LINGUIST List 5.434

Mon 18 Apr 1994

Qs: Gritch, Binding principle, This & that, Boundary phenomena

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Directory

1. , gritch
2. Steve Harlow, Binding principle query
3. shetzer heidi, this & that
4. Paul Deane, Boundary phenomena: D-linking, logophoric reflexives

Does anyone have etymological information on the English verb _gritch_?
William Safire in the this week's (4/17/94) _New York Times Magazine_ refers
to it as sounding "like a portmanteau of _grouch_ and _glitch_", which I'm
pretty sure is not the correct origin. As I recall, it is a portmanteau of
_gripe_ and _bitch_.

The column it occurrs in ("On Language") contains an amusing discussion of
contemporary computer terms, but I believe _gritch_ has been around much
longer, more like 30 or 40 years. Does anyone have a cite?

Andy Rogers

I'm interested in finding references to papers discussing the
operation of the binding principles in languages which either
lack non-finite clauses and/or use finite clauses (such as
subjunctives) instead. To be a bit more specific,

There is a clear contrast in English between the pronoun/
antecedent relationships between Max and he/him in a) and b)

a) Max expects that he will win
b) Max expects him to win

The thing that interests me is what happens if your only way of
saying b) is the counterpart of c)

Max expects that he should win (he = Max)

I'm not interested in data per se, but in analyses.

If anyone there can oblige, reply to
me and (if there's a response), I'll post a summary.

Thanks in advance,

Steve Harlow

I'm doing a pragmatic study on the deictic uses of the words "this" and
"that." I would greatly appreciate your recommending any literature on
the topic and will post a summary of responses.

Thanks,
Heidi Shetzer
Division of English as an International Language
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
hshetzeruxa.cso.uiuc.edu

I am in the process of preparing some papers of mine into a larger ms.,
and would like to update my knowledge of references in the area where
syntax and semantics are very closely intertangled. Two particular subjects
are of interest to me:

 (i) What is called D-linking in the GB literature, i.e.,
 cases where discourse context and various pragmatic
 factors influence the acceptability of extraction;

 (ii) The use of reflexives in a logophoric fashion, as
 discussed, inter alia, by Zribi-Hertz, Kuno, and
 others.

I would be particularly be interested in getting references which
address questions like the following:

A. What evidence there is for separating these phenomena from
 "purely syntactic" versions of the same surface grammatical
 construction;

B. What explanation(s) have been offered which can account for the
 use of a single set of constructions both for discourse-level
 relations and basic syntax.

C. How different recent theories (e.g. Chomsky's Minimalism,
 HPSG, Van Valin's Role and Reference Grammar, to name but
 three which come instantly to mind) delimit the phenomena
 differently -- and how they justify their choice of data.

My underlying concern is rather simple. I'd like to find out what
references are critical to assessing the current state of the art
with respect to these phenomena. And then I would like to find out
to what extent theories of these phenomena are justified on theory
neutral grounds. In the GB literature, for example, it would seem
axiomatic that D-Linking MUST be a distinct phenomena from standard
extraction phenomena, simply because it involves factors extrinsic to
a formally defined syntax. Conversely, functionalist accounts might
assume too quickly that such phenomena are THE SAME phenomena as any
others which share the same surface syntax. But what JUSTIFICATION
has been offered in the literature for either splitting (say) extrac-
tion into D-Linked and non-D-linked (pure syntactic) types, or for
treating them as a single continuum influenced both by syntactic
and semantic/pragmatic factors? I will welcome both references and
any discussion people may have, and post a summary to the list.