frame, of serving as an Implicit Argument supporting the adjunct. The contrast in acceptability between (a) and (b) then suggests that unless an understood A G E N T

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

176

is grammatically available as a member of an active theta-frame, it cannot serve as Implicit Argument. Without entering into a full discussion of Safir's claim, we note that in examples like (7), the Implicit Arguments called for occur with non-deverbal nouns and are thus presumably not part of active theta-frames: (7)

a.

b.

En bok om a book about selvtillit self confidence En bok om a book about selvtillit self confidence

ham selv himself

ville gi Jon stor would give Jon great

seg *(selv) ville gi Jon stor himself would give Jon great

As noted in connection with the construction (21) in Chapter 4, ham selv, coreferring with Jon, can be used as in (7a) regardless of who might be understood as carrying the various argument roles relative to bok, so that Jon must here be able to count as binder of ham selv directly. In (7b), however, the anaphor - which must be seg selv, not seg - is possible only if J o n is understood as author of the book, and thus carries the A U T H O R role associated with bok. This licensing constellation can be represented as in (8), which is a P-structure representation with an Implicit Argument inside the NP, bound by Jon, but itself acting as binder of seg selv and carrying an A U T H O R role:

Implicit

177

Arguments

With the RP interpreted as A U T H O R , the role-command principle concerning seg from Chapter 4 is obeyed; and since the RP and seg selv are co-arguments, we expect the obligatoriness of selv. That seg alone is unable to be bound by Jon directly follows from the predication-command restriction on seg (valid for cases where its binder is adjoined to a verbal projection), since Jon does not predication-command seg. Thus, through the postulation of an Implicit Argument serving both as a binder and a bindee, we account for the facts in (7b), thus making P-structure the level where the acceptability of these occurrences of the reflexives is decided. Given that Implicit Arguments need not bind nor be bound, the approach also allows for ham selv in (7a) to be construed as bound by Jon directly. It is not obvious how this analysis can be reconciled with the proposal by Safir. A possibility might be that the demand for an active theta-frame arises only for an item which potentially has one, like a deverbal noun, and thus not for book. Another possibility might be that bok too in effect is understood with some sort of active theta-frame, when read under the aspect of a creative act. We leave the issue at this. 5 We now proceed with illustrations of further cases where RPs interact with reflexives. These are cases where the RP is part of an active thetaframe, and so they comply with the proposal made by Safir. Consider (9): (9)

a. b.

Jon Jon Jon Jon

begikk et committed an ble gjenstand was subject

overgrep mot offense against for et overgrep to an offense

seg *(selv) himself mot seg (*selv) against himself

The distribution of selv in (9) parallels somewhat its distribution in paradigms like (10): (10)

a. b.

Jon Jon Jon Jon

lovet meg a snakke promised me to talk bad meg snakke om asked me talk about

om seg *(selv) about himself seg (*selv) himself

The syntactic structure of the well-formed option of (10a) we take to be

(11), (11)

Jon lovet meg PRO snakke om seg selv | promised me I " talk about I

178

Anaphora in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

where P R O is linked to Jon in virtue of properties of love, a n d seg selv is p r o p e r l y b o u n d by P R O , being a c o - a r g u m e n t of it. The f o r m seg alone is excluded, since P R O binds it, c o - a r g u m e n t h o o d forcing a selv. N o link could be constructed directly f r o m seg to Jon, as long as Jon binds P R O and P R O c - c o m m a n d s seg; here we a d o p t the conventions a n d definitions in (12a-c) f r o m H i g g i n b o t h a m 1983 ( n u m b e r s in brackets referring to his n u m b e r i n g ; we use 'be b o u n d by' instead of his 'be linked to', which are the same notion), a n d o u r own tentative principle (12d): (12)

a. b. c. d.

Y is an antecedent of X if X is b o u n d by Y, or, f o r some Z, X is b o u n d by Z a n d Y is an antecedent of Z. ([32]) If X c - c o m m a n d s Y, then Y is not an antecedent of X. ([25]) If X a n d Y share an antecedent a n d Y c - c o m m a n d s X, then Y is an antecedent of X. ([43]) If a reflexive has two possible binders in a given structure, the m o r e local one is chosen as binder. 6

A corollary of these statements is that if X a n d Y share a b i n d e r a n d X c - c o m m a n d s Y, then X must bind Y. This is the situation which would arise on the construal where [seg]NP in (10a) is directly b o u n d by Jon, since here P R O c - c o m m a n d s the reflexive. Since a reflexive can have only one binder, a choice must be m a d e between Jon a n d Pro, a n d (12d) forces the choice to be P R O . The example (10b), conversely, has the structure (13), (13)

Jon bad meg P R O s n a k k e o m | asked | talk a b o u t

seg

where P R O is b o u n d by meg, because of control-properties of be, a n d seg is 'long distance' b o u n d directly by Jon. T h e f o r m seg selv is excluded, since it disallows of such long distance binding; a n d binding by a coa r g u m e n t is excluded, since the only available c o - a r g u m e n t is interpreted as 1.person, a n d seg selv is necessarily 3.person. We assume that the sentences in (9) should be given a representation at P-structure where Implicit A r g u m e n t s play similar roles as P R O does in the preceding cases. T h u s , (9a) will have the P-structure (14), the boxed p a r t of which is accepted by the P-structure template (15a), which is e x p a n d e d f r o m the template (15b), the latter being the template relevant f o r the syntactic occurrence in question of overgrep (the N P written as 'x' is the external a r g u m e n t of the n o u n ; a closer a c c o u n t of this item will follow in the next chapter; the R P counts as an internal a r g u m e n t ) :

Implicit

179

Arguments

(14)

(15)

overgrep

EVENT

„„AGENT

m ,„GOAL

EA [overgrep]\ b.

'overgrep'

NP

PP

[e EVENT

AGENT

„.„GOAL

EA [overgrep]««

NP

PP

The binding of the reflexive being NP-internal, the binder must rolecommand the bindee, as argued in the preceding chapter, and this condition is fulfilled. Furthermore, binder and bindee are co-arguments; hence, selv is required. Direct binding of the reflexive by Jon is excluded, as it was in (11), rendering the form [seg]NP unavailable. (Given that role-command generally plays the same role within NPs as c-command does in sentences,

180

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

it will be reasonable to generalize the principles in (12) to hold for whichever notion of command is relevant in the construction in question: once the RP and the reflexive are inside the same NP, it thus follows from the generalized version of (12) that when Jon binds both the RP and the reflexive, then a role-command relation between the latter two entails that the RP binds the reflexive.) With a simplified representation, (9b) will have the structure of (16): (16)

Jon ble gjenstand for et x overgrep RP mot seg h subject to offense against

By the semantics of vaere gjenstand for 'be subject to', the RP, necessarily interpreted as AGENT (since the MALEFACTIVE role is unambiguously carried by mot seg 'against himself), here cannot be bound by Jon, since that would result in the attribution of contradictory properties to the individual Jon. Seg can therefore choose Jon as binder without - by (12), generalized or not - being forced to have the RP as binder. The RP being unable to be bound by Jon, it also follows that the option with seg selv (referring to Jon) is impossible, there being no co-argumenthood. (A further possibility, on this account, might be that seg selv is bound by the RP, but that the RP is not bound by Jon, the interpretation being that Jon was somehow affected by someone else's self-offending; such a reading is not available, however, for reasons to be mentioned in 5.2.2.) 5.1.3. Implicit arguments in other constructions Apart from nominal and special cases of verbal constructions, RPs will also be assumed to appear in certain adjectival constructions, carrying the meaning of an understood 'for whom' or 'to whom'-phrase. A case where such an RP partakes in binding relations is the 'super-EQUI' construction, exemplified in (17): (17)

John thought that it would be fun RP [PRO to walk]

t

It

I

We assume that RPs have a fairly unrestricted capacity of finding binders in the linguistic context; when they themselves serve as binders, however, the binding relation is restricted according to the category of the bindee, as is clear from the preceding discussion. Another case of RPs associated with adjectives is 'Tough Movement'

Implicit

Arguments

181

constructions, illustrated in (18); the binding relations apart from the one between RP and P R O follows proposals in Chomsky 1982: d8)

| 1 J o h n is difficult R P [Op [PRO to talk with e ]] 1 * * 1

Figure (18) is an example where the R P is not b o u n d , and thus picks its own reference, just like u n b o u n d RPs in nominal and verbal constructions. 7 Further factors affecting the possibility for anaphors to have an R P as antecedent are addressed in 5.2.2. In all the cases looked at so far, the Implicit Argument appears in a position which is not governed by the head V, N, or A. The possibility probably cannot be excluded for an R P to appear in a position such that if an N P had occurred in that position in the syntax, the N P would have been governed. (A process which could generate this situation formally is that of Object Deletion, mentioned in 1.2.3.3.) We lay down as a general principle that RPs are never governed; hence, in such cases as well, the R P will count as ungoverned. 8 H o w this relates to the issue of licensing is addressed in 5.3. After these illustrations of how RPs interact with the binding of anaphors and P R O , we turn to the question of what distinguishes between P R O and RP. 5.2. PRO VERSUS RP: THE VISIBILITY FACTOR

Some of the characteristics of P R O proposed in Chomsky 1981 clearly apply to RPs: both can be bound/controlled, both can act as binders, both have theta-roles independent of the role of the binder (if there is one); furthermore, RPs are ungoverned, and so is, according to c o m m o n assumptions, PRO. The question must therefore be addressed whether P R O and R P are really two distinct categories, as we are assuming. In this section, we present and review various types of evidence indicating that there is such a difference. The factor in which the difference resides will be called visibility. Thus, P R O , along with trace and phonologically full items, will count as being visible; RPs not. In the next chapter, we will argue that P R O is governed, and so the difference in visibility between P R O and R P will reside in the fact that P R O is governed; R P not. Since Indirect Object is generally a visible category, but not governed, as argued in 1.1.1, we still cannot reduce the visibility contrast in general to one of governedness. Section 3 to follow deals with the question how visibility should be defined.

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

182

5.2.1. Seg-reflexives and the visibility contrast We assume that PRO occurs as subject of infinitives. Evidence that PRO is distinct from whatever type of empty category appears inside NP is given by the contrast (19) (built on examples from von Bremen, ms): (19)

a.

A kritisere sine laerere er straffbart to criticize one's teachers is punishable b. * Kritikk av sine laerere er straffbart criticism of one's teachers is punishable

As we have seen, RPs are otherwise fully capable of binding seg-reflexives inside NPs. If the AGENT argument of kritikk in (19b) were just like PRO, it would then be hard to account for the contrast in (19). Assuming instead that RP and PRO are distinct categories, the contrast must be pinned on a putative requirement R, exerted by the anaphor on its antecedents which is met in (19a) but not in (19b). To identify R, we first notice that the requirement seems to hold only for the seg-anaphor - the examples of (20) are all wellformed: (20)

a. b. c.

Kritikk criticism Kritikk criticism Kritikk criticism

av of av of av of

ens laerere er straffbart one's teachers is punishable en selv er straffbart oneself is punishable egne laerere er straffbart own teachers is punishable

In defining the requirement, we notice that when the binding construction in (19b) is embedded inside an infinitive like in (21), where the Implicit Argument is bound by the PRO of the infinitive, wellformedness results: (21)

[PRO a fremsette [ RP kritikk av sine laerere ]] ^ advance f criticism of | teachers er straffbart is punisable

From examples (19) and (21), what matters seems to be either that the seg-anaphor be bound by PRO (or any phonologically full NP or trace) or that its binder in turn be bound by PRO. To state this requirement in a general way, we first define as a visible NP any phonologically full NP, trace, and PRO. Then, recalling the definition of antecedent given in (12), repeated as (22), we can state (23) as the relevant requirement concerning binding of seg:

Implicit

Arguments

183

(22)

Y is an antecedent of X if Y binds X or Y binds an antecedent of X.

(23)

Seg/sin must have a visible antecedent .

Clearly, this condition is met in (21), since PRO is one of the antecedents, but not in (19b). In the examples in (9), the condition is met since Jon is among the antecedents. That the direct binder of seg is not visible is thus immaterial. In discussing (23), we find it useful to have a notion of antecedent chain of an anaphor, defined as follows: (24)

The antecedent chain of X is the ordered set of all antecedents of X, written , such that each item is bound by the item immediately preceding it in the ordering.

Principle (23) thus says that, in the antecedent chain of seg/sin, at least one item must be visible. Looking more closely at (19) and (21), we see the adjective straffbart 'punishable' is among those which have a 'for whom' argument, representable as an RP in P-structure. The binding constellation in (19b) is thereby (25a), giving the antecedent chain (25b) for sine; this chain still lacks visible items, and the construction is out. For (21), the full P-structure analogously is (26a), with (26b) as the relevant antecedent chain; again, the added RP is immaterial as far as satisfaction of (23) is concerned, PRO being the 'saving' item. (25)

(26)

a.

[ 2 RP kritikk av sine] lasrere er straffbart iRP | criticism I teachers punishable "

b.

a.

[PRO â fremsette[ 2 RP kritikk av sine laerere]]er straffbart ,RP I t If I *

b.

< , R P , PRO, 2 RP>

As mentioned in the discussion of (9b), repeated here,

184 (9)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar a.

Jon ble gjenstand for et overgrep mot seg (*selv) Jon was subject to an offense against himself

there is one construal which might appear formally possible but which still is not available in (9b), namely one where seg selv is bound by the RP, as illustrated in (27): (27)

Jon ble gjenstand for et x overgrep RP mot seg selv subject to attack f against |

The fact that this construal is impossible, or at least highly artificial as a reading, is predicted by (23), since seg selv has no visible antecedent. To see further the effect of (23), together with the fact that egen 'own' is not subject to it, but is generally bindable by Implicit Arguments, consider the contrast between sin and egen in the pair (28) from Fretheim 1984: in (a), egne can have either Larsen or (preferably) an RP different from Larsen as antecedent; whereas in (b), sine egne must have Larsen as antecedent (whether via an RP or not), as predicted by (23): (28)

a.

b.

Larsen oppdaget Larsen discovered egne barn own children Larsen oppdaget Larsen discovered sine egne barn his own children

flere tilfeller av RP mishandling av many instances of mistreatment of

flere tilfeller av RP mishandling av many instances of mistreatment of

There is thus telling empirical support for introducing the principle (23), which entails drawing the distinction between PRO and RP in terms of visibility. As we have said, a closer analysis of this notion is deferred to 5.3. Before considering further distinguishing traits between PRO and RP, we first address a constraint which somewhat resembles (23), but must be kept apart from it. 5.2.2. Determinate

Anchors

By the conditions discussed so far, (29) should be all right, but it is not: liste seg 'tiptoe' is a non-argument reflexive construction (cf. 3.2), so that deg in (29) is understood as the 2.person form of seg and needs a binder, which can be only PRO. PRO is visible and within the required domain of the reflexive; hence there seems to be some restriction on permissible binders which is not met by this occurrence of PRO.

Implicit (29)

185

Arguments

*Dette huset kan bli this

vanskelig PRO a

house may become difficult

liste

to tiptoe

deg inn i into

Example (29) contrasts with (30), which are both good: (30)

a.

b.

Dette huset kan bli vanskelig for deg PRO a liste this house may become difficult for you to tiptoe deg inn i into Dette huset kan bli vanskelig PRO a liste seg this house may become difficult to tiptoe inn i into

In (a), PRO is in turn bound by the overt NP deg; in (b), PRO has no overt binder, the only difference from the situation in (29) being that in (29) PRO may be construed as being bound by 'you' as an Implicit Argument, whereas in (30b), this Implicit Argument is the generic 'one'. What, then, can the generic 'one' have in common with phonologically full NPs? We will propose that phonologically full NPs and empty categories referring to the generic 'one' have an important property in common, by which we will characterize them jointly as Determinate Anchors. A Determinate Anchor is a referring expression whose referent is uniquely determined. For phonologically full NPs, this condition is usually met, given normal discourse contexts. For empty elements which are bound, be they trace or PRO, the binder similarly supplies the referent. For empty elements which are not bound, there now clearly cannot be many referents to choose between, if such elements are to be able to pick their referent by themselves. If they are to have this ability at all, there can in fact be only one potential referent. Among the conceivable candidates for serving as such a referent, speaker and hearer might be two; but they vary according to who speaks and listens, and for an empty element, a more stable referent may be desirable. A «»«-varying referent of comparable generality would then be the generic 'one'. We hypothesize that this is exactly the entity which has been chosen as a 'constant' referent of the empty non-bound element, be it PRO or RP. There being exactly one referent of the (deictic) empty category, this category will act as a Determinate Anchor. We are not by this claiming that an empty element must either be bound or refer to the generic 'one' - Implicit Arguments and PRO may clearly

186

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

pick up contextually suggested values. What we claim is that Determinate Anchors function as a natural category which may be referred to in a linguistic principle, and that (31) thereby is a plausible rule: (31)

An anaphor must have a Determinate Anchor in its antecedent chain.

This principle explains the commonality between (30a) and (30b), as opposed to (29), where the RP fails to act as a Determinate Anchor. We have now proposed two conditions on antecedent chains for anaphors, (23) being confined to seg-reflexives. The principle (31) seems more general, judging from examples like (32):9 (32)

a. b.

It may be difficult ??(for us/them) to talk about each other It is fun ??(for me) to shave myself

For seg-reflexives, there accordingly are two independent conditions holding for their antecedent chains. Reviewing this chain for one of the examples treated earlier, repeated, (26)

a. b.

[PRO a fremsette [ 2 RP kritikk av sine laerere]] er straffbart I t It I iRP1 I i

we see that condition (23) is met by PRO, whereas condition (31) is met by 2RP, i.e., by distinct members of the chain. Normally, of course, a phonologically full NP fulfills both conditions simultaneously, and even an empty element can fulfill both, in an example like (33), where PRO refers to the generic 'one': (33)

Vi snakket om det PRO a liste seg inn i hus we talked about it to tiptoe into houses 'we talked about tiptoeing into houses'

Although both conditions thus apply to seg-reflexives, their mutual independence must be kept in mind, and as far as the issue of visibility is concerned, only (23) is relevant. 5.2.3. Further differences between PRO and Implicit Argument In Williams 1985, the notions 'PRO' and 'Implicit Argument' are used essentially as we have now used 'PRO' and 'RP', and Williams bases the

Implicit

Arguments

187

difference between PRO and Implicit Argument on the following three claimed contrasts. First, he argues, what identifies an NP-internal Implicit Argument is its role, not its position. That is, the choice of controllee is based on the role of the controllee and is a property to be somehow encoded in the lexical description of the matrix verb. For the verbs in (9) and (7), for instance, the controllees are identified as follows: (34)

a.

b.

begi 'commit' takes an object N P whose head N has a set of theta-arguments such that one of these is A G E N T and is controlled by the subject of begi. vaere gjenstand for 'undergo' takes an N P object whose head N has a set of theta-arguments such that one of these is P A T I E N T and is controlled by the subject of vaere gjenstand for.

In contrast, the thematic role of PRO in infinitives seems much less essential, as indicated by pairs like (35): (35)

a. b.

