Imposters: A Study of Pronominal Agreement

285 Pages·2012·1.74 MB·English

by  Chris Collins

I M POS T E R S
A Study of Pronominal Agreement
Chris Collins and Paul M. Postal
I mposters

I mposters
A Study of Pronominal Agreement
Chris Collins and Paul M. Postal
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Chris, 1963–
Imposters : a study of pronominal agreement / Chris Collins and Paul M. Postal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01688-9 (alk. paper)
1. Grammar, Comparative and general — Pronominals. 2. Grammar, Comparative
and general — Agreement. 3. Grammar, Comparative and general — Pronoun.
4. G rammar, Comparative and general — Noun. I. Postal, Paul Martin, 1936 –
II. Title.
P279.C65 2012
415′.5 — dc23 2011024654
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C  ontents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
1  Introduction  1
2  Notional versus Syntactic Views of Imposters  9
3  Imposters as Antecedents  15
4  Antecedence: Some Theoretical Considerations  25
5  The Structure of Imposters  47
6  The Structure of Camouflage DPs  71
7  Pronominal Agreement  89
8  Accidental Coreference  99
9  Coordinate Structures  105
10  Principle C Phenomena  131
11  Epithets  135
12  Homogeneity  141
13  Sources  155
14  Agreement with Multiple Sources  181
15  Fake Indexicals  191
16  Irreplaceable Pronominals  201
vi  Contents
17  Camouflage Revisited  207
18  Pronominal Imposters  217
19  Crosslinguistic Variation in Pronominal Agreement  225
20  Conclusion  229
Notes 233
References 259
Name Index 267
Subject Index 271
P reface
The main goal of this book is to explain pronominal alternations such as those
in (1).
(1) a. I n this reply, the present authors (= the writers of the reply) attempt to
defend ourselves/themselves against the scurrilous charges which have
been made.
b. Your Majesty should praise yourself / herself.
c. Every one of us thinks we/they are a genius.
d. I am a teacher who takes care of myself / himself.
e. Would Your/ Her (= addressee) Majesty like her tea on the veranda?
f. This reporter (= speaker) and his son are proud of ourselves/
themselves.
In all cases, two pronominal forms are possible, each with the same antecedent.
For example, in (1a), the reflexives ourselves and themselves have the pres-
ent authors as antecedent. Furthermore, the alternation is not accompanied by
differences in truth conditions. In each case in (1), the two versions mean the
same thing. Apart from the extensive study by Kratzer (2009) (which is re levant
to (1d); see chapter 15), we are unaware of any studies on any of the al ternations
in (1). In fact, the phenomena in question seem to have been little discussed in
the voluminous descriptive grammars of English.
We will argue that it is possible to understand all these pronominal alterna-
tions in the same way. In each case, a pronominal can agree in ϕ-features with
its immediate antecedent, or with some distinct DP (which we dub a secondary
source) syntactically related to its immediate antecedent. (Here and th roughout,
we use either of the terms pronoun or pronominal to refer to both reflexive and
nonreflexive pronouns.)
The syntactic approach we adopt in this book is quite informal. We make
reasonably precise theoretical assumptions but mostly without attempting to
embed them in any fixed theoretical framework. At certain points, however, we
viii  Preface
do indicate how various claims could be represented internal to specific theo-
retical views. Although it is unusual, we believe the approach adopted here is
not without merits. That view is based on our shared perception that syntactic
knowledge at this stage of inquiry is in general extremely limited. Most areas
of research provide at best small patches of understanding surrounded by, and
intertwined with, large territories of mystery, even for languages as intensely
studied as English, and a fortiori for every other language on earth. We believe
this characterization is true of even well-studied domains (e.g., English island
phenomena or passives); it is doubly so in any virgin territory. Relevantly, the
subject dealt with here seems to have gone largely unstudied — in fact, largely
unnoticed.
While this is apparently the first real exploration of the terrain in question,
we argue that it is nonetheless possible to reach some solid syntactic conclu-
sions. But it is inevitable that research on what has up to now been a mostly
invisible syntactic domain should not be expected to yield a fully worked-out,
explicit syntactic account. Those points that can be established with some jus-
tification inevitably trail off in many directions into puzzles and questions that
cannot yet be firmly answered. Given this situation, if one were to insist on a
fully worked-out, explicit account, one would make it impossible to present
those partial results that are achievable.
Thus, the partially informal approach adopted in most of this book serves
three ends. First, it permits us to present observations and generalizations that
we believe any explicit account would have to incorporate, while minimizing
arbitrary decisions and technical assumptions that the facts themselves do not
justify. Second, it permits us to describe our results in terms that neither of us
would independently advocate but that we both find adequate enough to sug-
gest the kind of account we would like to see developed. Third, we hope that
the sort of lingua franca terms used in most of the book will permit readers
with a wide range of theoretical viewpoints to grasp the minimal generaliza-
tions already achieved and to focus on lines of research needed if one is to go
beyond the limitations of the present account.
A  cknowledgments
Producing this book has been a long tortuous journey, fraught with de tours, dan-
gerous turns, suspicious hitchhikers, the adrenaline rush of traveling in a for-
eign country, and ultimately breathtaking vistas. It started three years ago when
we stumbled across imposters while doing research on what we called the ass
camouflage construction (see sentences (162) and (163) of Collins, Moody,
and Postal 2008, 61). So first, we would like to thank our coauthor on that
work, Simanique Moody, who also contributed some crucial data for this book.
The first author has taught the material presented here in three seminars at
New York University: Fall 2007, Fall 2009, and Spring 2010. We would like to
thank the participants in these seminars for offering their judgments on the
data, providing insightful new material, and giving feedback on the ideas as
well. In no particular order: Tricia Irwin, Daniel Lassiter, Mike Taylor, Andrea
Cattaneo, Arthur Wang, Violeta Vázquez-Rojas, Jim Wood, Satarupa Das,
E dmund O’Neil, Teresa O’Neil, Laziz Nchare, Eric Besson, Danny Nassre,
Neil Myler, Emilio Servidio, Poppy Slocum, Gabriela Soare, Stephanie Harves,
Dalina Kallulli, Ananda Lima, and Judy Bernstein.
We have also presented this material at the Universidade de Brasília (2008);
the University of Ghana, Legon (2008); and the 9th Annual CUNY-SUNY-
NYU Mini-Conference (2007).
We have benefited from commentary by (in no particular order) Haj Ross,
Philippe Schlenker, Richie Kayne, Chris Potts, Raffaella Zanuttini, Jean-Yves
Pollock, Anne Zribi-Hertz, Benjamin Bruening, collaborators on The Cam-
bridge Grammar of the English Language (including Geoffrey K. Pullum,
Rodney Huddleston, Lesley Fiona Stirling, and John Payne), the editors of
Language (including Mark Baker and Brian Joseph), two anonymous Lan-
guage reviewers, and the three anonymous MIT Press reviewers. The feedback
received from these people helped us sharpen our ideas considerably.
We must also thank Anne Mark, whose copyediting has as usual vastly im-
proved the input manuscript and helped us to avoid multiple errors. Last, we
express our appreciation to Eve Tauss for preparing the index.