Bhatt, Rajesh

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University of Pennsylvania WorkingPapers in LinguisticsVolume 2Issue 2 Proceedings of the 19th Annual PennLinguistics ColloquiumArticle 21-1-1995Why `Minimize Restrictor'?Rajesh BhattThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol2/iss2/2For more information, please contact libraryrepository@pobox.upenn.edu.Why `Minimize Restrictor'?This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol2/iss2/2Why ‘Minimize Restrictor’?Rajesh BhattUniversity of Pennsylvaniabhatt@linc.cis.upenn.edu1 IntroductionI argue that the framework proposed in Reinhart&Reuland(93) is successfully able toaccount for Condition B effects which so far had needed a reconstructional analysis. Idiscuss cases where the ‘Minimize Restrictor’ condition proposed in Chomsky(92) rulesout valid co-indexings. Based on this and some other facts, I propose that the ‘MinimizeRestrictor’ condition is only needed to derive Condition C effects.2 Background AssumptionsIn this paper, I utilize the framework proposed by Reinhart&Reuland (1993). This frame-work consists of the following principles/conditions:(1) [Condition A] A reflexive-marked syntactic predicate is reflexive.(2) [Condition B] A reflexive semantic predicate is reflexive-marked.(3) [Chain Condition] A maximal A-chain ( ) has exactly one link: ,which is both +R and marked for structural case and exactly one -markedlink.A predicate is reflexive-marked if at least one of its arguments is an anaphor. The conditionsA and B of Reinhart&Reuland (1993) reproduce most of the effects of the conditions Aand B of GB theory. From this point onwards, I shall refer to conditions A and B ofReinhart&Reuland (1993) as conditions A and B and to conditions A and B of GBtheory as A and B .(4) a. * John likes himself .b. * Ed likes him .In (4a), Condition A forces John to be coreferent with the anaphor himself since thepresence of an anaphor as an argument of likemakes like reflexive. If John and the anaphorare not coindexed, we have a non reflexive reflexive marked predicate which is ruled outby Condition A . Similarly in (4b), Condition B forces Ed to be disjoint with him. If17Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 2, no. 2 (1995)Ed and him were coindexed, like which is not reflexive-marked would become a reflexivepredicate - this would be ruled out by Condition B .The Chain Condition is however quite different from Condition C of the standardbinding theory (Chomsky (1981, 1986a)). So while a sentence like (5) would be ruled outby Condition C , it would not be ruled out by the Chain condition.(5) * She thought that Ed liked Janet .This is not a gap in the framework proposed by Reinhart&Reuland (1993). They considerbinding theory to consist only of Conditions A and B, and to govern only bound variableanaphora - Condition C is argued in Reinhart (1983a) and Grodzinsky&Reinhart (1993) tobelong to a separate inferential module.3 Reconstructional PhenomenaReinhart&Reuland(93) note that adopting a theory of logophoric anaphora eliminates theneed for reconstruction mechanisms in the case of Condition A. (give page no.)Consider the examples in (6a) and (6b). In both of these the embedded subject Bill canbe coindexed with the moved anaphor. Assuming the minimalist assumptions that bindingtheory conditions apply at LF and also assuming that c-command is one of the relevantconditions, this fact provides evidence that the moved wh-phrase can be construed lower,as the object of the embedded clause at LF. at some(6) a. John wondered [which picture of himself ] [Bill saw t ]b. [Which picture of himself ] does John think Bill likes t ?It should be noted that the reconstruction in (6a) and (6b) is optional. The anaphor can bebound by either the matrix or the lower binder reflecting under minimalist assumptions, theLF position of the anaphor.Reinhart & Reuland account for the above data by a very different theoretical device.Note that the definitions of Conditions A and B involve the word predicate. Apredicate is formed only when there is an external argument. This captures the intuitionseen in several versions of binding theory that there is something special about the Subject.This was reflected in the use of notions such as Accesible Subject. In NPs like ‘whichpicture of himself’, picture does not form a predicate since it does not have an