Jon Jon Jon Jon

fors0kte P R O tried forsakte PRO tried

a to a to

skyte shoot bli skutt be shot

Second, while PRO, when c-commanded by its binder, cannot alternate with a phonologically full NP, an Implicit Argument can, as witnessed by the pair (36)/(37): (36)

Jon gjennomfiarte henrettelsen av presidenten Jon carried through the execution of the president

(37)

Jon gjennomferte sin henrettelse av Jon carried through his execution of presidenten med st0 hand the president with steady hand

Third, PRO in infinitives is characterized by occurrence in a fixed position, namely as subject. Considering the appearance of Implicit Argument inside NP, if it were similar to PRO, one might expect it to occur in the NPinternal position most analogous to subject, namely the genitival position. In testing out whether this is the case, an independent factor must be taken into account, namely that A G E N T S are standardly realized in genitival position. For that reason, an Implicit Argument functioning as A G E N T may select genitival position anyway, and so telling evidence is

188

Anaphora

in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

o b t a i n e d only f r o m cases where the Implicit A r g u m e n t is not A G E N T . T o illustrate, in a case like (38), (38)

J o n s l0fte o m a Jon's promise

ga to go

lafte ' p r o m i s e ' involves b o t h a promiser ( A G E N T ) a n d promisee ( B E N E F A C T I V E ) , Jon bearing the A G E N T role, a n d the promisee-role t h u s has to be carried by an Implicit A r g u m e n t , if g r a m m a t i c a l l y realized at all. H o w e v e r , in (38), this Implicit A r g u m e n t is u n a b l e to control the P R O , as depicted in (39): (39)

AGENT BEN Jons lofte RP om | promise j ^

[ P R O ä gä] |

This might seem to indicate that an Implicit A r g u m e n t can act as a controller only when the genitival position is o p e n f o r it, as in (40): (40)

loftet o m a ga the p r o m i s e to go

This in t u r n m a k e s such an Implicit A r g u m e n t look like P R O , whenever it acts in the capacity as a binder. E x a m p l e (41) might seem to s u p p o r t the p o i n t - here Jon has the promisee role, b u t is the only possible controller, a n d again this might be a t t r i b u t e d t o its occurrence as a genitive, an a p p a r e n t l y PRO-like p r o p e r t y : (41)

J o n s lofte o m a fa ga J o n ' s p r o m i s e to be-allowed-to go

A n alternative a c c o u n t of these cases, which we p r o p o s e , will in the first place invoke the principle (42), which is a condition o n the f o r m of lexical templates of nouns: 1 0 , 1 1 ' 1 2 (42)

Given a n o u n N , if the genitival position of the N P in which it occurs is filled by a phonologically realized N P , then the role A G E N T can not be p a r t of the C S of N unless it is linked to t h a t genitival position (or to a 6y-phrase).

By this principle, A G E N T is linked t o Genitive in (39) a n d is absent f r o m the operative template f o r the n o u n in (41). 13 This difference fits in with the reading of the infinitives in these examples: the infinitive in (39) can

Implicit

Arguments

189

be controlled only by an AGENT, whereas in contrast, the infinitive in (41) requires a BENEFACTIVE controller, because of the form fa, which signals absence of agentive power on the part of the individual of which the infinitival predicate is true. On this account, thus, tne facts of (39) and (41) are not attributed to a PRO-like nature of Implicit Arguments as such, but to a special connection between AGENTs and the genitival position. What this account predicts is now that when the infinitive allows for control by a BENEFACTIVE, and condition (42) is fulfilled, then a controlling Implicit Argument does not require the genitival position to be empty. Example (43a), which has the control relation indicated in (43b), shows that this prediction is borne out: (43)

a.

b.

Politiets anmodning om a forlate lokalet ble the police's request to leave the place was fulgt followed Politiets anmodning RP om PRO forlate lokalet

Here the controlling Implicit Argument is not an AGENT, and so is not expected to be a Genitive anyway. A reasonable conclusion thus seems to be that Implicit Arguments as such are not forced to be in genitival position when acting as binders or bindees, and thus that they do not have the fixedness of position typical of PRO. This, then, constitutes one more difference between PRO and Implicit Argument. The examples (44b,c) are additional examples where the NP-internal Implicit Argument controls the PRO of an infinitive, despite the appearance of another item in genitival position: (44)

a. b. c.

fors0ket the attempt garsdagens yesterday's garsdagens yesterday's

pa a unnslippe to escape forsek pa a unnslippe attempt to escape lofte om a ga promise to go

This holds also when the item bound by the Implicit Argument is a reflexive:

190 (45)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar a. b.

Jon Jon Jon Jon

gjorde made gjorde made

et inngrep pa seg selv an operation on himself kveldens inngrep pa seg selv the evening's operation on himself

Notably, though, the Implicit Argument in these cases is A G E N T , and by (42), an A G E N T should not be able to serve as Implicit Argument once the Genitive is occupied by an N P with a different role. It is possible that (42) should be modified such that the only roles over which A G E N T has priority to the genitival position are those which are central in the CS in question. Adverbial roles, like the one of kveldens in (45b), are not central. 14 The differences between PRO and Implicit A r g u m e n t / R P considered in the present subsection - apart from the one involving alternation with full NPs - could be claimed to follow if we treat RP as an instance of PRO: if we assume that PRO must be ungoverned, and that N is a nongovernor, all positions inside NPs are in fact open for PRO. In clauses, in contrast, if one assumes that subject of infinitives is the only ungoverned position, then PRO-in-S is forced to obtain only there. This would account for the positional freedom of RPs in N P as opposed to the fixedness of PRO's position in S. Given the positional freedom of the former, it would in turn follow that their theta-role rather than any fixed position plays the role as identifying feature. Thus this second property of RPs as well might be seen to follow from their being categorized as PRO. The contrast in visibility treated in 5.2.1, however, seems impossible to account for if PRO and R P are counted as one and the same category. Hence, only the differences adduced in that section provide telling evidence that the categories be kept distinct. The upshot of the facts adduced in the present subsection is rather to complete the picture of the two categories, assuming that they really are distinct.

5.3. T H E F O R M A L REPRESENTATION O F

VISIBILITY

A category counts as non-visible if and only if it belongs to the category we have so far written as 'RP'. Furthermore, only those categories which appear in S- or NP-structure are visible, so that the total derivation of a sentence yields a direct representation of which items in it are visible and which ones are not. Hence, there are two potential sources from which the relevant information can be drawn when the binding constellations in a given P-structure are checked with regard to the principle (23), repeated:

Implicit (23)

Arguments

191

Seg/sin must have a visible antecedent.

One can either make an inspection of the entire derivation of the sentence, or one can look for presence versus absence of a specific mark indicating 'visibility', such as the category 'RP'. The former option constitutes a kind of global operation whose formal impact is not clear, and should probably not be adopted as long as alternatives exist. The latter option means that 'RP' is crucially defined as '-Visible' as a category feature. We will choose this option. Ideally, one would want the feature ' + /-Visible' to be reducible to some other constellation of independently necessary features. One candidate would be a feature representing government, since no RPs are governed. However, among those elements which are visible and maximal projections, there are some which are not governed, Indirect Objects being one example (see 1.1.1). All we can provide is then only the one-way entailment rule (46): (46)

If an item is governed, it is ' + Visible'.

What guarantees the desired distribution of the feature '-Visible' will be the stipulation that only the rules expanding NP-structure to P-structure, and the rules expanding lexical templates for NP-structure to lexical templates for P-structure, can introduce this feature. This may feel like a brute force arrangement, but there is no way around. That RPs are not visible does not mean that they are exempted from licensing requirements. RPs are accepted in a given P-structure only if there is a template providing matching RPs. Such a template is defined for an X°-item, so that application of the template amounts to a confirmation of the occurrence of that item. That is, in terms of the ' * 'removal mechanism, the application yields removal of the ' * ' accompanying the X°-item. In addition, now, this application must also involve the removal of * ' s attached to the RPs present in the P-structure representation. The same mechanism for confirmation of maximal categories is thus invoked here as we use for Indirect Objects, as outlined in 1.2.1.2. Summarizing the licensing of maximal categories, it thus takes either of two forms: 1. Licensing (i.e.,'""-removal) is entailed by the presence of a feature ' + Governed'. 2. Licensing is effected as part of the application of a lexical template; this form of licensing applies to Indirect Objects in the syntax and RPs in P-structure.

192

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

All of the Implicit Arguments with which we have been concerned in this chapter have the status of internal arguments relative to the word they are arguments of. In the next chapter we turn to items which share certain properties with Implicit Arguments but will count as external arguments; these may then seem to complete the category of Implicit Argument as far as the external/internal classification goes. Notably, though, they will count as visible, and thus cannot be subsumed under the formal category RP. FOOTNOTES 1. The literature on implicit arguments, in a sense at least close to the present one, includes Manzini 1983, Chomsky 1985, Williams 1985, 1987, Roeper 1986, Safir (forthcoming); further references are found in these works. 2. The view that Implicit Arguments essentially reside in the thematic structure of lexical items is shared by most authors. As to formal implementation, Roeper 1986 proposes that this structure be part of the feature composition of a morpheme and that any role inside this feature complex may act as a binder. In a given morphological combination, a role feature may be unable to percolate up to the mother node and, thereby, by lack of c-command, be unable to bind a node in for example a complement structure. This is the mechanism corresponding, in our system, to the inability of producing a P-structure template accepting an RP when the role to which this RP would be linked has been deleted from CS. Comparison between the approaches on empirical grounds would be interesting. On a principled basis, we hold [1] that constituents, not features, are what act as binders (cf. also remarks in 6.3.1, on a partly similar case) and [2] that morphological structure does not sufficiently reflect derivational processes to fully reflect the sources of deletions within CS - Middle Formation seems to be one case in point. Thus, we expect that morphological structure only imperfectly can decide when theta-roles 'survive' or 'percolate up', and that even when it can decide, the construal of the theta-role, when acting as a binder, as a feature of a node, is to pin the function as a binder on the wrong type of grammatical entity. (It should be noted, though, that one type of Implicit Argument is identified by Roeper as a constituent, namely PRO; having nothing like our P-structure, Roeper is forced to use a syntactically visible type of constituent once he links a role to a constituent at all.) 3. In * The boat sank in order to collect the insurance, from Manzini 1983, A G E N T has degree 0 of presenthood; its contrast to ( l a ) follows by the same account as the one applying to (lb). 4. The fact that the construction is informed also when PRO is bound by John is irrelevant to the present point. 5. Still another hypothesis could be as follows: When an Implicit Argument RP is bound, as it is in (7), no special requirements apply to it concerning membership of an active thetaframe. It is only when the RP initiates a binding-chain, as it does in (6), that it must be part of an active theta-frame. This restriction, which is highly tentative, is akin to two constraints to be proposed in 5.2.1 and 5.2.2. It predicts that a construction like (i) should be wellformed, however, as opposed to (ii), since the RP initiates a chain in (ii) but not in (i); but it is difficult to see much difference in acceptability between these two; hence this proposal is not too convincing either: (i)

"John indulged in treatment nude

Implicit (ii)

Arguments

193

" T r e a t m e n t n u d e angers everyone

6. (12d) is not the only 'principle of choice' for reflexives. Consider (i) a n d (ii): (i)

Jon fortalte seg selv o m seg selv J o n told himself a b o u t himself

(ii)

*Jon fortalte seg selv o m ham selv J o n told himself a b o u t himself

F r o m the possibility of Jeg fortalte Jon om ham selv 'I told J o n a b o u t himself (cf. C h a p t e r 2), one would expect (ii) to be wellformed, with seg selv as binder of ham selv. A purely descriptive principle accounting for why this isn't possible might go like (iii): (iii)

If a reflexive C has two antecedents A and B, which b o t h are in a possible binderposition relative to C, and A p r e d i c a t i o n - c o m m a n d s C b u t B d o e s n ' t , then only A can be chosen as b i n d e r .

By this convention, only Jon in (ii) is in principle eligible as binder of ham selv, but in this constellation, the C o m p l e m e n t a r i t y Principle of C h a p t e r 3 requests seg. Why there should be such a principle as (iii) deserves f u r t h e r investigation. 7. Since this R P initiates a binding chain, it would follow o n the p r o p o s a l in f o o t n o t e 5 that the R P is part of an active t h e t a - f r a m e , in the terms introduced earlier. This is a reasonable assumption. 8. T h e case of object pro in Italian discussed in Rizzi 1986 might be an instance of an R P p a r t a k i n g in binding and predication relations. Evidence as to whether it is an R P or p r o would have to be obtained f r o m other criteria, such as the visibility property to be addressed later, if such a f a c t o r is relevant at all in Italian. Otherwise, this would be a case whose analysis is strictly undecided by o u r theory. A n o t h e r possible instance of RPs in governed position is mentioned in f o o t n o t e 22 to C h a p t e r 6, being e m p t y N P s in Chinese. A related case of R P s is suggested in Williams 1985, noting the c o n t r a s t in (i), where (a), by his j u d g m e n t , c a n n o t m e a n that M a r y m a d e her promise to the d o c t o r , whereas in (b) this is possible. This difference might be traced to principle C of the Binding theory of C h o m s k y 1981 'seeing' an Implicit A r g u m e n t in the indirect object position: (i)

a. b.

M a r y went to the d o c t o r ' s office, and she promised that the d o c t o r would not see her again until she was really sick Mary went to the d o c t o r ' s office, and she promised that he would not see her again until she was really sick

The j u d g m e n t is of course a bit delicate. W h a t the case will have in c o m m o n with Object Deletion cases is t h a t the Implicit A r g u m e n t a p p e a r s in a position where NPs can occur; on the other h a n d , this N P is not governed, being an Indirect Object. 9. These types of d a t a were b r o u g h t to my attention by R. Oehrle, personal c o m m u n i c a t i o n . 10. T h e way (42) comes into play formally may be as part of a rule deriving n o m i n a l LLs f r o m verbal LLs, determining whether in this derivation the A G E N T is deleted f r o m CS or not. 11. See 1.2.1.2, last p a r a g r a p h , concerning the possible consequences of such a condition for the way of enforcing E P P p r o p o s e d there. T h e principle (42) fulfills clause [1] of the discussion of that p a r a g r a p h . By the way we have stated it, it does not necessarily apply in the syntax, hence it does not satisfy point [2].

194

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

12. Relating to the discussion in 1.2.6.2 concerning the preference by AGENTs to occupy Genitival position, (42) states part of this fact, but not all of it: it would be compatible with (42) that AGENTs are never expressed or understood at all in NPs; whereas the normal case is that they are expressed, be it in genitival position or in a ftj'-phrase. (42) thus must be supplemented by some kind of positive principle to this effect. A further point is why these constraints should be there at all. One speculation was made in 1.2.6.2; for quite different suggestions, exploiting a claimed syntactic nature of A G E N T RPs, see Roeper 1986. 13. Given a derivation from the verbal stem, the role is present underlyingly, and thus has a presenthood of degree 1, in the terms from 1.2.3.2. 14. See Roeper 1986 for an alternative account, invoking a possibility of multiple genitival positions, one being 'adverbial' in nature and distinct from the one where A G E N T would be realized. (In Roeper's account, the item occurring here would be PRO.)

Chapter 6

External Implicit Arguments

This chapter begins by an examination of a type of construction to be called Antecedent Contained Anaphora (ACA). Problems of their analysis lead us to posit an abstract level of representation, to be incorporated into the construct P-structure, which was treated in the preceding chapter and in Chapter 1. This new aspect of P-structure yields a uniform representation of the predication relation across categories and contains a variety of Implicit Arguments which act as external arguments. This constitutes the main content of Section 1. The new type of Implicit Argument in P-structure turns out to do many of the tasks previously (in the G B literature) assigned to PRO. The same holds for the NP-internal Implicit Arguments considered in the preceding chapter. A question then arises as to whether P R O is necessary at all, as a category distinct from Implicit Argument. Answering this question in the affirmative, we claim however that P R O is distributionally limited to one single position, namely subject of infinitive, and that it is governed in this position. The visibility of P R O posited in Chapter 5 thereby follows. This is the content of Section 2. Section 3 addresses various issues concerning the level P-structure. One is how it relates to the construct Predicate Structure posited in work by Edwin Williams. Another issue is how the existence of Implicit Arguments in general affects the validity of the Theta Criterion and the Projection Principle posited in Chomsky 1981. In discussing these questions, we also address some points raised in Chapters 1 and 3 concerning the Thetacriterion. In Section 4 we return to the phenomenon of Antecedent Contained A n a p h o r a , now addressing its possible consequences with regard to the i-within-i-condition (from Chomsky 1981). We propose that this condition is not to be seen as a structural constraint applying to S- or NP-structure, but rather in essence as a semantic constraint. We here also invoke the putative notion of proxy-binding: this is a relation which an item may have to enter into at a syntactic level even though the licensing relation for the item will obtain only in P-structure.

196

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

6.1. A N T E C E D E N T C O N T A I N E D A N A P H O R S A N D E X T E R N A L A R G U M E N T S ACTING AS BINDERS IN P-STRUCTURE

6.1.1. Antecedent-Contained

Anaphors (ACA)

In the examples in (1), the anaphors are contained in a type of complex attributive expressions found in all the Germanic languages except English. The question we address here is what to identify as binders of the anaphors. 1,2 (1)

a.

b.

c.

En av seg selv meget beundret mann fikk stillingen A by seg self highly admired man got position-the A man, highly admired by himself, got the position To av hverandre meget beundrede konkurrenter Two by each other highly admired competitors slass om stillingen fight about position-the Two competitors, highly admired by each other, are fighting for the position En for sin fremgangdypt misunt mann fikk A for his progress deeply envied man got stillingen position-the

The anaphors do seem to obey their normal binding conditions. Thus, since the attributes express properties, the predication condition on seg appears to be fulfilled; 3 and from the contrast in (2), it is also reasonable to take the intervention factor concerning hverandre to be in force. (2)

a.

to over hverandres artikler meget oppbrakte two about each other's articles very consterned skribenter writers two writers, very consterned about each other's articles b. ?*to over Jons artikler om hverandre meget two about Jon's articles about each other very oppbrakte skribenter consterned writers 'two writers, very consterned about Jon's articles about each other'

At least the following four possibilities suggest themselves as syntactic binders for the anaphors (using seg selv as representative for all of the anaphors):

External Implicit Arguments

197

1. The dominating NP-node:

seg selv It is this configuration which suggests the label 'antecedent contained anaphor', abbreviated as ACA. 2. The head noun of N2: (4)

NP

seg selv 3. The determiner of the dominating NP:

198

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

4. A PRO-element located as in (6):

* PRO

AP

seg selv What counts in favor of alternative 1 is that it is the dominating N P which fixes the reference of the anaphor, and thus semantically acts like an antecedent. What counts against it is that this binder will dominate the anaphor, and thus stand in none of the command-relations to it generally obtaining between binder and bindee (see our proposals in 4.4). (We may also note that the configuration is of the kind intended to be principally excluded by the 'i-within-i' condition of Chomsky 1981; however, we propose in Section 4 here that this is not a restriction on syntactic configurations.) The main drawback of alternative 2 is that the head noun is not a referential expression of the same type as the anaphor, and so is semantically implausible as a binder. 4 What might otherwise seem unappealing about this option is that the binding relation goes in the opposite direction of what is normal, the anaphor preceding its binder. This, however, could possibly be ascribed to a general preference for relations to go leftwards in constructions headed by adjectives; thus, as examples (1) and (2) show, adjectives take arguments realized as PPs to their left. Option 3 also suffers from the drawback that the alleged binder is not generally of the reference fixing category (although when the Determiner is a demonstrative, that can be argued to be the case). Furthermore, anaphors of the present kind can occur even when no Determiner is present, like in the N P for sitt mot beundrede menn 'for their courage admired men'. 5 Finally, consider alternative 4. The PRO in (6) clearly must have a binder in turn, which will either be the dominating NP, in which case alternative 4 will suffer from the same potential drawback as alternative 1, or it may

External Implicit

199

Arguments

be the head noun or the determiner, which will make alternative 4 inherit the merits or flaws of alternatives 2 or 3. In addition, it must be noted that no phonologically realized NP ever occurs in the position occupied by PRO in (6), quite unlike for example the PRO preceding infinitives. There is thus no clear syntactic motivation for positing this PRO-element. As none of these analyses are quite satisfactory on syntactic grounds, let us see if the PRO of alternative 4 may have merits on semantic grounds. 6.1.2. Semantics of

ACA-constructions

The aspect of 'meaning' to be addressed here is the question of how predicates expressed inside an N P select their 'subjects'. In accordance with the terminology laid down in 1.1.2, predicates are monadic expressions (simple or complex), which means that from an extensional set-theoretic viewpoint, they denote sets. Among the categories generally expressing predicates are AP, N 1 , N 2 , V 1 , V2 (the list is not complete). What we are now leading up to is in effect to introduce the partial format of a formal level of representation, namely P-structure. At the present point, though, our invocation of formal notation serves only for the purpose of illustration. What we want to illustrate is how the pairing of predicates with subjects goes under alternatives 1-3 on the one hand, and alternative 4 on the other. For this purpose, assume the notational format of standard predicate logic. An NP of the f o r m [ D e t [ A P N'] n 2], with Det as an operator like the existential operator, will have the pairing suggested in (7) under the alternatives 1-3, 'x' representing the referent of the entire NP: (7) NP ..

