A
History of English Reflexive Pronouns
Elly
van Gelderen
2000:
John Benjamins, Amsterdam
INTRODUCTION
In the
course of the history of English, morphological case and agreement gradually
disappear. At the same time, auxiliaries, determiners, pronouns and
prepositions become more frequent, and the word order becomes fixed. These
changes are often described as transforming the language from synthetic
(lacking auxiliaries, etc.) to analytic (having auxiliaries, etc.), the strictness
of word order compensating for the lack of case and agreement endings, and the
introduction of auxiliaries compensating for the loss of inflection for tense
and aspect. Thus, word order and morphological agreement are seen as different
ways of expressing grammatical relations: Old English has morphological case
and agreement but relatively few auxiliaries, determiners, pronouns and
prepositions; Modern English has very little case and agreement but many
auxiliaries, determiners, pronouns and prepositions that occupy fixed
positions. In addition, in Old English (as well as in many other synthetic
languages), specially marked reflexives do not occur, whereas in Modern English
(and in other analytic languages), they do. This book links the changes in reflexives
to the transformation of English from a synthetic to an analytic language.
In the generative framework of the
1980s, a fixed word order such as that of Modern English comes about because
lexical elements move to certain positions (functional categories), as in
Chomsky (1986b). Since agreement and case are situated in these positions,
movement is seen as motivated by the need to check case and agreement. However,
this framework provides no explanation for why case and agreement would be less
present in Modern English than in Old English, or why word order would be more
constrained in Modern English than in Old English, or why the subject can be
left out in Old English. I will account for these phenomena and base my account
on an argument advanced in van Gelderen (1993) that certain functional
categories (for the auxiliary, the determiner, etc.) are introduced or
activated in the course of the history of English. If this is the case, word
order becomes fixed because auxiliaries such as will and be occupy
functional categories and lexical items move to these projections to check
their case and agreement features. I examine the changes in case and agreement
features of pronouns as English becomes more analytical, using the insights
provided by reflexively used pronouns and special reflexive pronouns. I argue
that the feature composition is responsible. I also describe the relationship
between word order and overt inflection. Developments with null subjects,
agreement, and case can be argued to parallel those of reflexives closely.
Hence, I not only connect the loss of case and agreement to the introduction of
strict word order, but also relate the introduction of specially marked
reflexive pronouns to the increasingly analytic character of the language.
Reflexive pronouns such as myself
in Modern English are not fully referential: they need to refer to another
element in the sentence. Personal pronouns such as me, on the other
hand, are somewhat referential and are barred from referring to arguments `locally'
(cf. Chomsky 1981; Koster 1993; Reinhart & Reuland 1993). The reason for
the difference, I argue in this book, lies in the feature composition of the
pronouns, namely the fact that the features of myself are not as
specific as those of me. Work by Rizzi (1990) and Woolford (1999)
explains the lack of reflexive forms in subject position through the lack of
agreement features, which also indicates that reflexives are underspecified. In
Old English, unlike in Modern English, there are no special reflexive forms;
instead general pronouns are used reflexively, as they are in Old Egyptian (cf.
Gardiner 1927: 40) and Middle Dutch (cf. Hermodsson 1952: 263ff.), for example.
I relate this to Reinhart & Reuland's (1993) condition on
antecedent-anaphor links: certain case and person/number features render a
pronoun reflexive. The book examines what these features are, how they change,
and how this change is related to the larger changes in the language.
In a number of Old and Middle
English constructions involving pronouns, including those with pronouns
functioning reflexively, there is a person split. For instance, first and
second person pronouns continue to be used as reflexives (I see me) long
after third person ones cease to do so. There are other differences as well. In
certain Old English texts, the inflection of `self' after third person pronouns
is definite, whereas it is indefinite in other cases, indicating that `thou
self' and `Beowulf self' are different from `him self'; case on first and
second person pronouns disappears earlier than on third person ones; pro-drop
is more common with third person pronouns; and verbal agreement is marked more
on third person verbs. There is a similar split between plural and singular:
plural has `conservative' reflexives, no morphologically specified case, less
pro-drop, and less agreement than singular. To explain the split(s), I argue
that two changes occur in pronominal features, at different rates for different
features: (a) case becomes structural rather than inherent (or theta-related),
and (b) person and number features become checked in functional categories.
