Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 14:45:31 -0600 (CST)
From: Martin Everaert <Martin.Everaert@let.ruu.nl>
Subject: Reply from Everaert to May
To: linconf@tamvm1.tamu.edu
Message-Id: <53131.Martin.Everaert@let.ruu.nl>
In-Reply-To: <32664645.55B3@uci.edu>
Reply to MAY's remark on Everaert&Anagnostopoulou
If we understand you correctly, you imply that inverse-linking EO-
predicates in English show an animacy restriction on the THEME/CAUSE,
in which case examples like (2b) are marginal not because of binding
per se but rather because of animacy (both the Theme and the
Experiencer being animates). However, as far as we know, this specific
issue has never been discussed in the literature.
Grimshaw (1990) argued that inverse-linking EO-predicates (psych-verbs
in her terminology) of the 'frighten'-type are ambiguous between an
agentive and a non-agentive reading (p.113). This means that (1a) is
ambiguous, and (1b) not
(1) a. Mary frightened Peter
"Mary frightened Peter/Mary's behaviour frightened Peter"
b. The sound frightened Peter
Some verbs (worry, concern, perturb, preoccupy) are "more or less
unambiguously non-agentive" (p.113).
With respect to anaphora this means that, for Grimshaw, (2a) is weakly
ungrammatical (p.158), and (2b) is weakly ill-formed in its
non-agentive reading and fully grammatical in agentive reading (p.161)
(2) a. ?They concern each other/themselves
b. ?/vThe children entertained each other
To conclude. If May is right in claiming that his examples (3) are
also marginal,
(3) John concerns Mary
The men concern the women
replace our example in (2) with any other inverse linking EO-predicate
that has no animacy constraint on its subject on a Theme/Cause reading
(i.e. verbs like frighten, amuse, appeal to, etc.). These facts are
widely discussed in the literature - (Postal 1971, Grimshaw (1990),
Zubizarreta (1991), Johnson (1991), Belletti & Rizzi (1988) among
others - and generally considered marginal (For example, Postal (1971)
characterizes `John pleases himself' as ?.).
Martin Everaert
Elena Anagnostopouolou
!
Martin Everaert tel 31-30-2536528
OTS/Research Institute for Language and Speech fax 31-30-2536000
Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail everaert@let.ruu.nl