Op

x

[ N(x)

& AP(x)...

Here, the circumstance that the understood subject of the two predicates A P and N 1 is one and the same is provided without any invocation of a PRO-element. The pairing between syntactic and logical form may be seen as induced in accordance with theories of 'generalized quantifiers'

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(see e.g. Barwise and Cooper 1981, Dowty et al. 1981), where NPs serve as functions f r o m sets of sets to truth-values, with the Determiner part contributing their quantificational force. In the notational f o r m a t of Montague 1974,6 an N P like a cat will thus be representable as in (8a), and the determiner a as in (8b), where 'P' and ' Q ' are variables ranging over sets, and 'x' ranges over individuals (along with 'y' and 'z' in later examples). 'E' is the existential operator: (8)

a. b.

a cat = > XQ Ex[cat(x) & Q(x)] a = > A.PAQ Ex[P(x) & Q(x)]

Rules inducing the constellation (7) will be (9), which apply to syntactic trees in a b o t t o m - u p fashion, combining 'translations' of the lower nodes (represented by the node-labels in boldface) to a 'translation' of the higher node, as indicated to the right of the arrow; (10) illustrates for a simple construction, the nodes N 2 and N P there being annotated with the translations induced by the rules in question: (9)

(10)

a.

NP

b.

De C ^ N2 AP

= > Det (N 2 ) "N 2 = > Ay[AP(y) & N'(y)] N1

= > X Q Ex[house(x) & yellow(x) & Q(x)] Det _,N 2 = > Xy[house(y) & yellow(y)] AP ^ N ' = > house | = > yellow | a yellow house

The rule in (9b) is a set intersection rule. Its effect is seen in the two upper lines in (10), where y / x is required to be in the intersection of the set of houses and the set of yellow things. Clearly, the semantic rule inducing this identity between the subjects of 'house' and 'yellow' says only the bare minimum of what has to be said about this kind of modifier constructions. Then consider the semantics of alternative 4. Since [PRO AP] constitutes a clause-like structure, no set intersection rule can be applied directly to the structure in (6). In order to make the application of such a rule possible, the minimal addition required to the above apparatus will be the rule (11), which deviates f r o m what is otherwise the normal thing to say a b o u t the predication relation, namely that it constitutes a sentence: (11) says about the configuration in question that it functions as a predicate.

External Implicit

Arguments S

(11)

¡PRO

201

= > Xxi[AP(x,)]

AP

Thus, while (11) will interact with (9) to give the desired output, it represents an otherwise unmotivated addition to the interpretive principles of the grammar. Hence, from a semantic point of view, the PRO in alternative 4 far from yields any advantages: it represents a complication compared to what alternatives 1-3 require. Likewise if one embeds the syntactic configuration in (11) in some structure like 'L[S]\ where S is interpreted as a clause and 'L' represents the A-operator: in that case, 'L' is an abstract syntactic element void of independent motivation. Alternative 4 thereby comes out as the least desirable among the four. 7 Although the demonstration on which this conclusion is based draws on a particular formalism, its intuitive point is clear and will undoubtedly come through on any alternative choice of formal notation. Our conclusion to the present subsection is thus that alternative 4 be rejected. It still remains to positively identify the binder of Antecedent-Contained Anaphors. Our proposal follows in the next subsection. 6.1.3. Binding in P-structure Although alternative 4 is arguably the least desirable among the four, none of the other three are unproblematic either. We now propose that the proper binder of Antecedent-Contained Anaphors is not to be found at the syntactic levels (S- and NP-structure) at all, but rather at a more abstract level where NPs are analyzed in a way corresponding to Figure (7). At this level, predicates inside an NP are 'unfolded' in the way indicated in (7), with subjects materialized as constituents corresponding to the bound occurrences of 'x'. A difference is that whenever the formalism above provides the function-argument notation 'P(x)', the new type of representation converts this format into the form '[[X]NP [ P ] V P ] S \ where [x]Np has the canonical position of a predication-subject relative to P. These subjects will now act as binders of AC A. Figure (12) illustrates with an analysis of en av sine venner beundret mann 'a by his friends admired man': 8,9

202 (12)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar ExfTl

av

Gen | sine I bound by

N j beundret venner

As is readily seen, the binding relation marked in the second conjunct is perfectly standard, with the binder c-commanding the bindee and both belonging to the same category. Thus, as far as standard requirements on binding relations go, [X]NP in this second conjunct is fully acceptable, and we propose that this type of NPs serve as binders of ACAs. Once we make such a proposal, the type of representation exemplified in (12) will define its own level of representation, distinct from S- and NP-structure, where NPs have their surface form intact. The type of abstraction introduced at this level seems compatible with the type earlier introduced at P-structure, however: the Implicit Arguments introduced in Chapter 5 being uniformly internal arguments, it is possible to view the 'x' elements now in question as the external argument counterpart of these Implicit Arguments and to have both appear in P-structure. Thus, the configuration in (12) will count as a P-structure configuration. Care still has to be taken that the 'x'-elements now introduced are not identified with the RPs of the preceding chapter. The latter, it will be recalled, are defined as '-Visible'. A seg-reflexive with only RPs in its antecedent chain is not acceptable, as shown in 5.2.1, the formal requirement being phrased as (13): (13)

A seg-reflexive must have a ' + Visible' antecedent.

Since the reflexive in (12) has only the 'x'-element as antecedent, and is acceptable, the 'x'-element must count a s ' + Visible'. Hence it is categorized in (12) as an NP, which by definition is ' + Visible'. As was anticipated

External Implicit

203

Arguments

in the introduction to Chapter 5, we will still subsume the 'x'-element under the notion Implicit Argument. Once [x]np counts as visible, a question is how it gets this status, being absent from the levels S-structure and NP-structure. We assume that the status is inherited from the syntactic N P giving rise to ' x \ Since V is in a sense a representative of this N P in P-structure, this is a legitimate move. Technically, it is achieved by reformulating (8b) as (14) and otherwise relying on the standard convention that heads of a phrase share the features of the phrase, Det being the head of NP: (14)

[a]net

M

=

X P A Q E [ x ] N P [ P ( [ x ] N p ) & Q ( [ x ] n p )]

M

|«|

M

Here, ' a ' is the set of features characterizing the syntactic NP dominating Det, including the feature '+Visible'. With the present configurations, P-structure provides the uniform format of representing predication which was mentioned in 1.1.2: all the predicateexpressing categories are now entered as sisters of their subject at one level of representation or another, N 2 and attributive AP having P-structure as this level. Thereby EPP can be imposed on all categories, as said in 1.1.2.

Det and Infl are missing in the S-configurations in (12); and we assume that in P-structure they occur in positions corresponding to their semantic scope, hence outside the minimal clausal structures. As will be recalled from 1.1.2, these items serve an important role in licensing maximal categories in the syntax. A question which might then be asked is how predicates become licensed in P-structure, the elements serving as their governors in the syntax being absent. The answer is that since the predicates have already been licensed in the syntax, no licensing conditions need to be fulfilled at the P-structure stage. The logic here is thus the same as for [x]Np. Concluding this section, we have proposed that the binders of ACA appear only in P-structure, as a kind of empty elements which may be subsumed under the notion 'Implicit Argument'; contrary to the RPs of Chapter 5, these Implicit Arguments are visible and serve as external arguments of nouns and adjectives. In the derivation of P-structure from NP-structure, two types of processes are involved: internally to predicates, RPs are added, as described in Chapter 5. Externally to predicates syntactically located inside NPs, the set intersection rules provide an abstract N P as argument

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of

204

grammar

of the predicate (seen as a function), a constellation which is spelled out in the standard grammatical tree format illustrated earlier. Some further properties of these Implicit Arguments, relating to the putative 'i-within-i' principle, are addressed in Section 4 to follow. Before that, we extend the results of the present section and relate them to the status of PRO, and then we consider some general properties of P-structure.

6.2. PRO

In the light of the results f r o m the preceding section and Chapter 5, we now address the status of PRO. A m o n g the issues to be discussed are why we should assume the existence of PRO, where P R O occurs, a n d what licenses its occurrences. 6.2.1. Motivation for and distribution

of PRO

In much of the G B literature, P R O has been assumed to appear in any ungoverned position where there is reason to assume an empty element with an independent theta-role. Thus, possible positions for P R O are thought to include subject of infinitive, 'subject' of A P and prenominal position. One of the upshots of Chapter 5 is that P R O does not appear inside N P at all, and one conclusion of the preceding section is that attributive APs do not have a P R O as sister. The last argument can be replicated for APs serving as 'loose' subject adjuncts, like in (15): (15)

a.

b.

Jon og Per mottes igjen, fulle av tillit til J o n and Per met again, full of confidence in hverandre each other Jon kom f0rst, vel tilfreds med seg selv J o n came first, quite satisfied with seg self

The anaphors occurring here need co-argument binders, and structurally, the boldfaced items are too far away to serve this function. Like f o r ACAs, then, one alternative for serving as a binder will be a PRO-item occurring as sister of the AP; another alternative will be an N P in P-structure. The motivation for the latter solution is a repetition of the reasoning f r o m above. In the structure (16),

External Implicit

205

Arguments

(16)

tilfreds med seg selv the V and the AP both denote sets, i.e. serve as predicates, and Jon is interpreted as belonging to the intersection of these sets. In accordance with the earlier analysis, this is then another case where the understood identity of the subjects of the predicates can be captured through a setintersection rule. The rule (17b) will be such a rule, yielding, together with the other 'translation rules' in (17), a representation reading roughly 'Jon came first and Jon was satisfied with himself, the second conjunct of which comes out as the P-structure (18): (17)

a.

b.

/

VP c.

VP 1 = > Ax [VP(x) & AP(x)] AP

[Jon] N p = > AQ[Q(Jon)]

(18) NP

AP

Jon

tilfreds

bound by

206

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

Crucially, configuration (18) is one which allows the binding relation entered, which means that this occurrence of seg selv gets accepted in P-structure. Against the alternative of using PRO, the same reasons apply as before: like for attributes, the position preceding the AP is never occupied by full NPs, depriving the proposal of any immediate syntactic motivation. Semantically, the PRO is superfluous in exactly the same way as it is in an analysis of attributive constructions, set-intersection being the most straightforward way of capturing the identity of the subjects. 10 We therefore conclude that the type of anaphors in adjuncts exemplified in (15) will be confirmed in P-structure, just like antecedent-contained anaphors, and hence that no PRO is to be assumed preceding these APs either. This line of reasoning leads to the tentative conclusion that PRO can appear only as subject of infinitives. A more radical conclusion might in fact suggest itself, namely that PRO is dispensible with altogether. Such a position is unwarranted, however. In the first place, the contrast in visibility on which the recognition of Implicit Argument RPs is based, presupposes the existence of a visible empty ungoverned category, i.e., what we now call PRO, occurring in subject position of infinitives. Moreover, this PRO serves as terminator for hverandre, along with phonologically realized NPs (cf. Chapter 2). In addition, the contrast represented by examples like (19), observable in English and Norwegian alike, suggests that a syntactic item like PRO is available, restricted to subject position of infinitives. The contrast is discussed in Williams 1983: (19)

a. John tried to be clever b. *John tried clever c. John made Bill clever d. John arrived dead

The main points in Williams' account are given by the definition (20) and the principle (21), the Restricted Theta-criterion (Williams op. cit.,p. 300): (20)

An argument complex consists of a verb (or any other predicate), its arguments, its arguments' arguments, and so forth .

(21)

(The 'restricted Theta-criterion') In an argument complex, each phrase is assigned only one thetarole .

External Implicit

Arguments

207

In the terms of (20), all the material in each of (19a-c) belongs to the same argument complex; whereas in (d), dead is not an argument of arrived, and hence not in the same argument complex as arrived. John in (d) belongs to both complexes. The principle (21) now correctly predicts both (c) and (d) to be well-formed (as far as assignment of theta-roles is concerned): John in (d) gets only one theta-role with regard to each of the complexes where it participates; in (c), Bill gets a theta-role only relative to clever and John gets one only relative to made. Example (19b) is correctly predicted to be informed, since John here gets a theta-role relative to both tried and clever, both being in the same argument complex. The only way for (19a) now to avoid getting ruled out by the same principle is for it to receive the analysis (22): (22)

John tried PRO to be clever

The theta-role determined by clever can here be assumed to be assigned to PRO, so that John receives only the theta-role determined by tried. The reason why (19b) - John tried clever - cannot be saved in a similar way, on Williams' account, is that the only type of constituent which can follow PRO is VP; given that PRO is an NP, this follows from his 'VPstipulation' (23): (23)

Only VP appears in the underlined position in the base rule for S: S - > NP _

In our analysis, no rule of the form (23) would be invoked; rather, its content follows from the fact that in the context of Infl and an NP licensed by Infl, only VP can occur - see (15) in 1.1.2. AP cannot be licensed by Infl. Either way, what these alternative formulations highlight is the circumstance that by including PRO among the types of NPs visible in the syntax, we are entitled to give PRO the property belonging to this class in general, viz. that of being able to be followed by VP, and not by AP (in the Infl-configuration). Thereby accounting for the contrasts in (19), we have one more piece of evidence for the syntactic reality of PRO. In view of all of these points, it thus seems reasonable to recognize PRO as a syntactic category, visible in contrast to Implicit Argument RP, which patterns differently from PRO in all the respects now considered. An additional conclusion, still, is that PRO occurs only in the position subject of infinitive. We now explore consequences of this point.

208

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of

grammar

6.2.2. Licensing of PRO Once P R O seems to be restricted to occur in just one specific position, one question is how this restriction is to be formulated, another is whether it must be specifically stated, or follows f r o m independent principles or facts. The latter question is akin to the concern which partly lies behind the design of the Binding Theory of Chomsky 1981, which seeks to avoid any specific stipulation to the effect that P R O is ungoverned. We now present first some considerations indicating that even in the G B f r a m e w o r k , one has to stipulate that P R O is ungoverned. This being the case, it then is no more of a burden for a theory to stipulate that P R O is governed than it is for it to stipulate that it is ««governed. The approach we will take is in turn exactly to treat P R O as being governed, using specific governmental restrictions on P R O to predict its limited distribution. The governedness of P R O now also provides the way in which P R O is licensed. In brief outline, the G B Binding Theory achieves its prediction that P R O is ungoverned through the 'binding principles' (24) and the further premises (25): (24)

a. b.

An a n a p h o r is b o u n d in its governing category A pronominal is free in its governing category

(25)

a. b.

P R O is an a n a p h o r P R O is a pronominal

Because of (24), the only way to construe (25) as not inducing a contradictory state of affairs is by saying that P R O has no governing category. A governing category for X being a configuration where binding of X (if X is an a n a p h o r ) is possible and there is a governor of X, this means that P R O has no governor. As we established in Chapter 2, (24) is insufficiently general as a statement of binding domains of a n a p h o r s - it addresses only the 'locally b o u n d ' anaphors. It also fails to state the complementarity principle in its general form (see Chapter 3). As an observation, (24) still says something true, which can be recast in the form (26): (26)

Pronominals are not bindable within domains where a n a p h o r s are bindable.

Neither this observation, however, nor the general form of the Complementarity Principle, yields any way of deducing that P R O is

External Implicit

Arguments

209

ungoverned. This is one respect in which the alleged non-stipulated status of the ungovernedness of PRO fails to hold. Another circumstance which makes the alleged deduction questionable is that the statements of neither binding domains nor exclusion effects per se seem to require the notion 'govern', at least as long as lexical anaphors are in question. The use of the notion 'govern' in (24) thus appears to be a purely ad hoc ingredient in these statements, quite on a par with any explicit stipulation concerning the distribution of PRO. Third, one of the premises of the deduction, namely assumption (25a) - that PRO is an anaphor - is disputable. Consider (27): (27)

Vi snakket om det PRO a arbeide seg opp fra We talked about it to work oneself up from ingenting nothing

The PRO here is not bound, unlike what is typical of anaphors. If such an occurrence of PRO is to fall under the notion 'anaphor' at all, it seems that we have to define 'anaphor' as something like (28), assuming that the referential function of PRO in (27) is not what one would call 'specific':'' (28)

An anaphor is an element which has to be bound in order to have a specific reference.

An anaphor lacking specific reference thus does not have to be bound according to this putative definition. Given such a definition, it is unclear what to say about the non-argument reflexive in (29), which presumably does not have 'specific' reference: (29)

Jon skammer seg Jon is ashamed

According to (28), the fact that this [seg]NP must be bound cannot be attributed to the circumstance that it is an anaphor. Membership in some other category (e.g. the one of agreement markers, cf. 3.2.5.) must be responsible for this fact, and the answer to the question why [seg]NP should not count as an anaphor in (29) will be that it lacks specific reference - this is what distinguishes this occurrence of [seg]NP from the 'anaphoric' [seg]Np. But if this is to be a reason for an NP not to count as an anaphor (despite there being homonyms counting as anaphors), then, by parity

210

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of

grammar

of reasoning, P R O in (27) should not count as an a n a p h o r either. And if it doesn't, the fact that this variant of P R O occurs in an ungoverned position cannot be deduced f r o m (24) and (25) together; a separate stipulation is required for guaranteeing its distribution. Hence, a special stipulation is required to the effect that P R O is ungoverned in one case, and then nothing is lost by positing this as a stipulation on P R O in general. F r o m these considerations, we conclude that in a theory positing P R O as an ««governed element, there is no way of avoiding a specific stipulation to the effect that it is ungoverned. In our analysis, the restriction on P R O is much stricter than just that of being ungoverned - P R O can be subject of only an infinitive. We see no way in which this circumstance could be seen to follow f r o m other principles or facts; our concern, however, is to find a natural way of encoding this restriction. The purely negative conclusion f r o m above concerning the alleged ungovernedness of P R O suggests such a way, namely to posit a governor of P R O which at the same time acts as licenser of P R O and thus limits the distribution of P R O to exactly the position of the governee. As such a governor, we assume the infinitival form of Infl, abstractly forming a constituent together with the infinitival marker to/a. This governor, which we describe as 'Inf^TenseY, requires the form P R O of the (subject) N P it governs (see also 1.1.2, especially the discussion a r o u n d (16)). P R O being licensed through government, it then also follows that it is visible, governed items generally being ' + Visible' (cf. 5.3). Once P R O is claimed to be governed, it in effect enters the category 'pro', the governed empty pronominal. We still use the label ' P R O ' to make clear that we are talking of the empty pronominal occurring as subject of infinitive. Also, since Norwegian and English d o not exhibit the main phenomena on which the postulation of the item ' p r o ' has been based (cf. Chomsky 1981, 1982; Rizzi 1986; and many others), it is possible that distinctions still have to be drawn a m o n g the governed empty pronominals in such a way that the item we call ' P R O ' will come out as a special category. 12 6.3. PROPERTIES O F P - S T R U C T U R E

6.3.1. Relation to some notions of

Williams

In works such as Williams 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, the notions of predication and Predicate Structure play a crucial role, and some remarks are due on their relation to the equal-sounding notions adopted in the present work.

External Implicit

Arguments

211

In our analysis, the structural configuration of predication is sisterhood between NP and a predicate; cf. Section 6.1 and 1.1.2. Williams imposes the weaker structural condition that the predicate be only c-subjacent to the subject (where A is c-subjacent to B if there is at most one branching node dominating A but not B). Thus, a structure like (30) is taken to directly fulfill the structural condition for the AP to be predicated of the NP John.

Williams represents the predication relation by the subscripting indicated. One of Williams' reasons for requiring only a c-subjacency relationship between predicate and subject is that he counts control-constructions like (31) as instances of predication. (31)

a. b. c.

