Cross-over Phenomena

276 Pages·12.276 MB·English

by  Paul Martin Postal

CROSS-OVER
PHENOMENA
TRANSATLANTIC SERIES IN LINGUISTICS
Under the general editorship of
Samuel R. Levin
Graduate Center
The City University
of New York
ANALYTIC SYNTAX
OTTO JESPERSEN
THE STUDY OF SYNTAX
The Generative-Transformational Approach
to the Structure of American English
D. TERENCE LANGENDOEN
INTRODUCTION TO TAGMEMIC ANALYSIS
* WALTER A. COOK, S.J.
IRREGULARITY IN SYNTAX
GEORGE LAKOFF
CROSS-OVER
PHENOMENA
=
W
IT
H
O
HR
O A
R y
A ,

W
N

Thomas J. Watson Research Center, IBM
HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON, INC.
New York Chicago San Francisco Atlanta
_Dallas Montreal Toronto London Sydney
Copyright © 1971 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76—133047
SBN: 03-085 230-7
Printed in the United States of America
23:4) 740) SSOm Fees eel
Foreword
The present work was written in the late winter and early spring of 1968. It
appeared in July 1968 as a United States Air Force report, under Contract No.
AF 19(628)-5127, in Specification and Utilization of a Transformational
Grammar, Scientific Report No. 3, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center,
Yorktown Heights, New York.
Naturally, the framework of investigation and the assumptions underlying it
correspond to the period of writing. In a field like the theory of grammar, where
our knowledge of facts is rapidly expanding and our understanding of them
slowly deepening, it is inevitable that publication delays such as that involved in
the present edition must find certain aspects of a work out of phase with the
latest theoretical ideas. This is certainly true in the present case. However, while
a number of new facts bearing on the subject of this study have come to light
since July 1968, and a variety of new proposals about linguistic theory have
been developed that would radically alter the approach to these questions today,
it has not as yet proved possible to integrate these aspects into a newer and more
adequate treatment of the subject matter dealt with.
I have decided therefore to publish the present work in essentially its original
form, taking it as illustrative of a certain definite stage in the development of the
transformational approach to the grammar of coreference and pronominaliza-
tion. At the same time, it may serve as an introduction to the study of a variety
of detailed topics in this area that have, as far as I know, not previously been
publicly discussed in print.
PACE.
ag ’
= f
* .
] 4
X\
% i
—~
eee be =
~ = te
~~ i wT Jy ag > Gas mew Se or Pat) ie Gre aoe Lontete -
oe ’ eS Sala u7% . tt caters fad te Et = Peal
= a ey ‘i yy ‘pew i m weve y wees ol
tanned cul ft ecpd) WE eee eae
; : E m0 14 ae” _ an '
=
f Syeamrsiie yh Hohe oclogaeyel We (eee Me,
ithe ante ; Mi “tote TL dil all ‘ ‘ gti vey Ts tear pt
Fae Wacal yea >w e 12J Pe hn- hare. at ieee ae
al hierin ’ ee dt! A aw re Ay reste ateitess ata eae
sah how? ty Shogen siieiees Lest aia sehen
Aves 0 She Kewng all clon Yakeinis a OT oanis tame
J 5) Ghar ued whine et to bosetup Ql¥ Ae. girs) Moe: “h
‘ Syae' “9° quar “Tekh ew oe ts ; age iG
ley pmeG? ia meragp we a’ yvils vitor Msg a) ee
a: ante: cha tA See St) Weyer oy] aay. 2% &
Jew Wath TeAsbre fren on? Wy a = ‘th
sgt tiaeih 5 4 paeweiy oni a ed ee ie p
ile Fes ' : f ou oF weirs shici cee a Ye Stews mw
EATS UP SYD ee ee ia A
ry me et Honyoist Ad © wise wy y oan ay iL
nih agar iret ae ve) oo whdh 1D ive dg G= ia aa
a ie
7
Pa
ok cot
Preface
Given sufficient funds, one could amass a library of hundreds, possibly
thousands, of works on English grammar. These would contain a good deal of
the knowledge about this aspect of English gathered over several hundred years
by many hundreds of students and researchers. I am confident, however, that in
none of these works would it be observed that sentences like the following have
the properties they do:
(1)a Charley placed a snake near Louise.
b Louise, Charley placed a snake near.
c Near Louise, Charley placed a snake.
(2)a Charley placed a snake near him.
b Him, Charley placed a snake near.
c Near him, Charley placed a snake.
The key facts are that all of (1)a—(1)c are well formed and essentially
equivalent in the propositions they express. (2)a is ambiguous, the contrast
being whether the forms Charley and him designate the same individual. (2) c
embodies exactly the same ambiguity. (2) b does not, however. In the dialect of
the present writer, it is clear that the him of (2) b must refer to an individual
distinct from that referred to by Charley.
Given some knowledge of traditional grammar, one might immediately try to
explain this in terms of a grammatical law:
(3) A pronoun can never precede its antecedent.
This explanation assumes not implausibly that him is a pronoun and Charley its
antecedent. However, (2) c shows that this hypothetical grammatical principle is
false, even for English, since (2)c has a reading under which Charley is the
antecedent of him.
There are, I think, two conclusions to be drawn from this. First, despite the
massive literature on English grammar, there is an almost endless domain of
grammatical facts about English sentences yet to be even registered. Secondly,
vil
viii CROSS-OVER PHENOMENA
and more importantly, when hitherto unknown facts about English are
observed, there are in general no traditional (or modern, for that matter)
principles of grammar which explain them. If one grants that these conclusions
do indeed follow, that is, that examples like (1) and (2) are not unique but truly
representative of a massive unseen iceberg of grammatical data, we are safe in
inferring that the principles of English sentence formation and interpretation
(grammar) remain essentially unknown.
The present work is an investigation of some of the kinds of subtle, hitherto
largely hidden, facts about English grammar illustrated by (1) and (2). We
examine a mass of restrictions partially similar to those illustrated by the
absence of one “expected” interpretation of (2) b. Ultimately, we arrive at the
partial specification of a principle of grammar which explains such restrictions,
considering along the way its connections with many aspects of English grammar
and its relations to universal grammar.
PMP.
Yorktown Heights, New York
September 1970