externalargument. As a result neither Condition A nor Condition B apply to the anaphorin question - as a result it can act like a logophor and refer freely subject to pragmaticconstraints. So in both (6a) and (6b) , the anaphor can refer to either the matrix or theembedded subject.Reinhart&Reuland (1993) also note, however, that this does not entail that the problemof reconstruction is eliminated altogether. So far, reconstruction may still be needed forcases of Condition B and C.18Why ‘Minimize Restrictor’ BhattIn the following sections, I show that we need not appeal to reconstruction to obtainCondition B effects within Reinhart&Reuland (1993). I also show that obligatory recon-struction of the kind enforced by the principle of ‘Minimize Restrictor’ rules out certainlegal coindexings.3.1 Condition B and reconstructionBased on the examples in (6a) and (6b), Chomsky (1993) claims that we need a conceptionof binding theory which distinguishes condition A, which does not force reconstruction,from conditions B and C, which do.(7) John wondered [which picture of Tom ] [he liked t ](8) John wondered [which picture of him ] [Bill took t ](9) John wondered [what attitude about him ] [Bill had t ]While in (6a) and (6b), the reconstruction was optional (7), (8) and (9) are all cases ofobligatory reconstruction. If like in the case of (6a) or (6b) the reconstruction was optionalwe would expect that in (7), Tom and he can be coreferent. Similarly for (8) and (9).As discussed earlier, in the framework of Reinhart & Reuland (1993) Condition C is notpart of the binding theory which only consists of Conditions A, B and the Chain Condition.(7) involves Condition C, hence since I am using the framework of Reinhart & Reuland(1993) I will put it aside for now.My analysis of (8) and (9) starts with the observation that they are both cases of NPsthat involve an idiomatic reading - they have also been analyzed as having a PRO subject.Note the contrast in (10a) and (10b).(10) a. John saw [a picture of him ].b. * John took [a picture of him ].(11) * John had [an attitude about him ].Chomsky (1986b) argued that (10b) (or 11) had a structure that contained a PROelementcontrolled by the matrix subject as shown in (12).(12) * John took [PRO picture of him ].Thus the standard Condition B rule out the following sentence.The PRO analysis has the problem that while the PRO is needed for the ‘take a picture’cases, it’s presence in ‘see a picture’ produces illicit readings. The problem is that if thePRO in ‘a picture of...’ is obligatory (10a) should be ungrammatical while if it is optional(10b) should be grammatical. The insight beingmissed is that the presence of PRO/external19Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 2, no. 2 (1995)argument of the NP is conditioned by the predicate. This insight is captured by Williams(1985, 1987) implicit arguments analysis.FurtherWilliams (1982, 1985, 1987) has argued that such a PRO analysis is not feasible- these apparent control effects surface even where a PRO is not possible. Instead heproposes that the N-agent role which is not syntactically realized, is satisfied in the lexiconand can get a referential value either by control or from the context. Cf. (10b) and (11)Chomsky (1993) does not use the PRO solution and instead argues that the idiomaticreading is available only when ‘take...picture’ forms a unit at LF. This can be seen in the(minimalist) LFs for (8) and (9) given in (13a) and (13b) respectively:(13) a. John wondered [which x][Bill took [x picture of him ]](LF for (8))b. John wondered [what x][Bill had [x attitude about him ]](LF for (9))The notion of ‘unit at LF’ refers to string contiguity at LF. Chomsky(92) rules out LFs like(14a) by having a principle called ‘Minimize Restrictor’ - minimize the restrictor whereveryou can - This principle forces reconstruction in all Condition B and C environments.(14) a. # John wondered [which picture of him x][Bill took [x ]]b. John wondered [which x][Bill took [x picture of him]](14a) is ruled out because of the existence of the convergent (14b) where the restrictor hasbeen minimized.Both (8) and (9) can be handled within Reinhart&Reuland(93) - these are both exampleswhere the lexical semantics of the verb causes theN-agent roles of the noun to be instantiatedas identical to the agent of the verb. Now Condition B is enough to rule out anycoindexing between ‘Bill’ and ‘him’ since this would cause the semantic predicate ‘picture’to be reflexive even though it is not reflexive-marked.Requiring ‘Minimize Restrictor’ to apply in all Condition B environments seems to betoo strong as it rules out several cases of legal coindexation. Consider (15).