John promised me to buy the book John persuaded me to buy the book John tried to buy the book

In Williams 1980, he argues that by counting the infinitives as predicates of the form (32), predicated oiJohn¡, one can account for a set of properties of these constructions distinct from other control-constructions, properties which define what he calls 'obligatory control'. (32)

[ s PRO to buy the book}

Leaving open the validity of Williams' analysis of control, the question from our viewpoint is how the anaphor in (30) is accounted for; like the Norwegian selv-anaphors, it must be bound by a co-argument, but John is not structurally in a position to serve as co-argument for himself, nor is any P-structure configuration available on this analysis. Williams' proposal is that himself is bound by the index of the AP, assuming that

212

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

the predication-indicating indices on predicates can bind anaphors inside them. Moreover, rather than using the notion co-argument in restricting the class of possible binders, Williams requires that an anaphor be bound in its minimal predicate. 13 Consider, however, what it means for a predication-index to bind an anaphor - it would sound close to a category mistake to say that the mark that a certain relation exists, binds an anaphor. 14 Williams suggests (in Williams 1984) that this predication-index be interpreted as a X-operator, presumably such that the APi in (30) corresponds to the structure (33). (33)

Xxi[ x{ content with himself]]

There is then no problem with the status of the predication-index as a binder. There is rather a problem how to construe (33) within the total analysis - what purpose does the X-operator serve? At what point is the function-expression in (33) provided with an argument? Williams is not explicit about this, but on a reasonable interpretation of his proposals, it looks as if the expression (33) is created for exactly the same purpose as corresponding X-expressions are created in (17) earlier, namely to provide the AP with an external argument directly at some level of analysis, which of course may then resemble our P-structure. But if so, Williams' use of the predication-index in (30) as a binder seems to reduce to exactly the analysis we have proposed, so that the indexed structure (30) holds the place for a P-structure configuration of the type we derive by (17). If so, in turn, it may be possible for Williams, with reference to this level of P-structure, to impose a sisterhood requirement on the relation between predicates and their subjects. Having thus pointed to the possibility that our notion of P-structure is implicit in Williams' representation of predication, and thereby that the structural configuration of predication may ultimately be the same in both frameworks, let us address Williams' notion of Predicate Structure (PS). This is a level where those binding relations which require a binder ccommanding the bindee are checked/represented. In this concept, PS is clearly distinct from any of our levels, which are generally not defined relative to what types of conditions apply there. In particular, the predication relation is representable at all levels in our model; whereas in Williams' model, it is restricted to PS. Moreover, PS has no introduction of Implicit Arguments, as P-structure has. Thus, PS is clearly distinct from P-structure. Part of the motivation for the adoption of PS is given in Williams 1982,

External Implicit

Arguments

213

where certain assumptions concerning PS form part of an account of the assumed illformedness of the NPs in (34): (34)

a. *John's appearance to leave b. *John's arrival dead c. *the city's destruction of by John

Diagnosticizing the illformedness of (34a,c) to be due to illicit NPmovement, Williams invokes a set of constraints combined with indexing conventions to account for why the trace-binding relations in question inside NPs are prohibited. Within this package of constraints/conventions is what he calls the Strict Opacity Condition (SOC), which applies to PS and whose effect is to enforce anaphora-binding to take place inside minimal clauses. As we saw in Chapter 2, seg must be predication-commanded by its binder, which means that the rule for seg should apply at PS. The possibility of long distance binding of seg, however, then provides a strong countercase to SOC. 15 As we will see in Section 4, also another of Williams' assumptions, namely that i within-i functions as a syntactic constraint, is dubious. Hence, the place of PS in the package of assumptions mentioned yields no compelling motivation for adopting PS, and it will not have a place in our framework. Within our own framework, the most straightforward way of ruling out (34a,c), at least as instances of NPmovement, is by requiring that NP-trace be bound by an external argument, which a genitival NP is not. As for (34b), judgments vary as to its wellformedness. 16 Concluding these remarks about PS and Predication in Williams' terminology, we have seen that PS is distinct from our P-structure, and not part of our framework. Williams' notion of predication turns out to be potentially closer to our notion than it might look, because of the circumstance that a construct like our P-structure may play a larger role in Williams' formal analysis than has been made explicit. 6.3.2. The Theta-Criterion and the Projection Principle The Theta-Criterion of Chomsky 1981 states that each theta-role expressed in a sentence can have one and only one NP to realize it, and that no NP can express more than one theta-role. Let us call this the 'original theta-criterion'. The reason why Williams' theta-criterion referred to in (21) above is 'restricted' is that it exempts a certain class of roles from the requirement of being realized syntactically, namely the roles of the EAs of heads not being part of argument complexes; that is, the EAs of heads of modifying constituents.

214

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of

grammar

This same class is predicted to be syntactically non-realized within our system, since they are exactly those NPs which emerge as EAs in P-structure as a result of the set intersection rules. As long as their appearance in P-structure suffices to fulfill the L L of the item of which they are EAs, there is no need that they appear in the syntax. What guarantees that this class comprises only the class allowed by Williams' principle is that the set-intersection rules are the only ones which supply EAs in P-structure. This will be our only stipulative move in order to achieve the effect of the Restricted Theta-criterion, stated as (35); no statement like (21) is thereby needed: (35)

Only set-intersection rules can create external arguments in Pstructure.

The reason why (21) may be called a theta-criterion within Williams' framework is that the syntactic level he discusses is presumably the direct interface with whatever level is taken to represent theta-roles. In o u r system, however, the interface to theta-roles is the level LS inside lexical templates, meaning that in our system, a principle to deserve the label 'theta criterion' should concern the relation between CS and LS inside lexical templates. A principle with the effect of (21) rather holds the role of the Projection Principle of Chomsky 1981, according to which the pattern of realization of theta-roles be the same at all grammatical levels. Principle (21), or (35), may then be seen as a loosening of the Projection Principle, since it allows certain EAs present at one level (i.e., P-structure) to be absent at others (syntax). 17 In view of the introduction of Implicit Argument RPs in P-structure, much more of a loosening of the Projection Principle is called for, however: RPs functioning as internal arguments are here introduced without any other limit than the number of theta roles carried by the head lexical item. In fact, the Projection Principle may be suspended completely as far as the relation between P-structure and other levels is concerned. In return, it holds fully for the relation between NP-structure and S-structure. Consider now the Theta-Criterion, acting as a constraint on the relation between CS and LS in a lexical template. In its strongest conceivable f o r m , it would require that each theta-role be matched by exactly one argument, and that each argument have exactly one theta-role. This can be rephrased as two 'at least' requirements and two 'at /wos/'-requirements. The 'at least' requirements are that from CS to LS each role has at least one argument, and that f r o m LS to CS each argument has at least one role. Let us refer to these clauses as 'CS - > L S / at least one ' and 'LS - > C S / at least one', respectively. Correspondingly for the 'at most'-clauses.

External

Implicit

Arguments

215

In o u r f r a m e w o r k , the 'at least'-clauses are clearly not fulfilled. As we have seen, theta-roles can be left u n c o n n e c t e d with LS-arguments, at least in the LLs defined for syntactic structure (see 5.1 a n d 1.2.3), a n d we allow syntactic a r g u m e n t s to be non-connected with theta-roles (for the example of expletive det, see 1.2.4.; a n d f o r n o n - a r g u m e n t [seg]NP, see 3.2.). A motivation behind the existence of u n c o n n e c t e d roles is that in a derived L L suited for P-structure, these 'dangling' roles are in effect connected with an a r g u m e n t ; so in this sense, one might see the i n t r o d u c t i o n of P-structure as 'feeding' a theta-criterion, i.e., generating LLs which d o fulfill the ' C S - > L S / a t least o n e ' - p a r t . But clearly, there is n o general requirement that all theta-roles be connected with an L S - a r g u m e n t a n d vice versa. T h e 'at most'-clauses say t h a t when a theta-role has a connection to LS, then it should have no more than one L S - a r g u m e n t connected with it; a n d when an L S - a r g u m e n t has a connection to CS, then there should be no m o r e t h a n one role of CS connected to it. W e call these ' C S - > L S / at most o n e ' a n d ' L S - > C S / at most one', respectively. N o violations have a p p e a r e d of the f o r m e r principle, but we have n o t e d three possible exceptions to the latter. O n e is what was called depictive constructions in 1.2.5, exemplified by like the coffee black, where the coffee seems to get a theta-role b o t h f r o m like a n d f r o m black. A n o t h e r concerns the contrast between the impossible adjective * tept ' r u n ( p a s t perf)' a n d the possible f o r m bortlapt ' r u n - a w a y ' , discussed in 1.2.6.1.; the third concerns the alternation between piske seg til d0de 'whip oneself to d e a t h ' a n d piske seg selv til dede (same meaning), discussed in 3.2.5. T o a c c o u n t f o r the second f o r m in each of the latter alternations, we p r o p o s e d that the N P involved has a theta-role b o t h f r o m the matrix verb a n d , as E A , f r o m the e m b e d d e d predicate (bort a n d til dede, respectively). If so, even the 'at m o s t ' p a r t of the theta-criterion defined on LLs is threatened. Given o u r position f r o m 6.2 concerning P R O , we c a n n o t insert a P R O as external a r g u m e n t f o r the c o m p l e m e n t s here to ' a b s o r b ' the theta role coming f r o m the c o m p l e m e n t s (as we could in 6.2.1, where the c o m p l e m e n t s are verbal). T h e fact t h a t in each case the N P receives one of the two roles in the capacity as external a r g u m e n t may, however, suggest a subregularity in this type of exception to the 'at most'principle. 1 8 Pending the possible f o r m u l a t i o n of this regularity, it seems clear t h a t the 'at most'-principle still states what is the normal situation, so that p e r h a p s it can be m a i n t a i n e d as some sort of markedness principle. In conclusion, the relation between S-structure a n d N P structure fulfills the Projection Principle in its strongest f o r m ; whereas the principle is violated severely in the relation between syntax a n d P-structure: in P-

216

Anaphora

in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

structure, Implicit A r g u m e n t s are introduced, in EA-position if the head is a modifier, and in internal a r g u m e n t position within the limits allowed by the CS of the LL in question. These limits are set by o u r c o u n t e r p a r t to the Theta-criterion, which applies to the relation between CS and LS inside LLs. It says that no theta-role can be assigned to more t h a n one argument (absolute requirement) and (possibly, a n d only as a markedness principle) that n o argument can have m o r e t h a n one theta-role. T h e corresponding conceivable 'at least'-statements d o not hold: a theta-role can be nonlinked with arguments, and an a r g u m e n t can be non-linked with theta-roles. The 'original theta-criterion' thus is untenable in our f r a m e w o r k , but a very restricted version of it holds, partly as a putative markedness principle. 6.4. ANTEDECENT-CONTAINED ANAPHORS A N D THE I-WITHIN-I CONDITION

The i-within-i-principle (henceforth i/i) proposed in C h o m s k y 1981 prohibits syntactic configurations of the f o r m (36) (in (a) a n n o t a t e d with the traditional type of indexing; in (b) with the type a d o p t e d here; in b o t h cases representing a as binding f3): (36)

a.

a\

/A

b.

¡a

l>\

A m o n g the putative syntactic analyses of A C A considered in Section 1, both alternative 1 a n d alternative 4 represent violations of i/i. As f o r the analysis we a d o p t e d , construing the binding relation as being confirmed in P-structure, we have a choice whether or not to have it violate i / i in the syntax. The binding relation in P-structure being representable as in (37), the token-index of the binder may or may not be identical to the token-index of the syntactic N P it corresponds to. (37)

[x] N p . . .

Anaphor

The rule introducing this binder being (14), repeated, (14)

[a]Dei l«l

=

X P X Q E [x]np [P([x]np) & Q([x]np )] j or I |o| |o|

and given inheritance of inherent features f r o m the t o p N P node to Det (Det being head of NP), it is clear that the N P in question has a tokenindex of the partial form < . . . , a , N P > . The question is whether the integer part of the index should be 'i'. Since this N P and the [x] N p occur at distinct

External Implicit

levels of representation, for them to bear the same index to any inconsistently indexed tree; and since they logically each other, it makes sense to identify them across levels. syntactic form of AC A will be (38), i.e., the pattern (36), i/i: (38)

217

Arguments

does not lead correspond to If we do, the prohibited by

NP

If i/i were adopted as a syntactic constraint, with the effect of simply rejecting any sentence whose syntactic representation had the form (36), regardless of what structure it would have in P-structure, this would thus entail choosing the other option, i.e., letting the top NP in (38) have an integer j distinct from i in its token-index. Such a choice would presumably have no negative consequences; hence, on this choice of indexing, our analysis of ACA would not lead us into conflict with i/i. Let us now look at some further cases along this line; through these considerations, we will end up proposing that there in fact is no syntactic constraint i / i, which means that representations of the form (38) are admitted after all. The question of whether to assume an indexing like in (38) arises also in the analysis of the constructions (39), a partial P-structure representation of (39d) being indicated in (40): (39)

a.

En beundrer av seg selv blir aldri helt An admirer of seg self becomes never quite ulykkelig unhappy b. ?Beundrere av hverandre blir som regel enige Admirers of each other become usually agreeing 'Admirers of each other usually agree' c. En venn av seg selv er normalt et hyggelig A friend of seg self is normally a nice menneske â snakke med person to talk with d. Jeg er pâ jakt etter et bilde av seg selv I am hunting for a picture of itself

(40)

Ex[...[ [x]Np [bilde av seg selvVJs ...] t I

218

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

In these constructions, the anaphor is inside N 2 , not AP, but the configuration relative to the NP-node corresponding to 'x' in (40) is otherwise the same as in the ACA cases with adjectives. Given the wellformedness of (39), obedience of i/i again suggests that the top NPnode in (38) have an integer j distinct from i in its token-index in these cases. Interestingly, configurations quite like those in (39) have been commonly used as examples of constructions violating i/i, such as (41): (41) * ¡[a picture of iti] However, compared to (41), a picture of itself is much better, its only possible flaw being that it denotes an impossible object. But in view of the complementarity principle for anaphors (cf. Chapter 3), this contrast is exactly what we expect, since the reflexive is a co-argument of 'x' in (40), and thus in a position where only a reflexive is allowed to be bound (by 'x'). Hence, what appears to exclude (41) is not i/i, but the complementarity principle for anaphors, a point clearly brought out through the P-structure format of representation. Ill-understood factors still contribute to rendering constructions similar to (39) less acceptable. In (42), the NPs otherwise just like those in (39) are definite, and this leads to illformedness or semi-illformedness: (42)

a. ?Beundreren av seg selv kom for sent The admirer of seg self came too late b. *Vennen av seg selv kom for sent The friend of seg self came too late c. ??Beundrerne av hverandre spilte ping-pong The admirers of each other played ping-pong

However, there is a feeling that even in (42), the anaphors are acceptable if one - in the use of the construction - somehow construes the dominating NP in two steps: first with the N2 constituting a kind of 'reflexive predicate', and then tying this predicate to a referent. In contrast, if one 'refers directly' with the dominating NP, the examples in (42) become worse. The latter use may most naturally go together with the definite form, but the contrast is clearly not one of definiteness. It may rather be characterized as reference via description versus reference supplemented by description. For the present, we have no good suggestions to offer as to how this contrast should be formally represented.

External Implicit

Arguments

219

Although ACA thus seems in principle possible also with the anaphor as an argument of the noun, one still has to account for why ACA is much more uniformly acceptable in adjectival constructions. The following is a speculation: ACA, having no binding-relation confirmed in the syntax, still needs a substitute for such a relation, and this substitute we propose to call proxybinding. Possibly, a proxy-binder ought to be outside the maximal projection of the head taking the anaphor as semantic argument. Assuming that in both cases the proxy-binder of the anaphor is N°, this putative condition is fulfilled in the configuration (43), but not in (44), the structure of (39) and (42):

A somewhat remote support for giving proxy-binding such a role is provided by an analysis of 'antecedent-contained VP-anaphors' proposed in Hai'k 1985a.19 She notes a contrast between the following examples: (45)

a. Robert visited everyone who wanted him to b. *Robert visited everyone who wanted Albert to

To account for the possibility of antecedent-contained VP anaphora/ deletion in general, she exploits a mechanism of QR and index-changes which need not concern us here. These devices, and the ensuing constellations at LF (and LF', in her terminology), are unable to distinguish between (45a) and (b). As an additional principle, Ha'ik therefore proposes that the empty VP receive some sort of binding also at-S-structure, which will not be 'real' binding, but predication. Furthermore, she requires that when one of two identical items in a structure partakes in a relation of type R to an occurrence of a given item G, then the other must too,

220

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

so that both relate to occurrences of the same item. This requirement is fulfilled in (45a), as illustrated in (46), but not in (45b), since Albert would here not count as identical to Robert. (46)

Robertj [vp visited everyone whoi ei wanted himj to [vp e ]k ]k t I t 1 a b

(We leave open in what sense one is here speaking o f ' i d e n t i t y ' ; the indexing in (46) is of the traditional, symmetrical type.) This role of the predication-relation as an operative factor in the determination of wellformedness of antecedent-contained VP-anaphora/deletion clearly resembles the putative role of 'proxy-binding' in A C A , so it may seem plausible to count both types of 'extra' binding-relations as proxybinding. In turn, this will make proxy-binding an important factor in the wellformedness of antecedent-contained p h e n o m e n a in general. These remarks, though, are little more than a speculation. 2 0 Consider now i/i. Given the preceding observations, the question arises whether this principle really has a status at all in the syntax. In the semantic area, some constraint akin to i/i may be operative, and it is possible that such a constraint should take over the role of i/i entirely. Thus, authors such as Haik 1983, Higginbotham 1983, and Williams 1982 propose that the i/i-condition is most adequately construed as a ban against what they call Referential Circularity (RC). RC obtains when, roughly described, the item X determines its reference partly by means of the item Y, whereas Y in turn determines its reference partly by means of X. The examples (47) f r o m Hai'k 1983 illustrate, only (a) here falling within the group of i/i-violations, while all of them involve RC (the indexing is symmetrical, as used by the author): (47)

a. *[ a picture of iti]i b. *[herj husband]] likes [his; wife]j c *[hisk wife], told [hen daughter^ [herj father]k was angry

In Hai'k's terms, all of these are ruled out by condition (48), where 'referentially dependent' is defined as in (49), again in terms of symmetrical indexing, and 'be dependent u p o n ' is a transitive relation. (48)

No item can be referentially dependent upon itself.

External Implicit Arguments (49)

221

When NP, contains a free pronoun or variable indexed i which draws its reference from NP,, then NPj is construed as referentially dependent upon NPj.

The same results are obtained in Higginbotham's (op. cit) 'linking' formalism, i.e., a use of indexing like ours, via his definitions (50) (cf. (12) in Chapter 5) and (51), with the rule in (48): (50)

Y is an antecedent of X if X is linked to Y or, for some Z, X is linked to Z and Y is an antecedent of Z .

(51)

X is dependent on Y if (i) Y is contained in an antecedent of X or (ii) for some Z, X is dependent on Z and Z is dependent on Y.

