Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 01:09:54 -0500 (CDT)
From: Larisa Zlatic <zlatic@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
To: LINGUIST Conferences <linconf@emunix.emich.edu>
Subject: Further reply to Seely from Zlatic
In-Reply-To: <01IAUFXYSYF696VN2Q@EMUVAX.EMICH.EDU>
Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.95.961019231504.7789B-100000@piglet.cc.utexas.edu>
PLEASE FIND MY RESPONSE(IN CAPS) TO SEELY'S COMMENTS BELOW.
LARISA ZLATIC
On Sat, 19 Oct 1996, LINGUIST Conferences wrote:
> Saturday, Oct 19.
>
> FURTHER COMMENTS TO L. ZLATIC FROM SEELY
>
> Thanks for the reply. I have some follow-up:
>
> COMMENT 1:
> In your response to the comments of R. May and myself, you
> state that a thematic hierarchy does play a role in the binding of
> reflexive elements in Serbian. Thus, with respect to your reply
> example (1),
>
> (1) Jovanovo(i) vracanje dece(j) svojim(i, *j)/njihovim(j) roditeljima
> John's returning children self's /their parents
> 'John's returning of the children to his/their parents'
>
> you state:
>
> "In the above example, in which there are two syntactically expressed
> arguments of the deverbal nominal, vracanje 'returning', only the
> agent argument (i.e. Jovanovo) can be bound by the reflexive
> possessive 'svojim'. The theme argument, dece 'children', can only be
> bound by the non-reflexive possessive pronoun 'njihovim'."
>
> But the indicated judgements about (1) follow from your analysis since
> _John_ is a semantic argument in SPEC of XP, and the reflexive must be
> bound by such for you. This looks like a thematic hierarchy effect,
> but in fact the hierarchy plays no direct role in your analysis.
REPLY: CORRECT.
> In the paper, you give example (2), here repeated
>
> (2) Marija (i) je ubijena u svom (i)/njenom (*i) stanu.
> Mary AUX killed in self's / her apartment
> 'Mary was killed in her apartment.'
>
> to show that it is the grammatical and not the logical subject that
> serves as the binder of the reflexive. My question is: What happens
> if the agent is expressed in example (2), in the equivalent of the
> "by-phrase;" would the reflexive have to be bound by that agent since
> it is higher on the hierarchy?
ANSWER: NO. THE REFLEXIVE WOULD NOT BE BOUND BY THE AGENT OF A PASSIVE
SENENCE (EXPRESSED BY THE PREPOSITION 'OD STRANE').
THE EXAMPLE BELOW ILLUSTRATES THIS.
(2') MARIJA(i) JE UBIJENA U SVOM (i,*j)/NJENOM(i) STANU OD STRANE
POLICIJE(j)
MARY AUX KILLED IN SELF'S / HER APARTMENT BY PART
POLICE
'MARY WAS KILLED IN HER APARTMENT BY THE POLICE.'
If the reflexive must still by bound
> by _Mary_ (and we could construct parallel examples for your reply
> case (1) above if nominals allow some form of passive); then we have
> evidence that the hierarchy is NOT a factor.
> And then the basic point
> still stands: what is relevant for you is the notion "semantic
> argument." Given that your characterization of SUBJECT is a
> primitive; thematic roles, coargumenthood, and thematic hierarchy (in
> short, those notions that we normally associate with a theta account
> of binding) are not directly relevant.
>
ANSWER: RIGHT.
>
> COMMENT 2:
> One quick point: In your reply, you state that the movement
> analysis of reflexives is not tenable since there is no INFL within NP
> to which reflexives could move. True enough; but there certainly
> could be a functional head of some sort therein. Is there evidence
> that there are no functional heads (of the usual sort) within Serbian
> NPs?
ANSWER: DEFINITELY NOT. BASED ON THE WORD ORDER FACTS AND THE RESULTS OF
TESTS FOR DETERMINING HEADEDNESS (CF. ZWICKY 1985, HUDSON 1987), I HAVE
SHOWN IN MY DISSERTAION (IN PROGRESS) THAT NOUN PHRASES IN SERBIAN, A
LANGUAGE WITH NO ARTICLES, ARE HEADED BY NOUNS AND NOT BY DETERMINERS.
(I'll PRESENT A PAPER ON THIS TOPIC AT THE FORTHCOMING LSA MEETING.)
IN ADDITION, STEVE WECHSLER AND I HAVE SHOWN THAT THE SEMANTIC NOTION OF A
QUANTIFIER CORRESPONDS TO TWO SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES IN SERBIAN: ADJECTIVE
AND NOUN,I.E. THERE IS NO FUNCTIONAL CATEGORY QUANTIFIER. IN
SUM, SERBIAN NOUN PHRASES HAVE NO FUNCTIONAL PROJECTIONS.