(15) Mary wondered [which picture of him ] [Bill submitted t for the fashion show].If the restrictor needed to be minimized in all cases, (15) would be out since it wouldhave the LF in (16):(16) Mary wondered [which x] [Bill submitted [x picture of him] for the fashion show].(16) violates the standard binding condition B and hence (15) should be ungrammatical.A PRO analysis would get us (15) but would have problems as discussed earlier withsentences like (17).(17) * Mary wondered [which picture of him ] Bill took t for the fashion show.If the picture NP had a PRO (15) could have the following legal LF:20Why ‘Minimize Restrictor’ Bhatt(18) Mary wondered [which x] [Bill submitted [x PRO picture of him ] for the fashionshow].However this would lead us to expect the grammaticality of the ungrammatical (17) sinceit would have an LF very similar to (18). This problem arises, as discussed before, becausethe relationship between take and the picture-NP is not taken into consideration.Reinhart & Reuland (1993) are able to account for this reading. take instantiates theimplicit argument of the picture-NP as its agent and thus causes the formation of a non-reflexive marked reflexive predicate and hence a Condition B violation. The lexicalsemantics of submit are different and coindexing the pronoun in the picture-NP with theagent of submit does not lead to a Condition B violation.3.2 Reconstruction for InterpretationIn the previous section, we have seen that we do not need a special operation of reconstruc-tion to deriveConditionB binding effects. Further in the case of ConditionB, reconstructionis obligatory only in idiomatic environments such as ‘take a picture’. Reconstruction forreasons of interpretation is however not ruled out. Cf.(19)(19) Who wanted John to destroy how many pictures that he had painted?Heycock (1993)(following Kroch (1989)) claims that (19) has two readings: a nonref-erential reading(LF in (20a) and a referential, non D-linked reading(LF in (20b)).(20) a. [Howmany x][who y] y wanted John to destroy [x pictures that he had painted]b. [How many pictures that he had painted x][who y] y wanted John to destroy[x]With minimization of restrictor, (20b) would not be a legal LF. However, the readingin (20b) does seem to be available. If following the argumentation in Kroch (1989) weassume that the LF in (20b) is the correct representation for the referential, non D-linkedreading then Minimize Restrictor would rule out such representations a-priori. This doesnot seem desirable.3.3 Problems with anaphorsIn Chomsky (1993), ConditionA environments such as (21a) do not obligatorily reconstructbecause the anaphor can cliticize to the matrix verb yielding the (non reconstructing) LF in(21b):(21) a. John wondered [which picture of himself] [Bill likes t ]b. John self-wondered [which picture of t x] [Bill likes x]21Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 2, no. 2 (1995)Minimizing the restrictor will lead to deletion of t , breaking the chain (self, t ) andleaving the reflexive element without a -role at LF. A reconstructing derivation alsoexists(22), in which the anaphor cliticizes onto ‘likes’.(22) John wondered [which x][Bill self-likes [x pictures of t ]].The crucial thing is that LF-cliticization of the anaphor is deemed sufficient to blockMinimize Restrictor - It is ranked below other principles. If there are two convergentderivations from the same numeration only one of which minimizes restrictor, then theone with the minimized restrictor blocks the other. However if the derivation crashes as aresult of minimizing restrictor, then it is legal not to minimize restrictor. There are someconceptual problems with this approach. Consider the (illegal) reconstructing derivation inwhich self cliticizes to wonder and we also minimize restrictor:(23) John self-wondered [which x] [Bill likes x picture of self]Note that since in the minimalist program, we have a copy theory of movement, the lowercopy is left intact - the upper copy which had had movement of self out of it is deleted sincewe are minimizing restrictor. While