In these terms, the binding configuration (52) is excluded, but not (53): (52)

(53)

| | [her husband] likes [his wife] I i j 1 [his wife] saw John, [her husband]

Also (54) is informed since, by definition (51), the bindee it is dependent on this very it. (54)

[a picture of it] Lt

RC thus covers a wide range of cases, including those commonly construed as being ruled out by a syntactic principle of i/i, here represented by (54). This latter case was argued earlier to be excluded also by a complementarity principle on anaphors and pronominals. There need not be a redundancy in this, however, if we think of the complementarity principle as ruling out (54) on the construal where it is bound, while RC rules it out on a construal where it refers freely (cf. discussion in 3.5). The notion 'referential' otherwise needs to be made precise, for instance with regard to the distinction 'reference via/supplemented by description'. Assuming that this can ultimately be done, no particular role now seems to be left for i/i as a constraint on syntactic structure per se. We therefore, albeit tentatively, conclude that no such constraint is in operation. As a consequence, the factor of possible violation of i/i can be ignored when considering the desirability of an indexing such as in (38), repeated, the question which initiated this section:

222 (38)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar NP^

Anaphor>-

6.5. C O N C L U D I N G

REMARKS

The notion Implicit Argument now comprises two categories: RP, which has the feature '-Visible' and occurs as internal argument, and the operatorbound item [x]Np, which is ' + Visible' and occurs as external argument. What they have in common is that they appear only in P-structure. It is conceivable that their difference in properties might ultimately make it desirable to split P-structure into two distinct levels of representation; but for the present, it appears both consistent and economical to locate both types of Implicit Arguments at the same level. The consequences drawn in 6.3.2 concerning the validity of the Theta-Criterion and the Projection Principle hold whether or not P-structure undergoes such a split. On the basis of the characterization of P-structure as it appears in Chapter 5, a further possibility might seem to be to collapse P-structure into NPstructure, as an enrichment of the latter: all structural configurations from the old NP-structure would presumably remain in the new one. Given the analysis of NPs of the present chapter, however, configurations are introduced which would presumably be incompatible with those of NPstructure as it appears at present; hence it does not seem fruitful to try to combine P-structure and NP-structure into one level. PRO has been shown to appear in one single position in the syntax, and we have proposed that it is governed in this position. A consequence may be that no distinction should then be made between PRO and 'pro'; but for reasons mentioned in 6.2.2, we still use the label 'PRO'. When [X]NP occurs as sister of AP in P-structure, its distribution relative to the AP is highly similar to what certain occurrences of PRO would have relative to APs in syntax. The question may then be asked whether the two analyses are significantly different, after all. The answer is yes. In the first place, [X]NP represents an aspect of the semantics of the constructions in question (that of intersective reading) which will have to be represented in any case, and which is most easily constructed without PRO appearing in syntax. Furthermore, as is clear from the analysis of constructions like (39) in the last section, [X]NP is invoked as external argument also of nouns in P-structure, an analysis to which there would

External Implicit

Arguments

223

be no corresponding syntactic analysis involving a PRO (recall that [X]NP in these cases is not associated with genitival position, but is a real external argument in our sense). 21 Thus, constructions putatively analyzable in terms of PRO correspond to only a subset of those analyzable in terms of [ X ] N P ; and, for that subset, using PRO in the syntax yields a more complex analysis than doing without it. P-structure being a bit more articulate in certain semantic respects than NP- and S-structure are, another question which may be asked is how P-structure relates to the level commonly called 'LF' in the GB literature, and other possible levels of semantic representation. In the following chapters, some considerations are made concerning such levels, and we return to the question in 7.3.5. 22 FOOTNOTES 1. We may note that because of the passive-like f o r m of the adjectives in these constructions, a n o t h e r type of element which might be conceived to p a r t a k e in binding relations here is NP-trace. By o u r p r o p o s e d analysis of derived adjectives in 1.2.6.1, however, there w o n ' t be any such traces in adjectival constructions. 2. Relatively little attention has been paid to this question in the generative literature. O n e reference is H o e k s t r a 1984, p. 207-208, w h o briefly suggests an analysis c o r r e s p o n d i n g to alternative 4 below. 3. T h e contrast in grammaticality between (i) and (ii) illustrates the point: (i) is excluded because the putative binder does not p r e d i c a t i o n - c o m m a n d sin; whereas in (ii), the a r g u m e n t c o r r e s p o n d i n g to this binder has been externalized and so p r e d i c a t i o n - c o m m a n d s sin: (i)

*Vi m u s u n t e Peter for sin f r e m g a n g we envied Peter for his progress

(ii)

en for sin fremgang misunt m a n n a for his progress envied m a n

4. T h e types we have in mind here are 'individual-referring' and 'predicative' or any f o r m a l construal of these, as e.g. in M o n t a g u e 1974. 5. On the kind of problems a c c o m p a n y i n g the postulation of null Determiners, see Carlson 1977. 6. Ignoring the intensional aspects of his analysis. 7. Notice that t h r o u g h either of these moves, alternative 4 has to give up what might otherwise have been a conceivable claim on its p a r t , namely to make it possible to maintain t h a t predicates are canonically sisters to their subjects in the syntax; such a state of affairs might seem attractive for uniformity reasons. The P R O occurring as sister to the A P in (6) would clearly fulfill such a requirement, but once the S containing P R O a n d A P is c o n s t r u e d as a predicate, or is part of a predicate, this new predicate fails to have a subject as a syntactic sister. A radically different proposal might be to avoid a set-intersection rule altogether a n d m a k e P R O correspond directly to one of the x's, as indicated in (i):

224

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

(i) NP O p x [ N(x) & AP(x)

...

D< S' PRO

N AP

Here, 'x' gets a dual source, as o p p o s e d to the single source in (7), a n d it seems clear that a great a m o u n t of extra a p p a r a t u s would be required to realize (i), m o r e t h a n the a p p r o a c h involving (11). 8. T h e exact formalism for the binding of 'x' by ' E ' need not detain us here. Likewise we leave open exactly h o w the scope d o m a i n of ' E x ' is to be m a r k e d . T h e r e may be parallels to the set-ups in C h a p t e r 2 of Heim 1982, which might be explored. 9. Notice that the position of 'x' in the first c o n j u n c t is not the genitival position relative to the N 2 , but the External Argument position (Genitives, we recall, are not external a r g u m e n t s ) . 10. Roeper 1986 claims that constructions like (i) are possible in English: (i)

The game was played angry at the referee

According to o u r line of reasoning, what o u g h t to be intersected here are the sets denoted by 'angry at the referee' and 'play the g a m e ' , and the entity u n d e r s t o o d to be in this intersection is the Implicit A r g u m e n t A G E N T of 'be played'. It is unclear whether this A G E N T can be provided as 'subject' of the intersected predicate in a technically consistent way, a n d so this type of construction may, if g r a m m a t i c a l , represent a coúntercase t o the claim t h a t subject-oriented a d j u n c t s of the type in question are generally provided with their 'subject' via a set-intersection rule. On the o t h e r h a n d , the construction is impossible in Norwegian (putative cases always having the a d j u n c t interpretable as an adverbial), and a p p a r e n t l y s o m e w h a t marginal even in English, to some speakers. 11. In view of o u r theory of Determinate Anchors put f o r w a r d in 5.2.2, even this a s s u m p t i o n is disputable. 12. An a r g u m e n t along different lines for e q u a t i n g P R O to p r o is offered in Borer 1987. See also Neidle 1982 concerning facts f r o m Russian which suggest that the e m p t y subject of infinitives is governed there. 13. See also f o o t n o t e 7 to C h a p t e r 2. 14. See f o o t n o t e 2 in C h a p t e r 5 concerning an o t h e r proposal of using features as binders of a n a p h o r s . 15. T h e fact that seg-binding inside N P s is largely subject neither to c - c o m m a n d n o r to predication doesn't alter this situation, unless one confines S O C to apply only f o r NP-internal binding. T h e n seg-binding is avoided as a countercase. But in that case, m u c h of the force of Williams' account is lost, since the putative restrictions o n NP-internal binding are now obtained f r o m principles specific for NP-internal binding. 16. See Safir ( f o r t h c o m i n g ) f o r discussion of both types of constructions. T o him, the type (34b) is acceptable a n d is also construed as evidence that N P - m o v e m e n t is operative inside NPs; if he is right, then the issue of (a) a n d (c) clearly c a n n o t be set aside quite as easily as we have done. 17. T h e line taken by Safir 1986 mentioned in 5.1.2 may be seen as an a t t e m p t to m a k e Implicit A r g u m e n t s behave m o r e in a c c o r d a n c e with the Projection Principle. 18. See R a p o p o r t 1986 for a proposal along this line. 19. This interpretation of her result is o u r own; in Ha'ik 1985b she puts it into a quite different analysis.

External Implicit

Arguments

225

20. See Pitz 1987a,b for an analysis of G e r m a n constructions like Es lebt sich gut hier 'it lives itself g o o d here = it is good to live here' which invokes the notion of proxy-binding, a l o n g with an identification of the 'real' binder as an R P Implicit A r g u m e n t occurring in P-structure; the proxy-binder is es. 21. T h a t is, n o b o d y would - presumably - suggest an analysis like ' [ a [ [ P R O g o o d ] [ P R O runner]]]' for a good runner. 22. A f u r t h e r , rather intriguing question a b o u t the construct Implicit A r g u m e n t is whether it may serve in the analysis of languages with a multiplicity of ' e m p t y ' NP-positions, such as Chinese. Building on Xu 1986, we offer the following as a speculation: In Chinese, there is only one syntactic level, S-structure, where no trace-binding obtains, a n d no traces. Transitivity is generally o p t i o n a l with verbs, but obligatory with prepositions, such that the latter are always followed by full NPs (cf. Xu, op. cit.). In some cases, it m a y look as if the empty space following the intransitive version of a verb is really a trace b o u n d by a subject (in a passive construction) or a topicalized element. Xu argues that in these cases, n o n e of the usual requirements on trace-binding are fulfilled, a n d he suggests that Chinese has a type of empty element not attested in languages like English, which he calls Free Empty Category ( F E C ) . O u r p r o p o s a l is that F E C is not a syntactically realized element, but r a t h e r an Implicit Argument, present in P-structure, a level which is relevant in Chinese as well. We have seen that Implicit A r g u m e n t s have the capacity of being 'pragmatically b o u n d ' , i.e., of finding their content f r o m context, including syntactic context. In Chinese, f u r t h e r m o r e , full NPs can stand in a pragmatic connection with each other, such as in (i), where the subject and object stand in a ' w h o l e - p a r t ' relation (both this a n d the example below are f r o m Xu op. cit.): (i)

Z h e t a o chaju bei J o h n d a p o le liangge beizi ma? this tea-set by J o h n break A M two cup QM ' W e r e the two cups of this tea-set b r o k e n by J o h n ? '

Given the existence of such connections in Chinese, the expectation will be that if F E C is really an Implicit A r g u m e n t , then the a p p a r e n t trace-binding relations should be interpretable in this p r a g m a t i c way as well. A n d this holds true: a construction like (ii) may be interpreted with identity, as is always possible for p r a g m a t i c connection, but it may also be interpreted as a whole-part relation like the one in (i), if the context provides the b a c k g r o u n d i n f o r m a t i o n that it is the c u p which was broken: (ii)

Z h e t a o chaju bei wo d a p o le this tea-set by me break e 'this tea-set was b r o k e n by m e '

Once F E C are construed as Implicit A r g u m e n t s , we thus must allow Implicit A r g u m e n t s to be part of something looking like chains (in the sense of sequences of N P s only one of which is assigned a theta-role f r o m a verb), which they are not in Norwegian or English. However, what corresponds to trace-binding in Chinese is the pragmatic connection between a full N P a n d an Implicit A r g u m e n t in P-structure, instantiating the general p r a g m a t i c connection type which exists in Chinese, exemplified in (i). Just as the ¿»inrf/ng-relations in P-structure are special instantiations of binding of a n a p h o r s and P R O in Norwegian a n d English, so the p r a g m a t i c connection relation posited in P-structure in Chinese is but a special instantiation of a general relation of that language. This allows us to maintain t h a t [1] Chinese has no trace-binding a n d [2] in any given language, the relations obtaining in P-structure, involving Implicit Arguments, are just instances of relations f o u n d otherwise

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in the language. (The reason why there is nothing resembling trace-binding being confined to P-structure in Norwegian is then that the type of pragmatic chain in Chinese does not exist in Norwegian, neither with full nor empty NPs, and that the only type of chain formation existing takes as 'tail' an element which is syntactically visible, i.e., trace, so that the relation will obtain in syntax.)

Chapter 7

Sloppy and strict identity and the logical status of anaphors and binding

This chapter addresses a cluster of tightly interconnected issues. One is the analysis of the phenomena of sloppy and strict identity, for which a proposal is made in Section 1. The analysis has consequences for the exact functioning of the formal acceptance procedure for bound elements. Properties of seg-reflexives play a crucial role in these considerations. A second issue is the question of whether the notion of binding can be somehow related to the binding of variables in the sense of standard predicate logic and A-calculus. Section 2 relates this issue to the phenomenon of sloppy identity, and Section 3 relates it to the functioning of quantified NPs as binders of anaphors and pronominals. The issue borders on a range of topics pertaining to the desirability of including levels of logical form in grammar, and some tentative conclusions in this respect will be drawn from our discussion.

7.1. SLOPPY IDENTITY

7.1.1. Statement of the issue Given a pronominal or anaphoric element Y, we will say that Y bears sloppy identity to its antecedent X in case X contains a pronominal/ anaphoric item Z, X and Y do not have the same reference, and the difference can be construed as residing in what Z refers to, in the following way. Both (la) and (lb) has a sloppy identity reading as one of their two possible readings: (1)

a. b.

John drank his coffee willingly, and Bill did it reluctantly John drank his coffee black, while Bill wanted it with milk

The boldface item in each example is the item Y in the definition, the italicized item is X, and Z is his. On the reading we call sloppy identity, did it in (a) refers to the act of Bill drinking his own coffee, which is

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an act different from the one referred to by the antecedent drank his coffee in the first conjunct: here it is John's coffee which is drunk. The difference resides in the circumstance that did it somehow repeats the description 'drank his coffee', but now with 'his' referring to Bill. Exactly the same goes for (lb), now with it having a different referent than his coffee in the first conjunct: if we read it as somehow repeating the description 'his coffee', the hypothetical 'his' here refers to Bill, while his in the first conjunct refers to John. For each example, there is another reading where the boldface expression has exactly the same reference as the italicized expression; this is the socalled strict identity. Any succesful account of sloppy identity has to cover strict identity as well. The proposal of explicitly treating the examples in (1) as instances of the same phenomenon is a point we adopt from Hai'k (1985b, 1986). Our formal analysis of the contrast strict-sloppy, so generalized, is likewise influenced by her analysis. Our basic view of the contrast strict-sloppy for examples like (1) is as follows (using 'X', 'Y', 'Z' the same way as above): the pronominal item Y is to be construed as if it repeats the description X, as just suggested. On the strict reading of Y, the item Z, when hypothetically construed as appearing inside the repeated occurrence of X, is treated as fully evaluated, i.e. with a referent assigned before the 'repetition', and this must necessarily be John; hence John serves as reference both of the actual his and the hypothesized repeated version of it. On the sloppy reading of Y, Z - again inside the repeated occurrence of X - is treated as «»«-evaluated, i.e., as not yet having been assigned a referent. In its repeated version in the second conjunct, this amounts to Z being free to seek a binder, viz. Bill, and hence to get evaluated with Bill as its referent, while the occurrence of Z in the first conjunct finds John as antecedent. This is the view our formal analysis will try to render explicit. 7.1.2. Haik's proposal As a point of departure, we describe the analysis of sloppy identity proposed by Hai'k (op. cit.). In her proposal, the 'repetition' of the element X of the first conjunct is effected via an operation on a representation of the form illustrated in (2b), which is the L/^-representation of (2a); here, X is in an A-bar-position heading two A-bar-chains:

Sloppy and strict identity (2)

a.

229

John admires his dog, and Mary does too

b.

too The LF-structure (2b) is created via application of the rule Quantifier Raising (QR) to S-structure, raising 3 VP to the A-bar-position. The operation by which the 'copying' is effected is called 'reconstruction', an operation which, on this analysis, is not supposed to involve any 'movement back' of 3 VP, rather the notion of c-command is extended so as to allow both John and Mary in (2b) to count as c-commanding his. (See 8.1 concerning this concept of reconstruction.) Hai'k's choice of QR followed by reconstruction as the particular copying mechanism, rather than a more direct copying of VP from the first to the second conjunct (or some kind of deletion; see Sag 1976 and Williams 1977 on these latter alternatives), is based on various parallelisms with A-bar-binding/wA-binding in general, which we will not go into here. Crucial for our discussion is rather the particular choice of indexing illustrated in (2b): here both John in the first conjunct and Mary in the second carry the same token-index. Given that his has this particular index as its pointer-index, it follows that when 3 VP is reconstructed in both of the traces it A-bar-binds, then his is bound by John in the first conjunct and by Mary in the second, thus giving the sloppy identity effect. This treatment readily carries over to examples of the form (lb); i.e., it is independent of which category is in the A-bar-position. The generality desired is thereby achieved. One wrinkle immediately has to be sorted out in this account, namely the binding of his by Mary. Clearly, what has to be bound in this case is a pronominal form neutral with regard to gender, i.e., some kind of 'archi-pronominal', since binding generally requires matching features. We must assume that at the more abstract level represented in (2b), pronominals can be represented in this neutral form.

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Consider then the status of the identity of token-indexing found in (2b). Hai'k's proposal is that whenever structures are conjoined and parallel, then corresponding nodes can have identical token-indices. Although this may well be an executable principle, it is doubtful whether it accords with the logic of token-indexing, which ought to require distinctness of indexing within arbitrarily large domains, not just within clauses. Possibly, therefore, what has been represented as token-indices of John and Mary in (2b) are a new kind of indices, whose relation to token-indices is not yet defined. The preceding analysis is restricted to sloppy identity readings and does not address the issue of strict identity. To achieve a representation of strict reading for examples like those above, one possibility might be to make the identity of token-indexing just discussed optional, so that each sloppy identity representation would be paired by one assignment of indices (or a set of assignments) yielding strict identity. That is, (2b) would contrast with (3), which can induce only strict identity reading, John being the only possible binder: (3)

does

e

Notice, though, that such an account predicts that strict identity is possible only when the pronominal 'Z' is capable of coreferring with an item which is outside the clause where Z is and does not c-command Z. That is, with regard to the 'reconstructed' level, the configuration in which his picks out John as a coreferring item is (4):

Sloppy and strict identity

231

does

V

admire

NP NP 4

I

his

N

I

dog

Thus, the prediction will be that none of those anaphors which require c-command between binder and bindee, or some version of co-argumenthood, can have strict identity readings in constructions corresponding to (1) and (2a). However, this prediction is false, as shown by (5) for Norwegian sin and seg; these items require a c-commanding binder within the same finite clause, but all the examples in (5) have a strict identity reading alongside the sloppy one (again, ' X ' from the definition of the phenomena is italicized and Y is bold; in addition, reflexive-binding is boldface marked as usual): 1 (5)

a.

b.

c.

John snakker ofte om bilen sin, og det John talks often about car his and it gjer de pa verkstedet ogsa do those at the garage too 'John often talks about his car, and so do the people at the garage' Jon gir sin kone et gratt har per dag, J o n giveshis wife a grey hair per day og det gjer deres sann ogsa and it does their son too 'Jon gives his wife one grey hair per day, and so does their son' John hadde hert meg snakke nedsettende om seg, J o h n had heard me talk depreciatorily about him og det hadde de som stod rundt ogsa and it had those who stood around too 'John had heard me talking depreciatorily about him, and so had those who were standing a r o u n d '

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Hence, an approach to strict identity which simply makes token-co-indexing in parallel constructions optional is inadequate. Besides, such a move within the frame of Hai'k's analysis would strongly indicate that what is involved in the identical indexing is not token-indexing at all, but some new, extra mechanism, since there is nothing in the logic of token-indexing which suggests there should be more than one assignment of it in a given structure. We now propose an alternative to Hai'k's analysis, which accommodates examples like (5) directly and does not suffer from the conceptual weakness of having an extra 'token-index'-like mechanism in addition to the standard one. 7.1.3 The new proposal Our proposal involves a 'copying' process which replaces the strict/sloppy item Y with its antecedent X, in line with more traditional approaches. The binding process can apply either before or after this copying. The process of 'binding' itself will be conceived as a satisfaction process, where what is to be satisfied is an open place in the feature-characterization of the anaphor, namely the place for the pointer-index of the anaphor. Formally, the pre-satisfaction stage of an anaphor can be represented by form (6). (6)

NP Bound-by: [_]

I

a

The process filling in the pointer-index slot will try with alternative indices until one is found by which the binding conditions on the a n a p h o r / pronominal in question are satisfied. 2 For an anaphor Z in a construction of the form (7), which represents the schematic description we have been using, (7)

[ ¡NP . . . [ . . . Z . . . ] . . . ] and [ j N P . . . Y . . . ] Si X S2

the possibilities are now as follows ('[ ... Z ... ]x' is the part to be copied): [1] Z is satisfied before copying, say by ¡NP. The index 'i' then occupies the slot in (6) and remains there after copying has taken place, so that

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233

even in its 'copied' counterpart, Z is understood as referring to ¡NP. This is a strict reading. Since satisfaction happened prior to copying, and there is only one satisfaction, no search for a binder is necessary after copying, and hence no violation of the common c-command and clause-boundedness conditions associated with Z. [2] Z is not yet satisfied when copying takes place. Then, after copying, it must find a binder; and for the copy inside S2, this binder must necessarily be inside S2. If successful, this search then ends up with identifying some jNP as binder of the copied Z. The non-copied Z still identifies ¡NP as its binder. This is a sloppy identity reading. On this approach token-indexing is domain ««restricted and obligatory. Thus, both of the main problems on the former approach - that of having an extra, yet to be defined type of token-co-indexing, and that of (apparently) being unable to provide strict identity readings for anaphors - are solved: whereas its main virtue, that of providing a uniform treatment for the two cases in (1) (and for other categories as well), is retained. Like on the former approach, the copied item Z has to be an 'archi'form, neutral with regard to gender (and perhaps other features, such as number and person, as well). The only stipulative move possibly not present in the former approach is the invocation of a special copying process, as opposed to the (putatively) general QR. This issue is pursued in the next chapter, however, where we argue that 'reconstruction' with anaphors generally must involve actual movement. If this is right, the analysis of Hai'k will actually involve two stages: first, from (7), a QR yielding (8), and then a 'movement down' into both the trace position and the position of Y, yielding (9): (8)

[...Z...] [[¡NP...ek...]

