Towards a unified theory of resumption

This paper presents a unified theory of resumptive pronouns, based on the Resource Management Theory of Resumption. It identifies a common basis for puzzlingly different resumptive pronouns in languages such as Irish, in which resumptive pronouns do not behave syntactically like gaps (syntactically active resumptives), versus languages such as Vata, in which resumptive pronouns do behave syntactically like gaps (syntactically inactive resumptives). The Resource Management Theory of Resumption is based on the Resource Sensitivity Hypothesis, which holds that natural language is resource-sensitive – as captured through the use of a resource logic for semantic composition – and the empirical observation that resumptive pronouns are morpho-lexically ordinary pronouns – languages do not employ special paradigms or special items in resumptive-only uses. The unification of the two kinds of resumption is captured in semantic composition, but Vata-type resumptives also involve an additional syntactic mechanism, which is captured through an operation on feature-value pairs in a constraint-based, non-transformational theory of syntax.

Published online: 20 July 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.5.03asu