it is clear that (23) is an illegitimate derivation, it is notclear whether this derivation is bad because it converges as semi-gibberish at LF(no -rolefor self) or because it crashes. In order to allow the non-reconstructing derivation to getthrough we have to stipulate that it crashes. That this is so is non-obvious.Further consider (24) where the same ambiguity obtains:(24) [Which picture of himself ] does John think [ Bill likes t ]Minimizing restrictorwith self cliticized to the embedded predicate like gives us the readingwhere the anaphor is coindexedwithin the embedded clause. ApplyingLF-cliticization fromthe landing site leads to a lowering movement: such movements result in an ungovernedtrace and there is considerable evidence that suggests that such movements should notbe permitted at all. On the other hand applying LF-cliticization from the position of theintermediate trace creates an illicit LF. Further it is not clear if intermediate traces exist atLF. Considering the close similarity between (24) (21a), we expect an analysis given for(21a) to carry over to (24). The LF-cliticization analysis does not do well on this account.Reinhart &Reuland (1993) are able to explain this straightforwardly and also capture thesimilarity between (21a) and (24). In both (21a) and (24), the anaphor is in a picture-NPwhere predicate formation does not take place. As a result, it can act as a logophor andrefer freely constrained only by discourse.4 So where do we need ‘Minimize Restrictor’?‘Minimize Restrictor’ is still needed to derive Condition C effects as in (25a) and (25b).22Why ‘Minimize Restrictor’ Bhatt(25) a. John wondered [which picture of Tom ] [he liked t ]b. * Who wanted him to destroy how many pictures that John had painted?5 ConclusionsWe see that ‘Minimize Restrictor’ is not needed to derive Condition A and B effects.Adopting Reinhart & Reuland (1993)’s framework allows us to account for these caseswithout having special rules of reconstruction like ‘Minimize Restrictor’. Further it is notjust redundant but also problematic since it rules out certain LFs which are independentlymotivated. Its basic purpose is to drive LF-lowering of R-expressions to feed Condition Cviolations.(see Heycock (1993)) The existence of a principle such as ‘Minimize Restrictor’is puzzling since some kind of ‘least effort’ principle would work in the opposite directionand would argue for maximization of restrictor since it is easily demonstratable that pruningthe search space at the source makes for a more efficient search strategy.The fact that Conditions A and B pattern together in not needing ‘Minimize Restrictor’versus Condition C which does and the fact that Conditions A and B are in a sense localwhile condition C is non-local. suggests that treating the binding theory as only consistingof Conditions A and B is on the right track. Then if ‘Minimize Restrictor’ was part of thegrammar, it would be part of the same inferential module to which Condition C belongs.References[1] N. Chomsky. Lectures on Government and Binding. Foris, Dordrecht, 1981.[2] N. Chomsky. Knowledge of Language:Its nature origin and use. Praeger, New York,1986.[3] Noam Chomsky. A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. In Kenneth Hale andSamuel Jay Keyser, editors, The View from Building 20. MIT Press, 1993.[4] Caroline Heycock. Reconstructing Referentiality. Technical report, Department ofLinguistics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1993.[5] Hilda Koopman and Dominique Sportiche. Pronouns, Logical Variables, and Lo-gophoricity in Abe. Linguistic Inquiry, 20:555–588, 1989.[6] Tanya Reinhart and Eric Reuland. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry, 24:657–720, 1993.[7] Spyridoula Varlokosta and Norbert Hornstein. A Bound Pronoun in Modern Greek.Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 9:175–195, 1993.23Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 2, no. 2 (1995)[8] Edwin Williams. PRO and subject of NP. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory,3:297–315, 1985.[9] EdwinWilliams. Implicit arguments, the binding theory and control. Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory, 5:151–180, 1987.24

Why `Minimize Restrictor\u27?

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Why `Minimize Restrictor\u27?

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