Download Lecture 11 - ELTE / SEAS

Lecture 11: Binding and Reflexivity
ADVANCED SYNTAX
PRONOUNS

Pronouns differ from nouns in that their
reference is determined in context
 The
reference of the word dog is fixed to things in
the world that we know to be dogs
 The reference of the word him varies from one
context to another
TWO TYPES OF PRONOUN

Pronominals


E.g. Him
Can have independent
reference





Bill likes him
E.g. Himself
Can’t have independent
reference


Bill thinks I like him
Can’t refer to a close
antecedent

Anaphors
I like him
Can be co-referential with
a distant antecedent


Can’t be co-referential
with a distant antecedent


* I like himself
* Bill thinks I like himself
Can refer to a close
antecedent

Bill likes himself
TWO VIEWS OF THE DIFFERENT PRONOUNS

The difference between pronouns is to do with
the properties of the pronouns themselves
 There
are different rules which tell us how
pronominals and anaphors can refer
 Rules

of pronoun Binding
The difference between pronouns is to do with
the properties of verbs
 There
are rules about how verbs which have
coreferential arguments are marked
BINDING THEORY

The reference of pronominals and anaphors are in
complementary distribution

Whatever one can refer to, the other cannot:
 He
left
 Bill1 said [Mary likes him1]
 Bill1 likes himself1
* himself left
* Bill1 said [Mary likes himself1]
* Bill1 likes him1
Therefore, the rules that determine what each
pronoun can refer to must be opposites
 Note:


We use co-indexing to indicate co-reference
ANAPHORIC REFERENCE

Anaphors

Always have an antecedent
*
Himself left
 * I like himself

Have a clause-mate antecedent
 Mary
said [Bill1 admires himself1]
 * Mary1 said [Bill admires herself1]

Have a structurally defined relationship to their
antecedent
 Bill1
admires himself1
 * Bill1’s mother admires himself1
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The subject can be an
antecedent for an object
 Bill1
likes himself1
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

But the object cannot be
the antecedent for a
subject
*
himself1 likes Bill1
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The possessor inside the
subject also cannot be the
antecedent of an object
*
Bill1’s mother likes himself1
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT
The structural relationship which holds
between the subject and the object, but not
between the object and the subject or any
element insider the subject and the object is
called c-command
 C-command

A
node c-commands its sister and everything
inside its sister
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

A subject c-commands the
object because:
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The subject c-commands
the I’ (its sister)
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The object is inside the VP
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The VP is inside the I’
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

An object does not ccommand the subject
because:
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT
The object c-commands
the V’ (its sister)
 But the subject is not
inside the V’

THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT

The possessor inside the
subject does not ccommand the object
because:
THE STRUCTURAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
ANAPHOR AND ITS ANTECEDENT
The possessor ccommands the D’
 But the object is not inside
the D’

THE DEFINITION OF BINDING

We say that a phrase (A) binds another (B) if:
A
and B are co-indexed and
 A c-commands B
CONDITION A OF THE BINDING THEORY

Condition A determines the behaviour of
anaphors
 A:
an anaphor must be bound within the smallest
clause that contains it

The following are grammatical as the anaphors
are properly bound
 Bill1
saw himself1 in the mirror
 Bill thinks [Mary1 drives herself1 to work]
CONDITION A OF THE BINDING THEORY

The following are ungrammatical because the
anaphors are not bound
*
Himself left
 * Himself1 saw Bill1
 * Mary1’s father drover herself1 to work
CONDITION A OF THE BINDING THEORY

The following is ungrammatical because the
anaphor is bound outside the smallest clause
containing it:
*
Bill1 said [Mary drives himself1 to work]
CONDITION B OF THE BINDING THEORY
Pronominals are the opposite of anaphors
 So we define the opposite relationship of
binding

 Free
A
phrase is free if it is not bound
CONDITION B OF THE BINDING THEORY

Condition B determines the behaviour of
pronominals


B: a pronominal must be free in the smallest clause
that contains it
The following are grammatical because the
pronominals are free (they have no antecedent
that binds them)
He left
 Bill1 likes her2
 Bill1’s mother phoned him1