(9)

[¡NP... [...Z...]...] and [ jNP...[...Z...]...]

icX

and |jNP...Y k ...]

Si

S2

]

This two-stage process clearly amounts to a copying of X into the second conjunct, and so is just one possible articulation of what we have so far called 'copying'. We will leave the actual form of this copying open, partly because we will not go into a general discussion of QR and partly because the issue is rather complex, involving not only co-ordination but also subordination, as in (10), from Karttunen 1969: (10)

The man who gave his paycheck to his wife was wiser than the man who gave it to his mistress

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

We assume, however, that whatever advantages Ha'ik's construal of 'copying' as QR may have can be carried over to our analysis. (See 8.4.8 for more details of this construal of copying.)

7.2. AN ACCOUNT OF VP-DELETION/ANAPHORA BASED ON ¿.-ABSTRACTION

This section presents an alternative approach to the phenomenon of strict and sloppy identity, phrased in terms of a A-abstraction formalism. We will argue that this latter approach is inferior to the one developed in Section 1; at the same time, it involves certain concepts and constructs which we will prove useful in the task we set ourselves in Section 3, that of explicating the notion 'binding', along with some phenomena of quantified NPs. For that reason, the X-based approach will be developed in slightly more detail than its merits vis a vis strict/sloppy identity might seem to warrant. 7.2.1. The analysis of sloppy identity Since the mid-seventies, proposals for analyses of VP-anaphora/deletion have been offered involving the use of A-abstraction. 3 Briefly sketched, the way such an analysis accounts for sloppy identity is as follows, illustrating with an analysis of (11a): (11)

a. b.

John admires himself, and so does Mary

4 NP

2 VP = > / \ \

John

7 NP 4

Xx 7 [admires(x 7 )(x 7 )]

VP = >

Az[admire (x7)(z)]

hin V admires

„NP, = > XPP(x7) e

sNP I Mary

3 VP = > \x 7 [admires (x7)(x7)]

does so

Sloppy and strict identity c.

235

VP =

,NP

>

Axi[VP'(Xi)]

VP

('VP" means 'translation of VP'.) The tree structure in (1 lb) is obtained from syntactic structure by a process adjoining himself under 2 VP. The process may be regarded as an instance of QR, and the structure created will hence be part of the level LF; similar constructions can be made in other frameworks. 4 This tree is translated into expressions in a logical formalism from bottom up, the translations representing a putative level still more abstract than LF which we may call LT (for 'logical translation'). In LT, reflexives are represented as variables; and the adjunction of the reflexive to VP is, via (11c), one way of representing the variable as bound, through the construction of a 'selfadmiration' predicate. 5 This predicate in turn gets copied over to 3VP, which gives a representation of the sloppy reading. The whole syntactic process of binding precedes this copying, which thus feeds only purely logical/semantic processes. As in our preceding analysis, no fullfledged pronominal/anaphor is copied; but the X-bound variable used in (11) is presumably some steps farther away from being a real lingustic item than the 'archi'-item posited by us. The main difference in coverage between the approaches lies in their generality: as pointed out by Ha'ik, the approach of copying X-abstracts yields a representation of sloppy identity only in the case of VP-anaphora, since only then can the binder of the item 'Z' be selected as argument for the X-expression representing 'X'. That is, in a case like (lb), where sloppy identity holds with regard to NPs in object position, if his coffee is represented as a X-construct and copied over to the position of it, yielding (12), (12)

John likes Xx[iy[coffee-of x(y)]] black, while Bill likes Xx [ty[coffeeof x (z)]] with milk

then neither John nor Bill is in a position to substitute for x in these X-constructs. Hence, assuming the examples in (1) to represent a unitary phenomenon, the approach of copying X-constructs is insufficiently general.

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

7.2.2. The analysis of strict identity Restricting attention to VP-anaphora/deletion, consider how the approach based on X-abstraction will face strict identity readings. Minimally, the LF-representation of constructions with this reading will lack a VP-node like 2VP in ( l i b ) , i.e., one representing a 'reflexive predicate'. If a translation is to be copied at all in this case - as seems most consistent - then what should represent the pronominal/anaphor in the copied. VP-translation? A pronominal might be claimed to be represented there as a free variable, remaining free after copying, to be interpreted as a deictic expression, through 'contextual salience' having the same referent assigned as the subject of the first conjunct. However, this would hold only if this subject were an individual-referring expression, and not when it is a quantified NP like in (13), since here there is no entity to refer to: (13)

Each participant hoped that his trophy would be something useful, and so did his wife

Here the his in his trophy, both in its actual occurrence and in its 'copied' occurrence, must be bound by 'each', and so clearly cannot be construed as a deictic expression. Hence, his has to be construed as logically bound. In order for this to be accomplished formally, one possibility will be to let subjects like each participant in this type of constructions have a possibility of undergoing QR, so as to end up in a position from which they can translate into logical operators binding the variables corresponding to both of these occurrences of his. The relevant configuration is illustrated in the tree (14), the translation-rule for the topmost node being (15):

Sloppy and strict identity (14)

>

237

A.PAy[participant(y) - > P(y)] (Xx s [ 2 S']) = Ay[participant(y) - > ( ( . . y . . )(y)& (••y..)

sNP

2S

= >

= >XPP(x 5 ) his = > (15)

S = >

¡NP

3 S'

(••))]

& 4 S'

XPP(x5)

copying

jNP'(A.Xi[S'])

S

Suppose that reflexives are always treated as variables, a possibility to be discussed in Section 3 to follow. Then no variable representing the reflexive can end up free, with deictic interpretation, since reflexives are necessarily interpreted as being bound. As shown by the preceding examples in (5), seg/sin can be subject to strict identity readings; hence the subjects in these constructions, with regard to strict reading, must also undergo QR, whether they are quantified NPs or not (e.g., proper names), instantiating the same schematic configuration as in (14). Two points can be made concerning the use of QR in these proposals. In the first place, it has often been argued that this process is an instance of the same type of rule as syntactic wA-movement, the two putatively having important restrictions in common. 6 But in (14), QR raises an NP out of the first conjunct of a coordinate structure, an operation which is impossible for syntactic w/¡-movement (see Ross 1967 and later work). Hence it will be problematic to maintain the strong parallelism between QR and syntactic w/¡-movement. Second, applying the configuration in (14) to the strict reading of the cases in (5) entails, as mentioned, that QR must be allowed to raise proper names, not only quantified NPs (QNPs). This may well be a problematic

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

position to take; see e.g. May 85 for many considerations going against such a possibility. Leaving open what might be done concerning the coordinate structure restriction, the following could be a way of avoiding the second potential difficulty, i.e., that of applying QR to proper names. Suppose that we let reflexives be represented as variables only when their binder is a QNP, and otherwise as a kind of constant which we might dub dependent names. These would be constants (in the logical sense) which necessarily corefer with some other item in the logical representation. For dependent names representing reflexives, this other item would be a representative of the binder of the reflexive. Using 'a' to represent such a constant, the schematic representation of a strict reading of constructions like those in (5) would be as in (16) on this proposal; here, no QR of a proper name has been necessary:: (16)

S = > ( . . . a4...)(4jon) /

&

( . . a 4 . . Xsper)

and

>

8 NP

Jon = >XPP( 8 per)

.. a4.

Per = >XPP( 4 jon) seg = >

XPP(a 4 )

copying

Both token-indices and binder-indices are carried over from the syntax to this level, and so 'ai' represents the dependent name 'a' as being 'bound' by an item with token-index 'i'. (More on dependent names is said in Section 3.) This procedure clearly could be followed also for pronominals bound by a non-QNP, when the reading is strict. As far as comparison with the analysis from Section 1 is concerned, the differences noted in 7.2.1. clearly point in favor of that approach, and likewise for the present considerations concerning strict identity, at least those pertaining to QR out of coordinate structures. The next subsection adds a further piece of evidence in favor of the approach from Section 1.

Sloppy and strict identity

239

7.2.3. An empirical prediction The analyses considered make different predictions for one type of construction. Consider (17): (17)

Jon skryter av sesteren sin, og Jon boasts of sister his, and Petter har hort deg gjere det samme Petter has heard you do the same

The boldface expression is related to the italicized one, in the ways discussed. In the analysis based on X-abstraction, the italicized expression is represented as 'Xx[boast of x's sister]' for the purpose of the sloppy reading, and this predicate necessarily takes 'you' as argument, predicting (18) as the only sloppy reading of (17): (18)

Jon boasts of his sister, and Petter has heard you boasting of your sister

In the analysis from Section 1, however, sin is inserted into the second conjunct, free to search for a binder, constrained only by the conditions on sin/seg. The structure being (19), both of the binding relations indicated then ought to be possible, given the long distance binding potential for sin/seg (recall that the reflexive is an archi-item neutral with regard to gender and person): (19)

Petter har hert deg skryte av sosteren | has heard you boast of sister

sin |j

Thus, our approach predicts that alongside (18), also (20) is a possible sloppy reading of (17): (20)

Jon boasts of his sister, and Petter has heard you boasting of his ( = Petter's) sister

This prediction appears to be right, even though judgment is a bit delicate. We take this circumstance as an additional argument in favor of the analysis from Section 1, over the approach involving copying of X-expressions. It thereby seems pretty clear that the approach from Section 1 is the right one, as far as the analysis of strict and sloppy identity is concerned. However, the next section will show that various of the notions and constructs of the X-based approach may still be useful in an explication of the notion

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'binding' and phenomena involving quantified NPs. How this circumstance is to be reconciled with the results concerning strict versus sloppy identity is commented on in 7.3.5. and 7.4.

7.3. T H E S E M A N T I C INTERPRETATION OF B I N D I N G

7.3.1. Binding as co-variation We now address the question of whether there is a general semantic interpretation of the binding-relation, a sub-question of the problem of defining binding. Approaching these issues in a stepwise fashion, we may first lay down, as a putative principle, that anaphors are always bound. The anaphors in a language can be listed, so there is no circularity in this approach to defining binding, but we want to say what the items in that list have in common. The following at least holds true: (21)

Anaphors always have their reference determined by some other element, within a linguistically specifiable domain.

This is insufficient as a definition of binding, however, because there are at least two ways in which linguistic elements can obtain a reference from some other item, and only one of these we want to call binding. Consider the pair (22): (22)

a. b.

Every man thought he was too late Every man came too late. They said a snow storm had blocked the road

Only (22a) here manifests binding with regard to the italicized expressions. (22b) exemplifies what Evans 1980 calls an 'E-pronoun': they refers to the set of individuals in virtue of which the universal quantification part of the first sentence is true, and does not vary in reference according to which individual in this set the clause 'x came too late' is evaluated against. Using the term 'witness set' from Barwise & Cooper 1981, we may call this reading one of witness set identity. In contrast, in (a), the reference of he varies according to which individual x in the universe of quantification the clause 'x thought he was too late' is evaluated with respect to. This reading we may call a reading of co-variation, and this is the reading which obtains in cases where we say that binding takes place. This opens for an answer to both of the preceding questions, namely that binding obtains whenever there is co-variation\ this yields both a definition

Sloppy and strict identity

241

and an interpretation. In these terms, a pronominal can then have either of the following three functions: (a) (b) (c)

it is bound, i.e. co-varies with another NP; it is not bound, but has witness-set identity with another NP; cf. (22b) (this relation may also be called 'coreference'); it is neither bound nor has witness-set identity, in other words, it behaves deictically

An anaphor, on the other hand, can have only function (a) - it is always bound. The following examples represent the most important configurations where co-variation is possible, and where the boldfaced items hence will count as standing in a binding relation on the view in question: (23)

a. b. c. d. e.

Everyone admires himself Noone thought that he would survive I spoke with each candidate about his winning chances Each candidate's telephone number is listed together with his address That he was nominated had been a surprise for each of the candidates

The configuration exemplified in (24), on the other hand, is one where co-variation is not possible, and where hence him in (a) is only witnessset identical to John: (24)

a. b.

The secretary who had worked for John admired him The secretary who had worked for each director admired * him/ them

Co-variation splits into two subtypes - direct and indirect. Direct covariation is illustrated above, whereas indirect covariation is represented in constructions with 'donkey-pronouns'. To illustrate, the contrast (25), from Reinhart 1984, parallels the contrast in (22) but has /«direct covariation in (25a) where (22a) has direct co-variation: (25)

a. b.

Every guest who brought three bottles put them in the refrigerator Every guest brought three bottles to the party. By midnight, they were all empty

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

Them in (a) is here an instance of a 'donkey-pronoun'. It varies its reference together with V in 'x brought three bottles ...', whereas in (b), they can refer to all of the bottles brought in together. Thus, the way they in (b) relates to every guest is partly similar to the way the 'E-pronoun' they functions in (22b), this partial similarity being the same as the way in which them in (a) relates to he in (22a). Hai'k 1984 shows that this 'donkey pronoun' use is dependent upon ccommand between the independent item (every guest) and the dependent item {them), even if the relation between these two is not identity at all. Rather, them is related to three bottles as a kind of E-pronoun, and three bottles is in turn dependent on every guest,1 in the way one QNP depends on another when inside its scope. The semantic relation between them and every guest is thus what we may call 'indirect co-variation'; and, following Hai'k, we call the syntactic relation indirect binding. The distinguishing feature between direct and indirect binding is thus whether there is identity between the co-varying items or not. Apparently, only pronominals can partake in indirect binding; anaphors are restricted to direct binding. For that reason, our concern throughout will be with direct binding only. In many instances of binding, co-variation does not come out openly, because the binder is an individual-referring expression, like in John admires himself. Here it makes no semantic difference whether we regard John and himself as co-varying items or as witness-set identical items. If we want to retain the linkage between binding and co-variation, however, and we identify the relation in John admires himself uniquely as binding, then we must distinguish between actual co-variation and co-variation constructions: the latter are constructions allowing co-variation to be expressed, whenever there is a QNP acting as binder. That is, co-variation constructions are the structural configurations exemplified in (23). The notion binding can then be linked to co-variation constructions rather than to actual covariation, in the following way: (26)

A binds B if A and B stand in a co-variation construction, and B's reference is determined by A. Furthermore, if A is a QNP, then A and B must co-vary.

This will be our main proposal. However, complicating factors exist, residing in constructions with seg/sin, which lead to certain elaborations of analysis; these, together with considerations concerning the formal implementation of a principle along the lines of (26), will constitute the remainder of this chapter.

Sloppy and strict

identity

7.3.2. Recalcitrant

data to the assimilation of binding with co-variation

243

Consider now some data which may seem to contradict (26). In (27a), sin relates to Jon and must count as bound by Jon, once all anaphors are assumed to be bound. The example (b), however, shows that actual co-variation is impossible in this configuration - it is possible only when the binder c-commands the bindee, as in (c). (28) gives the same pattern: 8 (27)

(28)

a.

Gaven fra Jon til the gift from J o n to b. ?*Gaven(e) fra hver the gift(s) from each beundring admiration c. Hver manns gave til each man's gift to a.

sin nabo his neighbour mann til sin man to his

vakte beundring created admiration nabo vakte neighbor aroused

sin nabo vakte beundring his neighbor aroused admiration

Erstatningen fra Jon til sine ofre ble the compensation from Jon to his victims was i avisen in the newspaper b. ?*Erstatningen fra hver boddel til sine the compensation from each executioner to his var généras was generous c. Hver boddels erstatning til sine ofre each executioner's compensation to his victims

opgitt entered

ofre victims

var généras was generous

One consequence to be drawn from these data might be that not all occurrences of reflexives are bound - some just have witness-set identity. Unlike pronominals in this function, however, there is no way these reflexives could behave deictically instead. If a general position is sought, then, distinct from saying that all anaphors are bound, one might want to posit (29) instead: (29)

a. b.

Anaphors are referentially dependent. The 'unmarked' way for a referentially dependent item to become satisfied is by being bound, whereas a 'marked' way is by being witness-set identical to an antecedent.

The definition (26) of binding can then be retained. Notice, however, that although a form like sin is neutral between singular and plural, there is no way it could be interpreted as plural in (27b) and (28b). Plurality witness-

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set identity readings seem to represent the full-fledged witness-set identity type, cf. the preceding standard examples of E-pronouns. We may interpret this fact as showing that despite the possibility of (27a) and (28a), there is an inherent resistance on the part of the reflexives against joining the class of witness-set identity items fully: it is as if the possibility is available only as a freezing of the value-assignment option in the co-variation reading, i.e., as obtaining only for individuals. If so, the 'marked' type of behavior mentioned in (29b) should be construed as deriving in a restricted fashion from the ««marked way and, at a further level of abstraction, to be subsumed under it. With this further level of abstraction made precise, we would then retain the view that anaphors are always bound, together with the definition (26). In the two subsections to follow, we make this proposal more precise. 7.3.3 Implementing the view that binding equals co-variation Imagine first that data like those in (27) and (28) did not exist and that we were looking for a way of implementing (26) by statements using the very concepts of (26) over again. With a basis in the Montague literature, one such approach could be as follows. Suppose that the grammar offers a level LT (for 'logical translation') where the range of categories is basically reduced to those of predicate logic, and where, in particular, categories like pronominals and anaphors do not occur: referring expressions are either variables or (proper name-like) constants. Syntactic levels of representation are mapped onto LT via a 'translation' from syntactic categories to those of LT. To implement (26), we first assume that the binding relation is marked on a pronominal or anaphor as a syntactic feature, with a pointer-index, as we have assumed all along. In the translation to LT, we now posit the following schematic rule for all bound items (exemplifying with NPs): (30)

N p[a]

= > AP[P(xi)] Bound-by:i Only bound items get this translation. The logical category is that of NPs in general (or perhaps RPs; see Chapter 5 and 6); the point here is that the bindee gets represented as a variable. We assume that variables must be bound in LT. For co-variation structures in general, we then give the schema (31) for translation, with (32) as one instantiation: (31)

iNP

. . . NPi . . . B = > ¡NP(Xxi[B(Xi)])

Sloppy and strict identity (32)

245

S = > iNP'(Xxi[VP'(Xi)]) ¡NP

VP

Only co-variation constructions get this treatment. Bound items will now contribute to a wellformed LT, with their variable being bound, only if they occur in a co-variation construction, covered by (31). This accounts for why binding is possible only in co-variation constructions. The set-up also accounts for the last clause of (26), that when the binder is a QNP, there is actual co-variation as well. It is important that the variable-binding operator introduced in (31) is not one corresponding directly to any particular kind of QNP, since different QNPs have different operators, and binders are not always QNPs at all. The effect of the introduced Xx and its bound variable in (31) and (32) is that if the VP contains an item bound by the ¡NP, then the variable representing this item is bound by an operator also binding a variable in the position corresponding to ¡NP. This operator, in turn, can 'mediate' for binding by an operator residing in ¡NP itself, if there is one, along the lines familiar from Montague's PTQ. For example, if the NP is noone, in a sentence like Noone admires himself, it will translate (with gross simplification) as 'XP-Ex[P(x)]', where 'XP' selects a VP-translation wrapped into a X-abstract yielded by (32), e.g. 'Xx4[admire(x4)(x4)]'; by X-conversion, we end up with l -Ex[admire(x)(x)]', because of the mediating function of 'Xx4'.9 It is less obvious how the actual X-introducing rules should look in the configurations (23c-e), but we leave this question aside, assuming that it is not a major problem. Given that anaphors are always marked as bound (we are still imagining that (27) and (28) don't exist), they will always translate as variables, while pronominals will do so only optionally. It is not clear how pronominals should translate in their other functions - as deictics, they presumably translate as some sort of proper names; whereas when functioning as Epronouns, some more complex set-denoting expression will be called for. (For suggestions, see Reinhart 1984.) Consider for a moment how this proposal relates to the putative analysis of VP-anaphora/deletion discussed in Section 2. The circumstance that sloppy readings of such constructions can be analyzed by treating the anaphor/pronominal 'Z' as a X-bound variable would seem to comply

246

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

with the proposal. 1 0 However, in discussing the analysis of strict readings within the X-binding framework, we noted that - given a restrictive view of QR - reflexives like those in (5) ought really to behave like constants in the logical translation, i.e. in LT. The proposals of the next subsection provides a way in which this apparent conflict can be solved. 7.3.4 Dependent

Names

Let us then face the reality which includes (27) and (28), and try to devise an analysis which deviates minimally from the one just given, so as to retain the main spirit of (26). We propose the following rule of Dependent Name Formation, a rule which applies to that aspect of the lexical representation of anaphors which reflects their representation in LT: (33)

In the lexical LT-representation Z of a bound item X, add another representation Y identical to Z except that the occurrence of an individual-level variable Xj inside Z is replaced by a constant ai of the category dependent name.

