Blocking effects and non-clause bound reflexives in Mandarin and American English

This is the peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript of an article published by John Benjamins Publishing Company in Linguistic Variation on September 21, 2015.A sub-set of languages with non-clause bound (NCB) reflexives exhibits Blocking effects. In these languages, a NCB reflexive is "blocked" from corefering with a higher subject when a lower subject does not agree with a higher subject for person. Accounting for Blocking effects has been challenging. Recently, researchers have posited a functional head that encodes point of view or sentience (e.g. Huang & Liu 2001, Tenny 2006, Chou 2012). However, these analyses do not account for all available data. Here, I offer a small modification to the most recent analysis of this type that accounts for available data by conforming to Chomsky's cyclic transfer system (2007, 2008). I also provide exploratory data that suggests that (i) NCB reflexives exist in American English and (ii) they unexpectedly exhibit Blocking effects. Finally, I illustrate that the modified analysis for Mandarin also accounts for the distribution of NCB reflexives in American English.Peer reviewedEnglis

De de se

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-170).In this dissertation, I argue against a unitary treatment of individual de se ascription. Based on consideration of Yoruba logophors and English dream-report pronouns, I show that one mechanism is best analyzed as binding by an operator, which is sensitive to binding locality requirements. In contrast, I argue that cases of indexical shift (whereby token-reflexive elements such as I and tomorrow may be dependent on the context of an attitude predicate), which do not show local binding effects, are instances of overwriting of elements of the sequence of evaluation. As pronouns that are not obligatorily read de se show neither of the conditions for shifted indexicals nor West-African logophors, I argue that de se readings of these items must arise as special cases of de re ascription. Cross-linguistic instances of anti-logophoricity (i.e., the obligatory non-de se ascription of pronouns in certain contexts) are correspondingly treated as environments imposing a non-de se demand on de re ascription. Finally, I demonstrate that binding and overwriting mechanisms may both be found within the territory of de se long-distance anaphora, based largely on a systematic split in interpretation amongst Mandarin speakers on licensing and interpretative constraints on long-distance ziji.by Pranav Anand.Ph.D

APPEARANCES ARE DECEIVING: LONG-DISTANCE SUBJECT ANAPHORS AND PHASAL BINDING DOMAINS

An unusual behavior of anaphors is to occur in embedded subject positions and bebound across a finite clause boundary by a matrix subject. This thesis, however, demonstrates that such constructions exist in Malki Arabic, besides other languages. First, this thesis shows that the clause size of the embedded clause in which subject anaphors are allowed is CP and not always a TP. Second, in light of current reductionist approaches to binding domains of the classical binding theory to phase theory, a cross-clausal binding relation bears issues to those approaches, as a long-distance antecedence relation crosses a phase boundary. Taking long-distance bound subject anaphors as the main empirical focus in this thesis, I show that the cross-clausal binding relation in Malki Arabic is not bona fide evidence against reducing binding domains to phases. Following Wurmbrand (2019) and Lohninger et al. (2022), I propose that constructions with long-distance bound subject anaphors theoretically resemble cross-clausal A-dependencies, like hyperraising and long-distance agreement, for undergoing movement to a position in the edge of the embedded clause and showing similar properties. Third, I show that reducing binding domains to whole phases is plausible, but taking spell-out domains as binding domains is untenable. Finally, the proposal suggested in this thesis also sheds lights on the possibility of the anaphor agreement effect as an interface condition, in addition to highlighting an account for the accusative-marked embedded subject in Modern Standard Arabic

Making Worlds Accessible. Essays in Honor of Angelika Kratzer

Every linguist knows how colossal Angelika’s impact on our field is. Hearing aboutthis would not be informative for anybody who might (virtually) pick up this volume, including Angelika herself. So, instead of writing about, say, Angelika’s crucial role in the development of our understanding of modality, we will write about what Angelika means to us, as a teacher, advisor, mentor, colleague, and friend. We know that these words will resonate with many of you (Angelika has meant so much to so many people). We just get to be the lucky ones to tell Angelika publicly.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ak_festsite_schrift/1000/thumbnail.jp

