Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 18:57:37 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199610302357.SAA24717@sarah.albany.edu>
To: Linguistics Conference <LINCONF@tamvm1.tamu.edu>
From: George Aaron Broadwell <g.broadwell@albany.edu>
Subject: Broadwell to Huang, pt. 2
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.95.961029172306.3220C-100000@suma3.reading.ac.uk>
On the question of SR in sentences with referentially deficient
subjects, I recommend a look at Leslie Stirling's recent book
"Switch-reference and discourse representation theory".
Although we take different approaches to switch-
reference, I think Stirling shows rather nicely that languages
are rather variable on their treatment of sentences like
the following:
a.) John sang and it got dark.
Some languages use a SS marker in this context and others
use a DS marker. (And indeed, speakers of a single language
sometimes disagree with each other about which SR marker
to use.)
Stirling has a proposal that allows SR to make finer distinctions
between the identity relation and the relation of inclusion. In some
languages, SS (same-subject) signals strict identity and in others
it signals the looser notion of inclusion. "It" and "John are not identical, so
DS is used in languages where SS signals identity. However, since the reference
of the expletive pronoun *it* is null, and null is a member of every set,
sentences like (a) may use the SS marker in "inclusion languages".
[This is my rough and somewhat oversimplified statement of Stirling's
position --
please have a look at the book for a more accurate version.]
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--George Aaron Broadwell, g.broadwell@albany.edu
Anthropology; Linguistics and Cognitive Science,
University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 | 518-442-4711
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