>
> COMMENT 3:
> I'm very interested in your comments about processing in
> these examples. Let me try to make a long story short:
>
> I found a distinction similar to yours in some respects. In research
> on the binding of plural pronouns, I considered the following contrast:
>
> (a) *Bill said that Mary's frequent descript ion of themselves would
> cause trouble
>
> (b) ?Bill said that Mary's photos of themselves would cause trouble.
>
>
> Here we have a process vs. non-process nominal and the split
> bound reflexive in the former is worse than the latter.
> The idea was that the non-argument status (in the sense of Grimshaw,
> Lyons, Williams) of _Mary's_ in (b) made it invisible to binding.
> [As I said there's a much longer story to this but I just
> want to get a bit of the data out and make the point.]
>
> For me, the contrast between (a) and (b) is sharp, but speaker
> judgements where quite unstable. I did some grammaticality studies
> and found that the contrast was "real" but not as sharp as others that
> motivate the form of BT. Thus, it seemed to me, too, that processing
> factors might well be relevant. But the problem involves the wide
> range of possibilities and the task of teasing them apart. It could
> be, for instance, that BT rejects both (a) and (b) and "processing
> factors" render (b) acceptable in certain circumstances, or that both
> are in and (a) rendered unacceptable, etc.
>
> I just want to put this out as a general point of discussion.
>
> However, I'm not sure I fully understand your specific claims about
> the processing factors involved in your example (4), here repeated:
>
> (4) Jovan (i) je procitao [Marijin (j) clanak o sebi (i, ?*j)].
> John AUX read Mary's-ADJ article about self
> 'John read Mary's article about herself.'
>
> Your version of BT-A rules (4) out on index _j_; the reflexive would
> not be bound by a local SUBJECT. But your processing suggestions in
> your reply comments state that the local non-semantic-argument subject
> of the containing NP is dispreferred on the grounds that it is
> ambiguous. So why should there be any question mark on index _j_ at
> all? If both BT and processing factors are working against it; we
> might expect it to be really terrible. What you do think?
>
REPLY:I AM REALLY NOT SURE WHAT TO SAY HERE. INTUITIVELY SPEAKING, I DON'T
THINK PROCESSING FACTORS WOULD MAKE THE JUDGMENT ?* ON
INDEX _j_ NECESSARILY WORSE (I.E. TOTALLY UNGRAMMATICAL). ALTHOUGH
SUBJECTS OF NON-PROCESS NOMINALS ARE AMBIGUOUS, THERE IS STILL 'SOME'
CHANCE(E.G. CONTEXT) THAT THEY CAN BE DISAMBIGUATED, AND IF THEY CAN BE
INTERPRETED AS A SEMANTIC ARGUMENT, THEN, THEY CAN BE TAKEN AS AN
ANTECEDENT.
> COMMENT 4:
> I think your version of BT predicts that if we embed a
> non-process nominal within another one; the reflexive would have to go
> up to first SUBJECT. Thus the Serbian counterpart to this sentence
> should be good with _self_ bound by _John_.
>
> John liked Mary's review article about Sue's book about self
>
> Is this true?
>
REPLY: IT IS VERY HARD TO CONSTRUCT SUCH SENTENCE IN SERBIAN. IT IS ALMOST
UNINTERPRETABLE. EMBEDDED NPS ARE VERY SELDOMLY USED IN SERBIAN,
AND CERTAINLY NOT IN CONVERSATION. SO MY JUDGMENTS ARE NOT CLEAR HERE.
> And finally, I wanted to be sure about another prediction.
> In your example (9), given here:
>
> (9) Jovan (i) je procitao [Marijin (j) clanak o njemu (?*i) / njoj (?j)].
> John AUX read Mary's-ADJ article about him / her
> 'John read Mary's article about him/herself.'
>
> the pronoun _njoj_ may be locally bound by _Marijin_ since that
> NP is not a SUBJECT (and pronouns must be SUBJECT free). Now the
> Binding Category of the pronoun is the entire IP. Thus, _njoj_
> should be ungrammatical with index _i_ (since then it
> would not be SUBJECT free). Is this true?
>
ANSWER: YOU MEAN _NJEMU_ 'HIM' NOT _NJOJ_ 'HER'? IF NJEMU REFERS TO THE
CLAUSAL SUBJECT 'JOVAN' IN (9), THE SENTENCE IS IN MOST CASES OUT (CF.
GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENT ?*). LET ME KNOW WHETHER I ANSWERED YOUR
QUESTION.
>
> Thank you for your comments on these issues!
>
> --Daniel Seely
>