Pauline Jacobson, 1999

 General introduction: compositionality, syntax/semantics interface, notation  The standard account  The variable-free account  Experimental support  Objections, further research  Discussion

 The surface is its best model (as in A.I.!): ◦ No abstract levels of representation ◦ No variables ◦ No assignment functions  Smooth syntax-semantics interface (Categorial Grammar)  Direct compositionality

 Standard semantics: Some constituents have no meaning until they are mapped to another abstract level  Variable-free semantics: “Each local surface syntactic constituent has a meaning” (hypothesis of local interpretation)

 Mary loves and John hates stroopwafels.  Non compositional: ◦ Mary loves stroopwafels and John hates stroopwafels.  Compositional: ◦ Mary loves and John hates = ◦ Meaning here is a function from individuals to properties

 Rationale: pronouns act like nouns ◦ Every man said that every woman thinks that she should talk to him ◦ Every man said that every woman thinks that Mary should talk to him ◦ Every man said that every woman thinks that Mary should talk to John  Same syntactic distribution  Same syntactic category  Same semantic category  Pronouns are like nouns!

 Binding ◦ Every man thinks that he lost ◦ Thinks that he lost  ◦ Think’(lost’(x)) (open property – unbound variable) ◦ λx[think’(lost(x))(x)] (shifts into a function from assignment functions to properties)

Pronouns are treated as variables Binding is made via a meaning-shift rule Pronoun are of type NP / Each linguistic expression has a meaning relative to some assignment function

 Problems ◦ Ad-hoc solution with global consequences:  Assignment functions are omnipresent but only useful in the case of pronouns ◦ ‘John likes x 1 ’ and ‘John likes x 2 ’ never function like different semantic objects  ‘John thinks [Mary loves him]’  ‘Frank thinks [Mary loves him]’

 There is no such thing as an “open expression”  Use parallel syntactic and semantic shifts to account for anaphora (pronouns)

 John said Mary loves him  λx[said’(loves’(x)(m))(j)]  How do we avoid treating Mary as the lovee?  Him = type NP NP  NP NP is a syntactic category, with semantic implications  Not just a “fancy NP”!

 How do we treat “Mary loves him”? ◦ G-rule:

 How do we treat “Mary loves him”? ◦ Z-rule

 A pronoun is not a variable ◦ Pronouns denote the identity function  Binding by Z/G-rule  Local semantic effect  Pronouns have a meaning relative to some individual

“Who does every Englishman admire? His mother.”  =What is the function such that every- Englishman’(λx[admire’(f(x))(x)])?

 Standard account: ◦ =Who does every Englishman admire (t)? ◦ The trace t is complex: it is “a variable over functions of type applied to a variable over individuals”

 Variable free account: ◦ Admires = (S/NP)/NP (by z)  (S/NP)/NP NP ◦ Every-englishman * z(admire) = S/ NP NP ◦  there is a gap of type NP NP ;

 “Every man i loves and no man marries his i mother”

 Standard account: No VP on which to apply a type-shift ◦ Requires use of reconstruction (loss of direct compositionality) ◦ Or traces ◦ But both lead to problems with generalizations: “Every boy k says that every man j loves his j mother and no man marries his k mother”

 Variable-free: ◦ λf[every-man’(λx[love’(f(x))(x)]) Λ no- man’(λy[marries’(f(y))(y)])] ◦ Works thanks to the locality of the pronoun meaning

 « Functional questions » aren’t so convincing  The semantic distinction between pronouns and nouns is not always clear ◦ Cross-sentential anaphora ◦ Intuitive understanding of the nature of pronouns  Donkey pronouns ◦ Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it.

Standard accountVariable-free account Pronoun = variablePronoun = no variable Binding by meaning-shift ruleBinding by z/g-rule Pronoun ~ NP / Pronoun ~NP NP / More local semantic effect Variables are distinctPronouns have the same identity function Each linguistic expression has a meaning relative to some assignment function Pronouns have a meaning relative to some individual