Article published In:
Linguistic VariationVol. 15:1 (2015) ► pp.116–140
Blocking effects and non-clause bound reflexives in Mandarin and American English
A sub-set of languages with non-clause bound (NCB) reflexives exhibits Blocking effects. In these languages, a NCB reflexive is “blocked” from corefering with a higher subject when a lower subject does not agree with a higher subject for person. Accounting for Blocking effects has been challenging. Recently, researchers have posited a functional head that encodes point of view or sentience (e.g. Huang & Liu 2001; Tenny 2006; Chou 2012). However, these analyses do not account for all available data. Here, I offer a small modification to the most recent analysis of this type that accounts for available data by conforming to Chomsky’s cyclic transfer system (2007, 2008). I also provide exploratory data that suggests that (i) NCB reflexives exist in American English and (ii) they unexpectedly exhibit Blocking effects. Finally, I illustrate that the modified analysis for Mandarin also accounts for the distribution of NCB reflexives in American English.
This article is currently available as a sample article.
References
Asudeh, Ash & Frank Keller
2001 Experimental evidence for a predication-based binding theory. Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 371. 1–14.
Baker, C.L
1995 Contrast, discourse prominence, and intensification, with special reference to locally free reflexives in British English. Language 71(1). 63–101. 
Baker, Mark C
2008 The syntax of agreement and concord. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Banfield, Ann
1973 Narrative style and the grammar of direct and indirect speech. Foundations of Language 10(1). 1–39.
Bard, Ellen G., Dan Robertson & Antonella Sorace
1996 Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability. Language 72(1). 32–68.
Baylis, Adriane L
2007 Perceptions of audible nasal air emission in speakers with cleft palate: a comparative study of listener judgments. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
Chierchia, Gennaro
1989 Anaphora and attitudes de se. Semantics and Contextual Expression 111. 1–31.
Chomsky, Noam
1981 Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
2007 Approaching UG from Below. Interfaces + Recursion = Language? New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
2008 On Phases. In Robert Freidin, Carlos Peregrín Otero & Maria Luisa Zubizarreta (ed.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory: Essays in honor of Jean-Roger Vergnaud, 133–166. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Chou, C.-T. Tim
2012 Syntax-pragmatics interface: Mandarin Chinese wh-the-hell and Point-of-View Operator. Syntax 15(1). 1–24.
Clements, George N
1975 The logophoric pronoun in Ewe: lts role in discourse. Journal of West African Languages 101. 141–177.
Cole, Peter & Gabriella Hermon
2005 Long distance reflexives in Singapore Malay: An apparent typological anomaly. Linguistic Typology 2(1). 112–187.
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon & C.-T. James Huang
2001 Long-distance reflexives: The state of the art. In Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon & C.-T. James Huang (eds.), Syntax & semantics: Long distance reflexives, xiii–xivi. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Cole, Peter & Li-May Sung
1994 Head movement and long distance reflexives. Linguistic Inquiry 251. 355–406.
Cowart, Wayne
1997 Experimental syntax: Applying objective methods to sentence judgments. California: Sage Publications.
Engen, Trygg
1971 Psychophysics II: Scaling methods. In J.W. Kling & L. Riggs (ed.), Woodworth and Schlossberg’s experimental psychology, 47–86. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Fasold, Ralph W
2003 Language change in variation and formal syntax. American Speech Supplement 88(1). 223–247.
Finer, Daniel
1991 Binding parameters in second language acquisition. In L. Eubank (ed.), Point counterpoint: Universal Grammar in the second language, 351–374. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Finer, Daniel & Ellen Broselow
1986 Second language acquisition of reflexive-binding. Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistics Society (NELS) 161. 154–168.
Gärtner, Hans Martin & Markus Steinbach
2006 A skeptical note on the syntax of speech acts and point of view. Form, Structure, Grammar. 213–222.
Giorgi, Alessandra
1984 Toward a theory of long-distance anaphora: A GB approach. The Linguistic Review 3(4). 302–363.
Guéron, Jacqueline & Liliane Haegeman
2012 Je est un autre. Subject positions, point of view and the neuter pronoun tet in West Flemish. In Laura Brugé, Anna Cardinaletti & Giuliana Giusti (eds.), Functional heads, 69–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hagège, Claude
1974 Les Pronoms Logophoriques [Logophoric Pronouns]. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 691. 287–310.
Harris, Jesse A
2012 Processing perspectives. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
He, Xiao & Elsi Kaiser
2011 What ‘I’ Can Tell You about the Chinese Reflexive Ziji. Poster presented at the
85th Annual LSA Meeting
. Pittsburgh, PA, January 6–9, 2011.
Hirakawa, Makiko
1990 A study of the L2 acquisition of English reflexives. Second Language Research 61. 60–85.
Huang, C.-T. James & C.-S. Luther Liu
2001 Logophoricity, attitudes and ziji at the interface. In Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon & C.-T. James Huang (ed.), Syntax & semantics: Long distance reflexives, 141–196. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Huang, C.-T. James & C.-C. Jane Tang
1991 The local nature of the long-distance reflexive in Chinese. In Jan Koster & Eric Reuland (eds.), Long distance anaphora. 263–282. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huang, Yun-Hua
1984 Chinese Reflexives. Studies in English Literature and Linguistics 101.163–188.
IBM Corp. Released
2012 IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.
Keller, Frank & Ash Asudeh
2001 Constraints on linguistic coreference: Structural vs. pragmatic factors. Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference of the cognitive science society. 483–488.
Kennedy, Christopher & Jeffrey Lidz
2001 A (covert) long distance anaphor in English.
West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 20 Proceedings
, 318–331. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Loss, Sara
2014 Iron Range English Reflexive Pronouns. In Raffaella Zanutinni & Laurence Horn (ed.), Micro-syntactic variation in North American English, PAGES. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Magenau, Keller
1994 Anaphora: A formal and functional phenomenon. Unpublished MS.
Maling, Joan
1986 Non-clause-bounded reflexives in Modern Icelandic. Linguistics and Philosophy 7(3). 211–241.
Pollard, Carl & Ivan Sag
1992 Anaphors in English and the scope of the Binding Theory. Linguistic Inquiry 23(2). 261–303.
Reinhart, Tanya & Eric Reuland
1993 Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 241. 657–720.
Ross, Jon. R
1970 On declarative sentences. In Roderick A. Jacobs & Peter S. Rosenbaum (ed.), Readings in English transformational grammar, 222–272. Washington: Georgetown University Press.
Schlenker, Philippe
2003 A plea for monsters. Linguistics and Philosophy 26(1). 29–120.
Schütze, Carson T
2011 Linguistic evidence and grammatical theory. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 2.2. 206–221.
Speas, Peggy & Carol Tenny
2003 Configurational properties of point of view roles. In Anne-Marie Di Sciullo (ed.), Asymmetry in grammar 11. 315–343. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Stevens, Stanley Smith
1956 The direct estimation of sensory magnitudes: Loudness. The American Journal of Psychology 1–25.
Tenny, Carol
2006 Evidentiality, experiencers, and the syntax of sentience in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 15(3). 245–288.
Xu, Liejiong
1993 The long-distance binding of ziji. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 21(4). 123–141.
Zanuttini, Raffaella
2008 Encoding the addressee in the syntax: Evidence from English imperative subjects. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 26(1). 185–218.
Zribi-Hertz, Anne
1989 Anaphor binding and narrative point of view: English reflexive pronouns in sentence and discourse. Language 65(4). 695–727.