Grammatical Number and Donkey Anaphora in English

L’article élargit l’analyse de l’anaphore en anglais trouvée dans les phrases dites ‘donkey sentences’, abordée par Gareth Evans et améliorée par Stephen Neale, au-delà des cas où les antécédents sont les syntagmes nominaux singuliers formés avec des noms de compte, jusqu’aux cas où les antécédents sont ou les syntagmes nominaux pluriels formés avec des noms de compte ou les syntagmes nominaux formés avec des noms de masse. Cet élargissement se fonde sur une analyse du nombre grammatical en anglais, développée ailleurs, cf. Gillon (1992). L’application de cette analyse dans ce travail exige qu’une proposition adoptée par Neale — celle qui veut que le nombre grammatical des pronoms dans ces cas est sémantiquement inerte — soit abandonnée. On montre que, pour des raisons indépendantes, la proposition est intenable.The article extends the analysis of English donkey anaphora, developed by Gareth Evans and improved by Stephen Neale, beyond those cases where the antecedents are singular count noun phrases, to those where the antecedents are either plural count noun phrases or mass noun phrases. The extension is based on an analysis of English grammatical number developed elsewhere cf. Gillon (1992). Its application here requires that a suggestion adopted by Neale—namely, that the grammatical number of pronouns in these cases is semantically inert—be relinquished. It is shown on independent grounds that the suggestion is untenable

A Possible Alignment Between the Orbits of Planetary Systems and their Visual Binary Companions

Astronomers do not have a complete picture of the effects of wide-binary companions (semimajor axes greater than 100 au) on the formation and evolution of exoplanets. We investigate these effects using new data from Gaia Early Data Release 3 and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission to characterize wide-binary systems with transiting exoplanets. We identify a sample of 67 systems of transiting exoplanet candidates (with well-determined, edge-on orbital inclinations) that reside in wide visual binary systems. We derive limits on orbital parameters for the wide-binary systems and measure the minimum difference in orbital inclination between the binary and planet orbits. We determine that there is statistically significant difference in the inclination distribution of wide-binary systems with transiting planets compared to a control sample, with the probability that the two distributions are the same being 0.0037. This implies that there is an overabundance of planets in binary systems whose orbits are aligned with those of the binary. The overabundance of aligned systems appears to primarily have semimajor axes less than 700 au. We investigate some effects that could cause the alignment and conclude that a torque caused by a misaligned binary companion on the protoplanetary disk is the most promising explanation