國立清華大學語言學研究所公開演講

講員：Professor Alessandra Giorgi (University of Mergamo, Italy)

講題：From Temporal Anchoring to Long Distance Anaphor Binding

時間 & 地點：3/22/2004 (Monday), 國立清華大學人文社會學院 A202 室


演講內容摘要：

From temporal anchoring to long distance anaphor binding


Abstract
In this talk I’m going to propose an account for the binding of long distance
anaphors. The main idea I’ll discuss is that Sequence of Tense (SoT) and Long
Distance (LD) binding must be unified
in a comprehensive theory. Namely, the information that at the interface level
determines the temporal location of events also permits the identification of
the antecedent of long distance anaphors.
This proposal is not only motivated by the well-known interaction between verbal
forms – for instance subjunctive/infinitive vs. indicative – and the
distributional properties of LD anaphors, but
also by the important role played by subjects in both domains.

Following this line of reasoning, I’ll argue that the mood effect in
Italian/Icelandic-like languages and the blocking effect in Chinese-like
languages are one and the same phenomenon. The
differences are determined by the peculiar morphological properties in the two
language groups, in particular with respect to verbal morphology.
In this talk, I’ll focus primarily on the prominent role of subjects and I’ll
show that most of the other properties of LD anaphors follow, once the question
of subject orientation is properly
addressed. To this purpose, I’ll consider two main questions.

I. It has often been disregarded in the literature on the topic that the
antecedent of a LD anaphor is not always a subject. With a psych-verb such as
worry the antecedent can be the (surface) object.
Consider for instance the following paradigm:

(1)
Che la propriai figlia sia andata in campeggio da sola preoccupa molto Giannii

That self’s daughter is camping by herself worries Gianni a lot


(2)
Che tutti ambiscano al proprioi incarico preoccupa molto il primo ministroi

That everybody aspires to self’s office worries the Prime Minister a lot

In sentence (1) the long distance anaphor is embedded in the subject position of
a sentential clause; in example (2) the LD anaphor appears in the object
position of the subject clause. In both cases,
the experiencer is available as an antecedent. Consider now the following
examples:

(3)
*Il primo ministroi preoccupa molto coloro che ambiscono al proprioi incarico

The Prime Minister worries a lot those who aspire to self’s office


(4)
Coloro che ambiscono al proprioi incarico preoccupano molto il primo ministroi

Those who aspire to self’s office worry the Prime Minister a lot

A LD anaphor embedded inside the experiencer cannot refer back to the subject:
(3) contrasts minimally with (4). The unacceptability of (3) is a strong
argument in favor of the idea that these cases
should be accounted for by a theory of LD binding.

II. It is not the case that every subject – provided that it satisfies certain
morphological conditions – is a good antecedent for the LD anaphor. Consider
the peculiar distribution of anaphors in
adverbial clauses:

(5)
Il primo ministroi sperava che il dittatorej partisse prima che i rivoluzionari
sequestrassero il proprioi/*j patrimonio

The Prime Minister hoped that the dictator left before the revolutionaries
sequestered self’s patrimony

In this sentence, the anaphor has to skip the first available subject, and can
refer only to the subject of the higher clause. This effect has been observed in
many languages with LD anaphors and has
been described both for Italian and for Icelandic. Why is that subject
unavailable as an antecedent? The question is an interesting one, because the
structural syntactic conditions for antecedenthood –
i.e., c-command – seem to be met by both nominals, but only one qualifies as an
antecedent.