Thus, alongside the representation (30) of the item ' a ' , (33) will produce (34): (34)

N p[a]

= > XP[P(aO]

'ai' is a dependent name in the same sense as was introduced in 7.2.2; that is, it acts like an anaphoric item in getting its reference from an item token-indexed 'i* in the LT-representation. Like names or constants, it has a unique value-assignment. By (33), any bound item whose translation is shaped for being operator-bound will get a proper name-like translation in addition. With this translation, the LT of (27a) and (28a) becomes wellformed, since nothing rules out the constant a* from having the same reference as some other constant, like Jon or 'the executor'. Examples (27b) and (28b), on the other hand, can not get a wellformed LT: for the translation of the reflexive which contains a variable, there is no X-operator to bind the variable, since (31) is not defined for this configuration." For the option produced by (33), there is no way for the resulting constant to be bound by the operator representing the QNP, since a dependent name can be bound only by a constant. For a case like Everyone admires himself (or its Norwegian counterpart), it follows that a well-formed LT results only with the option containing a variable. For a case like John admires himself, both translations of himself will yield a well-formed LT. The option with a variable yields one, since

Sloppy and strict

identity

247

by (32), the variable gets bound. The option produced by (33) also yields one, since the constant representing himself will be bound by the LT constant representing John, the representation here being of the form '... ¡John ... ai ...'just as with anaphors in the syntax. The crucial difference between dependent names and anaphors in syntax is that in LT, any pair ' ...¡a ... ai ...' will count as a legitimate binding, regardless how they relate to each other structurally in LT. In this way, all connections classified as E-pronoun-binding, or 'co-reference', have this format of representation in LT (for E-pronouns, though, only when the witness-sets are unit-sets). Grammatical binding conditions apply only in the syntax. 12 With this formal analysis, (26) itself is no more true, strictly speaking: binding does occur in non-co-variation constructions. However, the representation of these cases derives (via (33)) from a representation geared to match between binding and co-variation, in a way which excludes a non-existing witness-set identity reading of (27b) and (28b). Thus, at a more abstract level, the insight of (26) is retained, at the same time as anaphors are uniformly construed as bound (syntactically). Likewise, the contention that anaphors are inherently variables is compatible with the analysis now sketched, once we let the claim apply to the more 'underlying' level of lexical representation, i.e. the level prior to application of (33). As for the formal implementation of (26), nothing has been removed, only the extra derivational dimension of (33) has been added, together with the new category of constant anaphors in LT. Looking back at the analysis of VP-anaphora/deletion considered in 7.2.2, it is clear that the move we have performed through (33) yields the 'dependent name' variant of that analysis, i.e., the one which restricts the use of QR to QNPs only. As we noted in that discussion, there is a problem with using QR even when the binder is a QNP, in that such an application will violate the 'Coordinate Structure Constraint' of Ross 1967. Could one find a way of dispensing with QR altogether in these constructions? The answer, as far as the present investigation goes, is no: logical operators crucially cannot bind dependent names in LT; 13 therefore a reflexive bound by a Q N P must be represented as an operator-bound variable in LT, and for this constellation to obtain, the reflexive must be in a covariation construction with its binder, be this in the syntax or in LF. For the VPanaphora/deletion-constructions in question, this means that the binder must undergo QR. This holds not only for pronominals like the one in (13), but also for the reflexive in (35), a case provided by E. Engdahl (personal communication):

248 (35)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Hver deltager var each participant was sa hans kone matte so his wife had to

forhindret fra a hente premien sin, prevented from fetching trophee his gj»re det istedet do it instead

That is, the account of the strict reading of this construction will involve application of QR to hver deltager. 7.3.5. On the status of the level LT Let us now comment on the status of LT as a putative level of grammatical analysis. As far as the account of sloppy/strict identity goes, LT apparently can serve as a level of interpretation, but does not play a role in the generation/ acceptance process itself, assuming that the analysis developed in 7.1 is to be preferred over the one presented in 7.2. In the account of possible binding configurations, however, LT can be assigned a role in the acceptance process as just shown, essentially by being a level where variables may not occur free. As a filtering level, thus, it might be considered as belonging to the grammatical formalism. There is nothing inconsistent about this situation, with LT generally playing an interpretive role, but in addition having a filtering function with regard to some processes. What we have shown, however, is only the possibility that LT can have this function, not that it must have it - apart from the inconclusiveness of the demonstration of the possibility (concerning the exact treatment of (23c,d,e)), there is also the possibility of other, more satisfactory filtering devices for the treatment of QNP-bound anaphora, which we have not gone into here. Continuing the consideration of properties of LT, without commitments as to its adoption, it bears some resemblance to P-structure, in that operatorbound variables can occur in both and that A-operators play a role in deriving representations at both levels. They differ in that anaphors and bound pronominals have their full linguistic shape in P-structure, but are transformed into variables or dependent names in LT; concomitantly, syntactic binding rules apply in P-structure (as they do in S- and NPstructure), but not in LT. P-structure thus has far more linguistic motivation than LT. If LT is adopted as a level of representation, it will probably be a natural place for representing, on the one hand, scope of logical operators and,

Sloppy and strict identity

249

on the other, the status of implicit arguments as existentially or otherwise bound variables; for these tasks, LT should be connected both with Sstructure and P-structure, and it may well have links to NP-structure as well. If LF is required as an intermediate level between LT and these other levels, this suggests that the organization of grammar involving these levels will be a refinement of the diagram in (36): (36)

Lexicon That is, we may leave undecided whether L F / L T is derived from all, two, or one of the three levels, and in the latter cases, which one(s). Lexicon has specifications relating to LT, as we have seen, but possibly not LF. If an integrated model of this form were to emerge, possibilities for unification of formalism would have to be considered. For instance, in 3.2 and 7.2, two distinct processes of forming 'reflexive predicates' are outlined, in very different formalisms; and in a carefully designed overall model, it may be desirable to bring them formally closer to each other, a task which might have consequences throughout the various components. For the present, however, we will offer no suggestions in this direction: first because the desirability of LT in the grammar remains to be convincingly established; and, second, even if it were established, the formalisms we have so far associated with the various modules and levels all seem potentially fruitful for further research and development, and it would be premature to suggest the elimination of one or more of them. 7.4. SUMMARY

Let us review the route of reasoning we have followed. In Section 1, we argued for an analysis of the contrast strict versus sloppy identity, which includes a specific concept of how binder-indices and binding conditions interact. The analysis covers not only VP-deletion/anaphora, but also similar phenomena with NPs and other categories. In Section 2, we contrasted our analysis with an analysis of VP-deletion/ anaphora involving copying of X-constructs representing VPs. This analysis was shown to be inferior to the one in Section 1, both for generality reasons (since it is restricted to VPs) and for its empirical predictions. Section 3 was devoted to the question of what defines the notion of binding;

250

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

here we focused on the possibility of defining the notion in terms of semantic characteristics. The proposal developed was to link binding to the notion of co-variation, the latter represented in the format of A.-enriched predicate logic. Certain facts about NP-internal binding of reflexives lead to a minor modification of this proposal, involving the construct dependent name. With or without this notion, the representation of co-variation would involve the level of logical translation (LT), which would have to be construed in part as a filtering level. This level coincides with the one at which the analysis of Section 2 was stated. The latter having been argued against, as far as usefulness in the analysis of sloppy/strict identity is concerned, the motivation for including LT among the grammatically operative levels is not strong, but the inclusion is still to be reckoned as a possibility. (For the purpose of pure interpretation, one is of course free to employ such a level at any rate. Some further considerations concerning LT follow in the next chapter, especially in 8.4.9.) FOOTNOTES 1. It may be noted that with reflexives of the f o r m seg selv it is much harder to obtain interpretations of strict identity. Hellan 1987 proposes to tie this to the circumstance that seg selv is a connected a n a p h o r , seg/sin not, in the terms of 2.6.2. 2. In terms of the * -deletion mechanism, this means that after each trial, which m a y involve some * -deletions or -assignments, the original distribution of ' * ' s m a r k i n g the features of the a n a p h o r / p r o n o m i n a l must be restored. Technically, there is no problem with enriching the mechanism in this way. 3. Most notable a m o n g them may be Sag 1976, Williams 1977, and Partee and Bach 1981. 4. Within a Montague-type f r a m e w o r k , it is used in Bach a n d Partee 1980; in G B , a p p r o x i m a t i o n s are made in C h o m s k y 1985 and Hai'k 1986. T h e analysis of the French reflexive se presented in Zubizarreta, f o r t h c o m i n g , briefly described in f o o t n o t e 17 of C h a p t e r 3, might allow one to construe this se as a morphological realization of the raised reflexive; this at least looks like an interesting possibility. 5. Notice that this f o r m a t i o n of a 'reflexive predicate' is distinct f r o m the f o r m a t i o n of Reflexive-transitive lexical templates described in 3.2. The latter is a strictly lexical process, and thus geared to particular verbs, with only the a r g u m e n t f r a m e of the verb as its d o m a i n . The process now u n d e r consideration, in contrast, applies to VPs of any internal complexity and regardless of the choice of verb. Concerning the differences between formalism f o r encoding the reflexivity, see r e m a r k s in 7.3.5. 6. T h e idea goes back at least to R o d m a n 1976 and Postal 1974; in G B , it is expressed e.g. in May 1985 and Lasnik and Saito 1984, to mention just two. 7. In H a i k ' s analysis, it depends on the trace of who inside the relative clause, taken to be identical to the N P every guest who...\ in Reinhart's analysis, the independent item is identified as every. 8. If. in constructions looking like the (b)-cases, the putative binder is preceded by the genitival preposition til, wellformedness results. This preposition a p p a r e n t l y is transparent with regard to c - c o m m a n d . 9. An alternative to the introduction of X-operators via (31) or (32) would be the way used in (11), where a reflexive predicate is f o r m e d on the constituent c o m b i n i n g with the binder. 10. In e.g. Reinhart 1983a,b, the coinciding possibilities are taken as s u p p o r t for the view that a n a p h o r s are intrinsically b o u n d logical variables.

Sloppy and strict

identity

251

11. An extra assumption here has to be that QR cannot raise a QNP which is governed by a preposition; we leave open whether this assumption can be given a principled motivation. 12. Accordingly, there are no complementarity effects in LT: since the LT of John admires himself is accepted on both translations of himself, there is no constraint in LT which excludes 'witness-set binding' from the domain where 'operator-variable binding' takes place. 13. We leave open whether this restriction may have as a consequence that the notion 'dependent name' becomes irrelevant to the treatment of 'donkey'-pronouns mentioned in 7.3.1; these pronouns clearly are dependent on quantifiers, albeit not directly. A similar case is presented in Sells 1985, the reading in (a) he calls a bound variable interpretation, the one in (b), a 'co-specificational' reading: (i)

a. b.

Each car has (exactly) two doors which open only from the outside Each car has (exactly) two doors, which open only from the outside

Here there is no single witness-set for two-doors to focus on, but a range of different ones. Still, which in (36b) behaves as if the set is a specific one, and already specified, and so invites to being treated as some sort of name. Whether this type of name is formally related to our dependent name will be left open here.

Chapter 8

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model

This chapter presents a general analysis of a type of occurrences of anaphors which we call dislocated anaphors. They appear in certain initial areas of wA-binding constructions, radically outside the scope of their understood binder, and so f o r m a class of apparent exceptions to the rules which have so far been established. They divide essentially into two types, to be called XP-dislocated anaphors and external anaphors, of which only the former has received systematic attention in the literature so far. The proposed analysis will be called the Loop Model and is specially designed to cover also the external anaphors. It involves a movement process, interconnecting the levels NP-structure and S-structure, and in this respect may be viewed as an extension of the NP-structure model of van Riemsdijk and Williams 1981. Section 1 argues for the need of a movement analysis even for XP-dislocated anaphors. In Section 2, shortcomings of the NP-structure model are shown in the area of external anaphors. Section 3 gives the main outline of the Loop Model, and further aspects of it are discussed in Section 4.

8.1. THE NEED FOR A MOVEMENT PROCESS IN THE ANALYSIS OF ^//-CONSTRUCTIONS

The construction-type commonly called wh-constructions, which a m o n g others include topicalization, relative constructions, constituent questions, cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions, present distributions of anaphors which we will refer to as dislocated anaphors. These are anaphors occurring outside the syntactic scope of their binder, in apparent violation of the rules which have so far been established. An example is given in (1): (1)

Boken sin haper jeg at Jon vil lese en dag book his hope I that J o n will read one day

Jon is here understood as the binder of sin, still sin is not in a syntactic configuration representing it as predication-commanded by Jon. Similar

254

Anaphora in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

examples o b t a i n with all the other a n a p h o r s . A c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y effect also obtains, in that if sin in (1) is replaced by hans ('his'), hans c a n n o t be read as b o u n d by Jon. Following Higgins 1974, we will refer to these properties of dislocated a n a p h o r s - in particular the properties concerning binding - as the connectivity effect. In the ' S t a n d a r d t h e o r y ' of C h o m s k y 1965 a n d related works, the g r a m maticality of (1) would be accounted for by deriving (1) f r o m an underlying structure c o r r e s p o n d i n g to (2), where the rule d e t e r m i n i n g correct distribution of sin would apply: (2)

Jeg h a p e r at Jon vil lese b o k e n sin en d a g I h o p e that J o n will read b o o k his one day

Here, the relation between sin a n d Jon is as required in the s t a n d a r d cases. Postulating (2) as underlying structure for (1) a n d o r d e r i n g the a n a p h o r a rule before the rule which turns (2) into (1) (i.e., Topicalization) t h u s yields an a c c o u n t of the grammaticality of (1), w i t h o u t introducing exceptions to the n o r m a l rule for seg-reflexives. Given a ' d o u b l e - b l a d e d ' f o r m of this rule like what was p r o p o s e d in 3.4, the c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y fact m e n t i o n e d follows by the same t o k e n . Various m o r e recent f r a m e w o r k s a d o p t the same strategy, a m o n g t h e m the analysis of van Riemsdijk a n d Williams 1981 which will be f u r t h e r c o m m e n t e d on below, the 'reconstruction'-analysis p r o p o s e d first in M a y 1977, likewise to be returned to later, a n d the ' d o u b l e a r r o w ' - e q u a t i o n s in Lexical F u n c t i o n a l G r a m m a r (cf. e.g. Bresnan 1982b). All of these analyses a s s u m e that material u n d e r the X P o r C O M P - n o d e in the schematic structure (3), (3)

s

XP COMP

s

instantiated by boken sin in (1), is crucially linked to the trace position inside the a d j a c e n t S, a n d that this link, o r dependency, is best a c c o u n t e d for by at some derivational level having the material f r o m C O M P occurring

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop

Model

255

in this position itself. The analyses otherwise disagree as to the status of this 'underlying' level - in van Riemsdijk and Williams' analysis, it is the derivational stage NP-structure resulting f r o m NP-movement and preceding w/z-movement; in May's account, it is a stage in a process deriving Logical Form (in the EST-sense) f r o m S-structure; and in Bresnan's account, it coincides with Functional structure. At least two existing approaches take the view that (1) be analyzed without recourse to any movement rule (or reference to another level) - one is the analysis of Generalized Phrase Structure G r a m m a r (see e.g. G a z d a r et al. 1985); the other, a version of the 'reconstruction' analysis (mentioned in 7.1.1), proposed e.g. in Barss 1984. We state the essential features of these analyses, together with our arguments against them. The non-movement approach of 'reconstruction' reconstruction into the definition of 'c-command', as in (4): (4)

incorporates

a c-commands* ¡3 iff a c-commands fi, or (3 is inside a dislocated constituent whose trace is c-commanded by a.

'c-command' has its traditional definition, and all binding conditions are phrased in terms of c-command* rather than c-command. Such a move is not sufficient to guarantee the right distribution of dislocated reflexives - what 'intervenes' between the binder and the bindee must also be regulated. Consider (5): (5)

a. *[sin mor] vet jeg at du undres hvorvidt Maren her mother know I that you wonder whether Maren har fortalt meg at du har snakket med [C]NP has told me that you have talked with b. *[Fortalt meg at du har snakket med sin mor]vp told me that you have talked with her mother undres du sikkert hvorvidt Maren har gjort [e]vp wonder you certainly if Maren has done

In both cases, the illformedness matches the fact that in the corresponding non-topicalized constructions, a tensed S-boundary intervenes between sin and its putative binder, Maren. In (a), this tensed S-condition could be stated instead as a restriction on the relation between the binder and the trace, but this would not work in (b); and whatever corresponding mechanism were to be introduced there, an obvious requirement is that the c o m m o n feature of the two cases, viz. that the tensed S-condition on the binding of sin is violated, should not be missed.

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

256

To achieve this, we would need a mechanism identical to or in essence corresponding to the 'foot features' of GPSG, i.e., features outside the head projection which, at any node X, signal material contained inside X. One such feature would b e ' + contains a seg/sin-form', or more formally: ' + Contains NP ; [ + Refl-I]'; the rule schemata by which it would be distributed would be (6) (to be illustrated shortly): (6) XP .iNP b.

YP [ + Contains NPj [+Refl-I]]

Condition: YP expresses a predicate of iNP

/ Y

YP [ + Contains N P [+Refl-I]] \ ZP [-Tensed S, + Contains NPi [+Refl-I]]

To account for contrasts like (7), where the grammaticality judgments correspond to what one would have with the 'preposed' phrases occurring in the trace positions, a similar use of foot features would be required, (8a,b) regulating the distribution of selv and (8c) inducing the complementarity effects of selv: (7)

a.

b.

à

snakke om

*seg har seg selv to talk about himself have Jon om à gj0re Jon to do à snakke om seg har *seg selv to talk about himself has meg om à g0re me to do

jeg

aldri

I

never asked

Jon aldri

bedt

bedt

Jon never asked

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model (8)

257

a. XP ¡NP

YP[+Contains N P [ + R e f l - I I ] r o p t . [+within selv-domain of ¡NP]

b.

YP[+Contains NP[+Refl-II]i] [+within selv-domain of ¡NP]

N P [+Refl-II]i [+within selv-domain of ¡NP] c.

If NPi has the feature '[ + within selv-domain of ¡NP]', then it also has the feature '[ + Refl-II]'

The tree (9) is well-formed by these rules (along with the standard G P S G specification of the node dominating the 'extracted' constituent): (9)

FRONT VP[ + Cont. NPi[+Refl - I]] NP

sett

COMP

S[Contains the trace of a VP[+Cont.NPi[+Refl-I]]]( = F)

VP[ + Cont. NPi[ + Refi - I]]

meg PP[ + Cont.NPi[+Refl - I]] I sikte

P

/

pa

NP[+Cont.NPi[ + Refi - I]] NPi[+Refl - I, - Refl.II] I seg

NP; / I J ikke har Jon

VP[+F]

VP [ + Cont. NPi[+Refl - I ] ]

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of

grammar

From a theoretical point of view, 1 the drawback of such a use of 'containment' features is that they double information which is already available in the phrase structure (since the contained item is of course represented in the position it actually has). The movement approach allows us to avoid such redundancy and is preferable for that reason. 2 In what follows, we will assume that some kind of movement rule must be available in the grammar, allowing us to deal with dislocated anaphors as if they occur inside the area marked by a trace in S-structure. Given our general choice of framework, we will focus on the NP-structure model and the Reconstruction-with-movement model. W h a t we will now show about these models is that they are insufficient as they stand a n d should be augmented to what we will call the Loop Model, first proposed in Hellan 1984a.

