1. Lecture 11: Binding and Reflexivity

2.  Pronouns differ from nouns in that their reference is determined in context  The reference of the word dog is fixed to things in the world that we know to be dogs  The reference of the word him varies from one context to another

3.  Pronominals  E.g. Him  Can have independent reference  I like him  Can be co-referential with a distant antecedent  Bill thinks I like him  Can’t refer to a close antecedent  Bill likes him  Anaphors  E.g. Himself  Can’t have independent reference  * I like himself  Can’t be co-referential with a distant antecedent  * Bill thinks I like himself  Can refer to a close antecedent  Bill likes himself

4.  The difference between pronouns is to do with the properties of the pronouns themselves  There are different rules which tell us how pronominals and anaphors can refer  Rules of pronoun Binding  The difference between pronouns is to do with the properties of verbs  There are rules about how verbs which have coreferential arguments are marked

5.  The reference of pronominals and anaphors are in complementary distribution  Whatever one can refer to, the other cannot:  He left* himself left  Bill 1 said [Mary likes him 1 ]* Bill 1 said [Mary likes himself 1 ]  Bill 1 likes himself 1 * Bill 1 likes him 1  Therefore, the rules that determine what each pronoun can refer to must be opposites  Note:  We use co-indexing to indicate co-reference

6.  Anaphors  Always have an antecedent  * Himself left  * I like himself  Have a clause-mate antecedent  Mary said [Bill 1 admires himself 1 ]  * Mary 1 said [Bill admires herself 1 ]  Have a structurally defined relationship to their antecedent  Bill 1 admires himself 1  * Bill 1 ’s mother admires himself 1

7.  The subject can be an antecedent for an object  Bill 1 likes himself 1

8.  But the object cannot be the antecedent for a subject  * himself 1 likes Bill 1

9.  The possessor inside the subject also cannot be the antecedent of an object  * Bill 1 ’s mother likes himself 1

10.  The structural relationship which holds between the subject and the object, but not between the object and the subject or any element insider the subject and the object is called c-command  C-command  A node c-commands its sister and everything inside its sister

11.  A subject c-commands the object because:

12.  The subject c-commands the I’ (its sister)

13.  The object is inside the VP

14.  The VP is inside the I’

15.  An object does not c- command the subject because:

16.  The object c-commands the V’ (its sister)  But the subject is not inside the V’

17.  The possessor inside the subject does not c- command the object because:

18.  The possessor c- commands the D’  But the object is not inside the D’

19.  We say that a phrase (A) binds another (B) if:  A and B are co-indexed and  A c-commands B

20.  Condition A determines the behaviour of anaphors  A: an anaphor must be bound within the smallest clause that contains it  The following are grammatical as the anaphors are properly bound  Bill 1 saw himself 1 in the mirror  Bill thinks [Mary 1 drives herself 1 to work]

21.  The following are ungrammatical because the anaphors are not bound  * Himself left  * Himself 1 saw Bill 1  * Mary 1 ’s father drover herself 1 to work

22.  The following is ungrammatical because the anaphor is bound outside the smallest clause containing it:  * Bill 1 said [Mary drives himself 1 to work]

23.  Pronominals are the opposite of anaphors  So we define the opposite relationship of binding  Free  A phrase is free if it is not bound

24.  Condition B determines the behaviour of pronominals  B: a pronominal must be free in the smallest clause that contains it  The following are grammatical because the pronominals are free (they have no antecedent that binds them)  He left  Bill 1 likes her 2  Bill 1 ’s mother phoned him 1

25.  The following is grammatical because the pronominal is bound, but not in the smallest clause that contains it:  Bill 1 thinks [Mary likes him 1 ]

26.  The following is ungrammatical because the pronominal is bound by a phrase inside the smallest clause containing it:  * Bill 1 shaved him 1

27.  As we have seen, the following is ungrammatical because the anaphor is not bound:  * Himself 1 likes Bill 1  We might therefore think that the following should be grammatical, but it isn’t:  * He 1 likes Bill 1

28.  The reason for this is nothing to do with the pronominal, but to do with the proper noun  Proper nouns cannot be bound at all:  * Bill 1 likes Bill 1  * Bill 1 said Mary likes Bill 1  We call such referential DPs, ‘r-expressions’  They are subject to principle C:  C: an r-expression must be free

29.  A: an anaphor must be bound in the smallest clause that contains it  B: a pronominal must be free in the smallest clause that contains it  C: an r-expression must be free

30.  It is not only clauses that count as binding domains:  Bill 1 found [a picture of himself 1 ]  * Bill 1 found [Mary’s picture of himself 1 ]  Bill 1 found [Mary’s picture of him 1 ]  It seems that DPs are sometimes relevant domains for binding and sometimes not

31.  DPs in which anaphors must be bound and pronominals free contain a possessor:  Bill stole [Mary’s article about him/herself]

32.  Possessors are similar to subjects  They are both specifiers of functional phrases  In nominalisations, the subject translates as a possessor  The minister believed in fairies  The minister’s belief in fairies  In passives, the object moves to subject and in passive nominals it moves to possessor  The city was destroyed by the bomb  They city’s destruction by the bomb