CONDITION B OF THE BINDING THEORY

The following is grammatical because the
pronominal is bound, but not in the smallest
clause that contains it:
 Bill1
thinks [Mary likes him1]
CONDITION B OF THE BINDING THEORY

The following is ungrammatical because the
pronominal is bound by a phrase inside the
smallest clause containing it:
*
Bill1 shaved him1
CONDITION C OF THE BINDING THEORY

As we have seen, the following is
ungrammatical because the anaphor is not
bound:
*

Himself1 likes Bill1
We might therefore think that the following
should be grammatical, but it isn’t:
*
He1 likes Bill1
CONDITION C OF THE BINDING THEORY
The reason for this is nothing to do with the
pronominal, but to do with the proper noun
 Proper nouns cannot be bound at all:

*
Bill1 likes Bill1
 * Bill1 said Mary likes Bill1
We call such referential DPs, ‘r-expressions’
 They are subject to principle C:

 C:
an r-expression must be free
SUMMARY OF BINDING THEORY
A: an anaphor must be bound in the smallest
clause that contains it
 B: a pronominal must be free in the smallest
clause that contains it
 C: an r-expression must be free

EXTENSIONS

It is not only clauses that count as binding
domains:
 Bill1
found [a picture of himself1]
 * Bill1 found [Mary’s picture of himself1]
 Bill1 found [Mary’s picture of him1]

It seems that DPs are sometimes relevant
domains for binding and sometimes not
THE CONCEPT OF SUBJECT

DPs in which anaphors must be bound and
pronominals free contain a possessor:
 Bill
stole [Mary’s article about him/herself]
THE CONCEPT OF SUBJECT

Possessors are similar to subjects
 They
are both specifiers of functional phrases
 In nominalisations, the subject translates as a
possessor
 The
minister believed in fairies
 The minister’s belief in fairies
 In
passives, the object moves to subject and in
passive nominals it moves to possessor
 The
city was destroyed by the bomb
 They city’s destruction by the bomb
THE CONCEPT OF SUBJECT

Therefore we might extend the notion of subject
to cover the possessor:
 Subject
of the clause = agent/experiencer/etc.
 Subject of the DP = possessor
Clauses have obligatory subjects
 DPs have optional subjects

DEFINITION OF THE BINDING DOMAIN

The binding domain for a pronoun is:
 The
smallest construction with a subject that
contains it
A: an anaphor must be bound in its binding
domain
 B: a pronominal must be free in its binding
domain

SOME PROBLEMS

There are cases where anaphors and pronominals
are not in complementary distribution:
Bill saw a picture of himself/him in the newspaper
 No one knew, except for Bill and me/myself
 Mary found the diamond near her/herself


This suggest that the binding domain for anaphors
is bigger than that for pronominals


... [BDan Ant1 ... [BDpron ... pro1 ... ]]
It isn’t clear how to solve this problem
REFLEXIVE VERBS

Some verbs have inherent reflexive meaning:
 Bill
washed =
 Bill washed himself

This can be over-ridden by adding an object
 Bill

washed the car
This is not true of all verbs:
ate  Bill ate himself
 * Bill hit  Bill hit himself
 Bill
MORPHOLOGICAL REFLEXIVES

In some languages reflexive verbs are marked
by a morpheme
 Turkish
 Leyla
araba yika-di
Leyla car wash-past
 Leyla yika-n-di
Leyla wash-refl-past
 English
 This
can mark some verbs as reflexive
tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds
WHAT IS A REFLEXIVE VERB?

The most general definition of a reflexive verb is:

A verb denoting an event in which two roles are played
by the same argument
 John

introduced Mary to Bill
Agent = John, theme = Mary, goal = Bill

 John

introduced himself to Mary
Agent = John, theme = John, goal = Mary

 John

Non-reflexive
Reflexive
introduced Bill to himself
Agent = John, theme = Bill, goal = John/Bill

Reflexive
REFLEXIVITY AS A PROPERTY OF VERBS
This all suggests that reflexivity is a property of
verbs
 Thus the difference between the following is to do
with the verb and not the pronouns

Bill likes himself
 Bill likes him


=
=
reflexive
non-reflexive
We might suggest that reflexive verbs are marked
as such by:
A morpheme on the verb itself
 A morpheme on one of its arguments