8.2. T H E N P - S T R U C T U R E M O D E L

8.2.1. The relevant form of the model The NP-structure model as presented in van Riemsdijk and Williams 1981 is organized as follows (cf. 1.3): (10)

D-str. NP-movement Rules for reflexives, v reciprocals, and — NP-str. 'non-binding'

->LF

wA-movemeht — v S-str. ' L F ' is here vague between semantic interpretation (stated in whatever formalism is appropriate - e.g., that of LT f r o m 7.3.) and a non-ambiguous level of syntactic representation from which the semantic representation is constructed. In the more recent proposal of Williams 1986, this model has shrunk down to (11):

Dislocated (11)

anaphors and the Loop

Mode!

Rules for A-binding (A-to-A-dependencies) A-bar-binding (A-bar-to-A dependencies)

259

N P-str A

v S-str.

-> SI

' S I ' stands for 'semantic interpretation', at least the aspect of it which comprises quantifier scope. T h e syntactic part of what is called L F in (10) is here i n c o r p o r a t e d into S-structure. D - s t r u c t u r e is dispensed with. T h a t the arrows go both ways reflects the fact that b o t h types of structures are independently generated for a given sentence. The a r r o w pointing u p then represents reconstruction; the a r r o w d o w n , M/z-movement and scope assignment (see op. cit. for details). This particular design bears a close resemblance to the L o o p Model, as will be seen. F o r purposes of the present discussion (which will have little overlap with Williams'), we will assume the NP-structure model largely in its original f o r m , except that we omit D-structure, as this level hardly plays any role neither in that model nor for o u r concerns. T h u s , we address the N P - s t r u c t u r e model in the f o r m (12): (12)

A-Binding rules - N P - s t r u c t u r e — >

LF

«•//-movement S-structure We now turn to some areas where this model turns out to be m o r e or less incomplete or inadequate. 8.2.2. Problems for the NP-structure

Model

8.2.2.1. 'Surface reflexives' A construction like (13) would have (14) as its NP-structure source. Given the illformedness of (14), the theory under consideration predicts (13) to be bad as well, but (13) is surprisingly good: (13)

?Katten sin hadde Jon sagt at vi skulle gi melk cat his had J o n said that we should give milk

(14)

*Jon h a d d e sagt at vi skulle gi katten sin melk J o n had said that we should give cat his milk

Such 'surface-licensed' reflexives a p p a r e n t l y require their binder to be

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closely to their right: example (15), where Jon is embedded one sentence down and with much material intervening between it and sin, is worse than (13): (15) ??*Katten sin blirjeg stadig mer usikker pa cat his get I ever more uncertain om Jon har sagt at du skal gi melk if Jon has said that you shall give milk Mere closeness in linear order is not sufficient, on the other hand - (16) is hopelessly out: (16)

* Katten sin hadde det at Jon omkom fatt cat his had it that Jon died got S0rgelige f0lger

sad

for

consequences for

( = the fact that Jon died had got sad consequences for his cat) In the optimal case, thus, as in (13), it seems that the binder has to ccommand the reflexive, or bear a relation to it close to that; in (15), this does not hold. As a further factor, Jon does c-command the trace of katten sin in (15) whereas in (16), Jon c-commands neither. This may account for the difference between (15) and (16) in turn. Furthermore, it should be noted that (17) fully permits an identity reading; there thus appears to be no complementarity effect accompanying these kind of reflexives, despite their closeness to the binder: (17)

Katten hans hadde Jon sagt at vi skulle cat his had Jon said that we should gi melk give milk

The surface reflexives, as we will call them, thus differ from the standard seg both in having their acceptability determined independently of NPstructure and in not being subject to any complementarity restriction. It might be claimed that these reflexives should be construed as an epigrammatical phenomenon, residing in a natural 'laziness' in language processing: when encountering katten sin in (13), a listener will be inclined to stop the search for a binder for sin as soon as he can, and thus the occurrence of Jon becomes a good candidate for being assigned as binder,

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model

261

even if this is grammatically wrong. This account, though, will not predict any difference between (13) and (15) and can hardly say anything about the reason for why (16) is extra bad. The 'surface reflexives' thus probably do fall within the scope of grammar proper. And in this capacity, they require that rules concerning anaphors apply at S-structure, in contradiction to the NP-structure model. This observation may seem to pattern together with the well known fact that, in terms of a model like (12), certain non coreference restrictions apply only with regard to S-structure. As we noted, (18), the pronominal counterpart of (1), will be properly excluded at NP-structure: (18)

*Boken hans haper jeg at Jon vil lese en dag book his hope I that Jon will read one day

Example (19), on the other hand, must be excluded at S-structure by the rule which may be stated informally as (20): (19) (20)

*He said that Jon was sick A pronominal cannot be bound by an NP which it c-commands.

If (20) applied to NP-structure, a construction like (21) would be blocked there, and thus ruled ungrammatical: (21)

Which of the toys that Jon got for his birthday did he like best?

(These facts, needless to say, are exactly the same in Norwegian.) Williams 1986, following Higginbotham 1983, notes that constructions like (21) are not very good if a QNP replaces the proper name, like in (22): (22) ?*Which of the toys which each boy got for his birthday did he like best? From this observation, and assuming that the notion of binding is tied to that of QNP-binding (cf. 7.3 and 3.5), Williams proposes, following Reinhart 1983a,b, that what is involved in (21) is not binding, but rather co-reference/witness-set identity, and that only binding is required to be captured at NP-structure. 3 Without taking a definitive stand to this proposal, we note that the surface reflexives cannot be done away with in this manner, since they seem possible even if the binder is a QNP:

262

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Hjemlandet sitt trodde hver deltager at vi haddc home country his thought each participant that we had tenkt a heise et flagg for thought to raise a flag for

In this important respect, thus, surface reflexives differ from the type of pronominals exemplified in (21) and show that reflexive-binding has to be dealt with in S-structure. 8.2.2.2. External anaphors The dislocated anaphors considered so far have all been in XP- or C O M P position and will be referred to as XP-dislocatedanaphors. To list the possible cases in this group, we find reflexives in this position in topicalized constructions, as in (1); in constituent question-constructions, as in (23); (23)

a. b.

Hvilke av which of Jeg vet I know

sine venner tror du his friends think you hvilke av sine venner which of his friends

Jon Jon Jon Jon

vil will vil will

ta med ? bring ta med bring

and in relative clauses, as in (24) (hvis skuespiil om seg here being what occupies the X P / C O M P - p o s i t i o n ) : (24)

Ibsen, hvis skuespiil om seg borgerskapet aldri Ibsen whose plays about it the bourgeoisie never ble lei av a se, ble aldri lei av a skrive got bored of seeing got never bored of writing skuespiil om borgerskapet plays about the bourgeoisie

A very different group of constructions show reflexives in positions outside X P / C O M P and S2, although still dependent on a binder inside the S. We will call these externa! reflexives. The following are five constructiontypes where these appear: Head of relative: (25)

Det skjoldet fra sine that shield from his hadde skjenket, ble had donated became

forfedre som greven forefathers which the count utstillingens klenodium the exhibition's jewel

Dislocateci anaphors and the Loop Model

263

Cleft: (26)

Det var katten sin du sa at Jon ville ta med it was cat his you said Jon wanted to bring

Pseudo-cleft: (27)

Den eneste Jon f0ler seg trygg sammen med, er the only Jon feels safe together with is katten sin cat his

Contrastive dislocation: 4 (28)

Katten sin, den blir Jon aldri lei av a snakke om cat his, it gets Jon never bored of talking about

Connected text: (29)

Hvem beundrer Jon mest ? Katten sin who admires Jon most ? cat his

(30)

Jon beundrer iallfall en - katten sin Jon admires at least one - cat his

Ignoring (29) and (30), we see that all of these constructions have the pattern (31) (choose just one sini), the Matrix differing from construction to construction: (31)

Matrix

In each case, x COMP binds the trace, whether X P / C O M P itself is filled (as in (25), (28), and (29)) or not; furthermore, the understood binder of sin is inside S (the ¡NP), and sin would not be possible without this binder (in the absence of others). One conceivable analysis of these constructions, following the spirit of

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

model (12), would be to postulate an NP-structure where the relevant constituent containing the reflexive (to be called the Container - in the limiting case it is the reflexive itself) occupies the trace position, whereas its (S-structure) position in the Matrix is empty. For the case (25), this is the proposal of Vergnaud 1974. To obtain the S-structure configuration, the constituent is then raised to the empty position in the Matrix, possibly with a between-landing in COMP. Let us refer to this as the Raising analysis. Three problems arise for this analysis, if taken to instantiate (12). First, in (25-28), at least pronominals in effect seem fully possible with a bound reading, whereas in the NP-structures in question, pronominals with this reading would be ruled out by the complementarity effect. Hence, the Raising process in question will not play exactly the role which whmovement is assumed to play in (12), namely to preserve assignments of both binding and complementarity made by the standard reflexive-rules in NP-structure. Second, given that the position of the Container the meanings of (25-29) can hardly be assigned structure form - LF must be constructed from also drawn from the Vergnaud 1974 analysis). 5 with model (12).

is empty in NP-structure, on the basis of their NPS-structure (a conclusion This is in direct conflict

Third, in constructions where two (or more) of the types in (25-28) are combined, a problem can arise when more than one constituent is to be moved. Example (32) is a case in point, provided by O. Dahl 1981: (32)

De eneste av hverandres arbeider som ansakerne the only of each others' works which the applicants hadde lest, var hverandres doktoravhandlinger had read were each others' doctoral dissertations

Here, both occurrences of hverandre are linked to ansekerne inside the relative clause; and so, by the Raising idea, both the circled NPs in (33) should have been lifted up from the single trace position. Since these NPs are lexically distinct, this is clearly impossible.

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model

265

This is a problem for the Raising analysis, whether taken as an implementation of (12) or conceived by itself. Together, these considerations render it most likely that the external anaphors should be base-generated in their surface position. The problem is then how their connection with the clause-internal binder can be accounted for. In addition, a further problem arises. 8.2.2.3. Binding of LT-variables representing external reflexives Suppose that the grammar either is linked to or includes a level such as LT ('logical translation') discussed in 7.3. One of the immediate advantages of the NP-structure model (12) is then that a sentence like (34) is translated from a form where ingen 'no-one' c-commands seg selv, so that the variable representing seg selv is guaranteed to get bound in the normal course of the translation: (34)

seg selv tror jeg ingen av kandidatene vil stemme pa Himself think I none of the candidates will vote for

On approaches doing S-structure translation only, on the other hand, sentences of this type may provide problems, as has been shown e.g. in Engdahl 1982a (see further discussion to follow). Given that external anaphors are base-generated, however, model (12) faces problems when these anaphors are represented in LT by variables. That

266

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

allowance must be made for this possibility is shown by the fact that the binder in constructions like (25)-(28) can be a quantified NP. Examples are given in (35): (35)

a.

b. c.

d. e.

Det bildet fra sin barndom som ingen ville the picture from his childhood which no-one wanted ta med, var klassebildet fra 3. klasse bring, was the class-picture from 3rd grade Det var katten sin du sa at ingen ville ta med it was cat his you said no-one wanted to bring De eneste ingen f0ler seg helt trygg sammen med, the only no-one feels quite safe with er piranane sine are piranaes his Katten sin, den blir ingen lei av ä snakke om cat his it gets no-one bored of talking about Hvem kan ingen forakte helt ? Katten sin who can no-one despise quite? cat his

Since the boldfaced occurrences of sin here at no point in the derivations are syntactically within the scope of ingen, the syntactic structures provided by the NP-structure approach yield no straightforward way of accomplishing logical binding of the reflexive-variables. Summarizing these points, we have seen that the NP-structure model (12) is not equipped for accounting for - the distribution of surface reflexives - the distribution of external reflexives (including their lack of complementarity effects) - logical variable-binding in the case of external reflexives. 8.2.3. Problems for a reconstruction

model

Consider then the model of reconstruction-with-movement. This model has never been stated very explicitly with regard to the treatment of dislocated anaphors, but let us assume the following organization:

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Mode!

267

(36) D-str. Move « S-str.

I

REC

*LF

'anti-iv/i-movement' We assume that there is a level R E C which is to play the same roles with regard to binding as NP-structure does in the NP-structure model (12). Then, clearly, the p h e n o m e n a now considered are exactly as problematic to (36) as they are to (12): surface reflexives should be accounted for in S-structure, not in REC; external reflexives create the same problems for a 'lowering' analysis in (36) as they do for a Raising analysis in (12); and logical binders for the variables representing external reflexives are as hard to get here as they are in (12). Thus, a new approach, incorporating the valuable features of the preceding models, is called for.

8.3. T H E LOOP MODEL: MAIN STRUCTURE

This model will be developed with a special aim at handling external anaphors; dislocated anaphors in C O M P / X P then become an unproblematic subcase of the phenomenon of dislocated anaphors in general, and surface reflexives likewise are easily treated in the new model. In this section we give the main features of the syntactic analysis of dislocated anaphors. Further features, together with the semantic questions of binding of variables, are addressed in 8.4. We assume the general form of an external a n a p h o r construction to be as in (37):

268 (37)

Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar Matrix

anaphon c

s1

xXP xCOMP

S

L

a b

The broken line represents the relation we are concerned with - the relation between the anaphor and its understood binder. This relation, which we may call the total relation, is, for the purposes of our analysis, broken down into three parts in (37): (a) - a relation between the binder and a trace; this relation we call an A-to-A-relation\ (b) - a relation between this trace and the XP/COMP-node binding it; we call this the wh-relation/binding', (c) - a relation between the XP-node and the Container of the anaphor; this relation we call the external link. Common to all dislocated anaphors are the relations (a) and (b). Those connected to their binder via only (a) and (b) are what we call XP-dislocated anaphors', whereas those having (c) in addition are the external anaphors. (Both are distinct from Surface reflexives, which crucially lack (a) - they involve only a direct relation between ¡NP and x XP.) Figure (38) is a list of the various instantiations of relation (c). The Container is circled, with 'A' for anaphor; the boxed x XP in each case instantiates the x XP of (37):

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model (38) a. Head of relative

b. Cleft VP

/ V Copula

VP

S2

\ X P

xXP

/ xCOMP

/.A..V c. Pseudo-cleft

d. Contrasive dislocation

xCOMP (Pronominal)

S1

S

270

Anaphora

in Norwegian

and the theory of

grammar

e. Connected text T

/ \

xXP

XP

s

xCOMP

S

It a p p e a r s that these relations are structurally of a very restricted type: in no case is the C o n t a i n e r outside the smallest S (or T, for 'text-unit') d o m i n a t i n g the initiated by x XP. Given the very restricted n u m b e r of the external links, it then seems plausible to hold that these relations can be specified by list by the g r a m m a r for given purposes. T h e main strategy of o u r analysis is now as follows: All dislocated a n a p h o r s are generated in situ, i.e., in their 'dislocated' position. This is to say that S-structure is the initial level of a syntactic derivation, hence that wA-trace binding relations are base-generated, subject to whatever conditions are imposed on tvA-binding, these acting as acceptance conditions. As far as possible, we let the acceptance of an external a n a p h o r follow the p r o c e d u r e f o r acceptance of XP-dislocated a n a p h o r s . Accordingly, the C o n t a i n e r of an external a n a p h o r will be related to the boxed XP-position in each of the structures in (38), which is the position kept by a X P dislocated a n a p h o r . This is step 1 in the acceptance process for external a n a p h o r s . Step 2, which is identical to what is the first step for X P dislocated a n a p h o r s , consists of m o v e m e n t of the material in the XP-position d o w n to the trace position, along relation-line b in (37). This is the reconstruction, or 'anti-w/z-movement', in the ' r e c o n s t r u c t i o n - w i t h - m o v e m e n t ' model. In the resulting c o n f i g u r a t i o n , shown in (39), with d o t t e d a r r o w s recapitulating the processes, the a n a p h o r (if well-formed) gets accepted with ,NP as its binder.

271

step

If a p r o n o m i n a l o c c u r r i n g inside the b o x e d c o n t a i n e r is subject to a c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y effect vis a vis ¡NP, it gets m a r k e d as »«acceptable. F o r p r o n o m i n a l s originating in X P , this is as desired; b u t f o r p r o n o m i n a l s o r i g i n a t i n g in ' e x t e r n a l ' p o s i t i o n , there is n o c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y effect, as m e n t i o n e d earlier. This leaves us with a choice: either this ' d o w n w a r d ' m o v i n g p r o c e d u r e should be c o n f i n e d t o c o n s t i t u e n t s c o n t a i n i n g a n a p h o r s or the effect of w h a t h a p p e n s at the ' d o w n s t a i r s ' level s h o u l d not directly d e t e r m i n e the g r a m m a t i c a l i t y s t a t u s of the item in the external p o s i t i o n , but only via s o m e sort of ' m e d i a t i n g ' process. We c h o o s e the latter, f o r reasons to be given shortly. T h e following gives the m e c h a n i c s of the m e d i a t i n g process. W e a s s u m e , as we have d o n e all a l o n g , t h a t c o n t e x t - d e p e n d e n t items have a ' * ' associated with t h e m initially, which m u s t get r e m o v e d in the c o u r s e of the d e r i v a t i o n , a n d f u r t h e r m o r e t h a t the c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y effect is e n f o r c e d by assigning' * ' t o an item o c c u r r i n g within t h e 'revir' of a given a n a p h o r i c element. T h e ' a n t i - w / i - m o v e m e n t ' of an item in X P / C O M P allows this item to get rid of its star in t h e d o w n s t a i r s position (or be assigned a ' * ' , if violating c o m p l e m e n t a r i t y ) . This m u c h is a s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d i m p l e m e n t a t i o n of the r e c o n s t r u c t i o n idea. C o n s i d e r n o w the t r e a t m e n t of the external link of external items. H e r e , we let w h a t was called step 1 be a copying, r a t h e r t h a n a m o v e m e n t , d o w n into the X P - p o s i t i o n . If the external item is an a n a p h o r , this yields the c o n f i g u r a t i o n in (40):

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Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar

Container . . . kAnaphon * . . .

The Container in XP position undergoes anti-w/z-movement, and application of the relevant anaphor-rule may lead to deletion of the ' * '. Now we let the Container, after the ' * '-deletion, move back to the XPposition, yielding (41):

. . . kAnaphon * . . .

/\ XP

S'

Container . . . kAnaphon...

The convention/rule (42) then effects deletion of the ' * ' up in the Matrix, (42)

An external anaphor loses its ' * ' iff its copy in the relevant XPposition is without a ' * '

whereafter the copy in the XP-position is deleted. Suppose now that the item originating in the external container is a pronominal which gets a complementarity ' * ' assigned at the downstairs stage and finds itself in structure (43) after having been moved up to XP again:

Dislocated anaphors and the Loop Model (43)

273

Matrix

. . .kPronominali... XP

S

Container . . .kPronominali * . . .

No rule will now allow this ' * ' to be copied up to the pronominal in external position (in particular, (42) has no such effect), and given that deletion applies uniformly to the copies in XP, no complementarity ' * ' will then remain. In this way, we avoid unwanted complementarity effects imposed on items in external position. The sequence of downward movement of an item followed by moving it back up again gives name to the model incorporating this mechanism, i.e., the 'Loop Model'. It may be summarized as in (44); the copying part applies only to the constructions in (38), and the characterization of XP as 'abstract' holds for the analysis of external anaphors only: (44)

Checked S-str.

S-str. with ' * '

Loss of ' * ' (by (42)) and deletion of copy in XP

Copying from external position to XP

S-structure with abstract XP Movement from XP to trace ('anti-wA movement')

Movement up to XP (wA-movement)

L

NP-structure