33.  Therefore we might extend the notion of subject to cover the possessor:  Subject of the clause = agent/experiencer/etc.  Subject of the DP = possessor  Clauses have obligatory subjects  DPs have optional subjects

34.  The binding domain for a pronoun is:  The smallest construction with a subject that contains it  A: an anaphor must be bound in its binding domain  B: a pronominal must be free in its binding domain

35.  There are cases where anaphors and pronominals are not in complementary distribution:  Bill saw a picture of himself/him in the newspaper  No one knew, except for Bill and me/myself  Mary found the diamond near her/herself  This suggest that the binding domain for anaphors is bigger than that for pronominals ... [ BDan Ant 1... [ BDpron... pro 1... ]]  It isn’t clear how to solve this problem

36.  Some verbs have inherent reflexive meaning:  Bill washed =  Bill washed himself  This can be over-ridden by adding an object  Bill washed the car  This is not true of all verbs:  Bill ate  Bill ate himself  * Bill hit  Bill hit himself

37.  In some languages reflexive verbs are marked by a morpheme  Turkish  Leyla araba yika-di Leyla car wash-past  Leyla yika-n-di Leyla wash-refl-past  English can mark some verbs as reflexive  This tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds

38.  The most general definition of a reflexive verb is:  A verb denoting an event in which two roles are played by the same argument  John introduced Mary to Bill  Agent = John, theme = Mary, goal = Bill  Non-reflexive  John introduced himself to Mary  Agent = John, theme = John, goal = Mary  Reflexive  John introduced Bill to himself  Agent = John, theme = Bill, goal = John/Bill  Reflexive

39.  This all suggests that reflexivity is a property of verbs  Thus the difference between the following is to do with the verb and not the pronouns  Bill likes himself=reflexive  Bill likes him=non-reflexive  We might suggest that reflexive verbs are marked as such by:  A morpheme on the verb itself  A morpheme on one of its arguments

40.  A: a reflexive marked verb must be interpreted as reflexive:  Bill 1 shot himself 1  * Bill 1 shot himself 2  B: a reflexive verb must be reflexive marked:  Bill 1 shot him 2  * Bill 1 shot him 1

41.  John thinks Mary likes him/*himself  The reflexive pronoun is ungrammatical because  It marks the verb like as reflexive  the arguments of like are ‘Mary’ and someone else  Perhaps ‘John’, perhaps not  These are not the same  This verb is not reflexive

42.  John’s mother likes him/*himself  The reflexive pronoun is ungrammatical because  It marks the verb like as reflexive  The arguments of like are ‘John’s mother’ and ‘John’  These are not the same  The verb is not reflexive

43.  * John 1 likes John 1  Is ungrammatical because the reflexive verb is not reflexive marked (principle B violation)  * John 1 thinks Mary likes John  Does not violate principle A or B  There is no reflexive verb  So we still seem to need binding principle C

44.  But there are cases where an r-expression can be bound:  Everyone hates John – even John hates John!  So principle C is not so strong

45.  What we have said so far would predict the grammaticality of both the following:  John likes himself  Himself likes John  The verb is both reflexive and reflexive marked  In binding theory the second was ruled out by the c-command condition on binding

46.  But we don’t need the c-command condition under the reflexivity view  *John’s mother likes himself  This is ungrammatical because the verb is not reflexive – nothing to do with c-command

47.  One possibility is that there is a linear restriction on the reflexive marking argument:  The argument that marks a verb as reflexive must follow the argument that does not

48.  Alternatively, it might have to do with the thematic hierarchy:  Agent > Experiencer > Goal > Theme  The argument which is lowest on the thematic hierarchy bears the reflexive marker  John bit himselfJohn shot at himself  John = agent John = agent  Himself = theme himself = goal  John saw himselfJohn looked at himself  John = experiencer John = experiencer  Himself = theme himself = goal

49.  One piece of evidence in favour of the linear approach is:  John showed Bill himself  Bill = goal, himself = theme  John showed Bill to himself  Bill = theme, himself = goal

50.  The problems for Binding theory were cases where anaphors and pronominals were not in complementary distribution  John saw a picture of him/himself  These cases do not involve a reflexive verb  So the reflexive pronoun is not a reflexive marker, but something else

51.  Consider the following:  The Queen invited John and me to tea  The Queen invited John and myself to tea  The second case stresses the importance of this statement for the speaker  This is ‘point of view’ phenomena  The statement is important from the point of view of the speaker  We call this ‘logophoricity’  ‘myself’ is a logophor (not anaphor) here  Therefore, reflexive marking is not involved

52.  There are two theories concerning the distribution of pronouns  One concentrates on the different referential properties of pronouns themselves (Binding Theory)  The other concentrates on the marking of reflexive verbs with a morpheme which can appear on a pronoun argument (Reflexivity)  Both account for the complementary distribution of the two types of pronoun  Pronominals(pronouns)  Anaphors(reflexives)  But in different ways

53.  Binding theory  Principle A  Anaphors must be bound in the smallest binding domain  Principle B  Pronominals must be free in the smallest binding domain  Reflexivity  Principle A  A reflexive marked verb must be reflexive  Principle B  A reflexive verb must be reflexive marked