RULES OF REFLEXIVITY

A: a reflexive marked verb must be interpreted
as reflexive:
 Bill1
shot himself1
 * Bill1 shot himself2

B: a reflexive verb must be reflexive marked:
 Bill1
shot him2
 * Bill1 shot him1
SOME MORE CASES

John thinks Mary likes him/*himself
 The
reflexive pronoun is ungrammatical because
 It
marks the verb like as reflexive
 the arguments of like are ‘Mary’ and someone else

Perhaps ‘John’, perhaps not
 These
are not the same
 This verb is not reflexive
SOME MORE CASES

John’s mother likes him/*himself
 The
 It
reflexive pronoun is ungrammatical because
marks the verb like as reflexive
 The arguments of like are ‘John’s mother’ and ‘John’
 These are not the same
 The verb is not reflexive
WHAT ABOUT R-EXPRESSIONS

* John1 likes John1
 Is
ungrammatical because the reflexive verb is not
reflexive marked (principle B violation)

* John1 thinks Mary likes John
 Does
not violate principle A or B
 There

is no reflexive verb
So we still seem to need binding principle C
WHAT ABOUT R-EXPRESSIONS

But there are cases where an r-expression can
be bound:
 Everyone

hates John – even John hates John!
So principle C is not so strong
WHICH ARGUMENT BEARS THE REFLEXIVE
MORPHEME?

What we have said so far would predict the
grammaticality of both the following:
 John
likes himself
 Himself likes John
 The

verb is both reflexive and reflexive marked
In binding theory the second was ruled out by
the c-command condition on binding
WHICH ARGUMENT BEARS THE REFLEXIVE
MORPHEME?

But we don’t need the c-command condition
under the reflexivity view
 *John’s
 This
mother likes himself
is ungrammatical because the verb is not reflexive –
nothing to do with c-command
WHICH ARGUMENT BEARS THE REFLEXIVE
MORPHEME?

One possibility is that there is a linear
restriction on the reflexive marking argument:
 The
argument that marks a verb as reflexive must
follow the argument that does not
WHICH ARGUMENT BEARS THE REFLEXIVE
MORPHEME?

Alternatively, it might have to do with the
thematic hierarchy:
 Agent
> Experiencer > Goal > Theme
 The
argument which is lowest on the thematic hierarchy
bears the reflexive marker

John bit himself



John = agent
Himself = theme
John saw himself


John = experiencer
Himself = theme
John shot at himself
John = agent
himself = goal
John looked at himself
John = experiencer
himself = goal
WHICH ARGUMENT BEARS THE REFLEXIVE
MORPHEME?

One piece of evidence in favour of the linear
approach is:
 John
showed Bill himself
 Bill
 John
= goal, himself = theme
showed Bill to himself
 Bill
= theme, himself = goal
THE PROBLEMATIC CASES

The problems for Binding theory were cases
where anaphors and pronominals were not in
complementary distribution
 John

saw a picture of him/himself
These cases do not involve a reflexive verb
 So
the reflexive pronoun is not a reflexive marker,
but something else
THE PROBLEMATIC CASES

Consider the following:
The Queen invited John and me to tea
 The Queen invited John and myself to tea


The second case stresses the importance of this
statement for the speaker

This is ‘point of view’ phenomena
 The
statement is important from the point of view of the
speaker

We call this ‘logophoricity’
 ‘myself’
is a logophor (not anaphor) here
 Therefore, reflexive marking is not involved
CONCLUSION

There are two theories concerning the distribution of
pronouns



Both account for the complementary distribution of the
two types of pronoun



One concentrates on the different referential properties of
pronouns themselves (Binding Theory)
The other concentrates on the marking of reflexive verbs
with a morpheme which can appear on a pronoun argument
(Reflexivity)
Pronominals
Anaphors
(pronouns)
(reflexives)
But in different ways
CONCLUSION

Binding theory

Principle A


Reflexivity

Anaphors must be bound
in the smallest binding
domain
Principle B


Pronominals must be free
in the smallest binding
domain
Principle A


A reflexive marked verb
must be reflexive
Principle B

A reflexive verb must be
reflexive marked