When errors aren\u27t: How comprehenders selectively violate Binding Theory

It has been claimed that comprehenders use the Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1986) to restrict the search for a reflexive’s antecedent in early stages of comprehension (Dillon, Mishler, Sloggett, & Phillips, 2013; Sturt, 2003; Nicol & Swinney, 1989) However, recent findings challenge this view, demonstrating that comprehenders occasionally access antecedents on the basis of their match with a reflexive’s morphosyntactic features (Chen, Jäger, & Vasishth, 2012; Patil, Lewis, & Vasishth, 2016, Parker, & Phillips, 2017). In this dissertation, I investigate the source of this ’grammatical fallibility’ in the real-time application of Principle A of the Binding Theory. Specifically, I ask whether this pattern of behavior is the direct consequence of an error-prone retrieval mechanism, or if it is instead the result of a discourse-oriented, logophoric interpretation of reflexive forms. This work presents four experiments demonstrating that comprehenders only consider non-Principle A antecedents which act as prominent perspective holders in the discourse. I explain these findings by appealing to local, logophoric center available for reflexive reference

Iron Range English reflexive pronouns

This is a post-print of a book chapter whose final version has been published in Micro-Syntactic Variation in North American English, Oxford University Press, 2014.This chapter offers new data from a Magnitude Estimation acceptability task that show that Iron Range English (IRE), which is spoken in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota, has long-distance reflexives. IRE reflexives (e.g., him-self) are long-distance reflexives, despite not, on the surface, sharing characteristics with long-distance reflexives in other languages: they are bi-morphemic, can corefer with subjects or objects, and exhibit both Blocking Effects and subject/verb agreement. However, IRE reflexives are neither indeterminate between anaphors and pronominals, nor are they are true logophors. Building on Katada (1991), this chapter suggests that IRE reflexives are operators that move successive-cyclically in LF to the edge of each clause, where they are in a local relationship with potential antecedents in higher clauses.Englis

Reflexives in Japanese

The purpose of this dissertation is to reconsider reflexives in Japanese through the following three steps: (a) separation of genuine reflexive elements from elements that are confounded as reflexives, (b) classification of reflexive anaphors into subtypes based on their semantic difference, and (c) classification of predicates that occur with anaphors. Many researchers have worked on the reflexive element zibun (self), but Japanese has other reflexive elements as well. These elements including zibun have not only the reflexive anaphor usage but also other ones. All the instances are, however, often lumped together under one category: reflexive. I distinguish genuine reflexive anaphors in Japanese from elements that are confounded as reflexive elements, by scrutinizing their syntactic and semantic properties and behavioral differences. Further, I claim that reflexive anaphors are classified into two subtypes as Pure reflexive anaphors and Near reflexive anaphors (Lidz, 1996, 2001a,b) based on their semantic property. Observing several languages from different language families, I propose that there is a parametric variation with respect to the two-type distinction of reflexive anaphors among languages. In languages like Japanese, anaphors in the form of affix are Pure reflexive anaphors, while non-affixal anaphors are Near reflexive anaphors. On the other hand, in languages like Dutch, the morphological composition (complexity) of anaphor corresponds to the two-type anaphor distinction. What yields this variation is also discussed. In considering reflexives, it is important to know the nature of reflexive anaphors, but it is also essential to understand the nature of predicates that occur with an anaphor. One of the unsolved questions in the research of reflexives in Japanese is that the anaphor zibun cannot take a local antecedent when it occurs with a certain type of verb, although anaphors should be locally bound. Several studies have demonstrated that the availability of local binding of an anaphor depends on the property of its cooccuring predicate (Reinhart and Reuland, 1993, Bergeton, 2004, among others). Discussing how the type of reflexive and the type of predicate relate, I propose a way to categorize predicates in Japanese into subtypes based on the analysis in Bergeton (2004). By going through the three steps, I give an answer to the unsolved question