These changes can be phrased in terms of Chomsky's (1995; 1998ab) distinction
between features that are Interpretable, i.e. relevant to the interpretation, and
those that are not. Structural case features are Uninterpretable and must be
checked before Logical Form since they are irrelevant there. Thus, in Modern
English case is Uninterpretable while in Early Old English it is Interpretable
as are some of the person and number features. These person splits are also
obvious from different frequency of use, a phenomenon not usually dealt with in
a generative approach. My account is that changes in feature composition are
gradual, i.e. a particular pronoun has either Interpretable or Uninterpretable
features for a period of time.
The explanations provided in this
book are Minimalist, but the data are described in general terms so as to be
accessible to linguists working in other frameworks. The outline of this introductory
chapter is as follows: in the first section, I provide some background on
functional categories and Minimalist features; in the second section, I outline
the theory of Binding I use; in the third section, for ease of reference, I
list the general personal pronouns in Old English with some instances (in later
chapters, other paradigms are listed where they become relevant); and in the
fourth section, I provide a structure for pronouns. In the last section, I
justify the selection of texts I have made and provide a short outline of the
book.
0.1 Background on Functional Categories (FCs)
and Features
In the
first subsection, I outline some basic notions on phrase structure and
functional categories (FC) in a pre-Minimalist (Chomsky 1986b) and Minimalist
(Chomsky 1992; 1995) framework. In the second one, I focus on the role of +Interpretable
features.
0.1.1 Functional Categories and Checking
Chomsky
(1998b: 123) writes that "[f]rom the origins of generative grammar, the
fundamental operations were taken to be formation of the lexicon and recursive
operations of two kinds that make use of lexical items: phrase structure and
transformational rules". Much of the effort of making the formalism less
language specific and more universal was aimed at generalizing phrase structure
rules (e.g. through X'-theory) and reducing transformations to one
(move-alpha). The Minimalist framework continues that: phrase structure rules
become `bare', i.e. no intermediate levels appear, and lexical items are
combined by `merge' and moved if necessary. In Chomsky (1995: 235 ff.), lexical
items are taken from the lexicon (and inserted in the numeration) fully
inflected, but see Halle & Marantz 1993 for alternatives. For the sake of
convenience, a lot of work still assumes explicit phrase structure rules
(rather than bare ones) and, hence, I outline those here.
In Chomsky (1986b: 2-4), FCs such as
the complementizer and the auxiliary are considered on a par with lexical
categories and head their own projections. Thus, in (1), a C(omplementizer)
such as that and an auxiliary such as will project to full
maximal projections, namely CP and I(nflection)P, which also contain a
specifier position. The specifier of CP can be used when wh-elements
move in questions and, when C is not occupied by that, the auxiliary can
move there in questions as well. The grammatical subject occupies the specifier
of IP position and the Specifier-Head (Spec-Head) relationship accounts for
nominative Case and verbal agreement between the NP in Specifier position and
the verbal element in the Head I position (from now on, whenever Case is used
in a technical sense, it will be capitalized):
(1) CP
Spec C'
C IP
Spec I'
I VP
. V'
V NP
that Zelda will see Bela
Chomsky (1992: 173),
based on Pollock (1989) and Chomsky (1989), i.e. `early' Minimalism, argues
that all Case is checked in a Spec-Head relationship. For this purpose, several
FCs, such as AGRs and AGRo, are introduced. NPs move to the Specifier and verbs
to the Head positions. Nominative Case is checked against AGRs and objective
against AGRo. Verbal agreement is checked in a Head-Head relationship between V
and AGR after the verb incorporates into the AGR Head. The person and number
features of the head are given determined by the NP (just as the verb
determines the Case: if in AGRs, nominative; if in AGRo, accusative). The
checking of Case and agreement occurs either overtly or covertly, depending on
whether the features in the functional head are strong or weak. In Chomsky
(1992: 196; 199), there are two types of features: N-features and V-features.
The former are responsible for triggering NP-movement and for checking Case;
the latter for triggering V-movement and for checking agreement. Overt checking
of the NP takes place in a Spec-Head relationship as in (2) before SPELL-OUT
(or at s-structure in earlier frameworks); covert movement will mean that the
element must wait until LF to check its features because this is `cheaper.'
English is generally assumed to have weak V-features and the verb does not move
overtly. Therefore, in (2), a French example is given where both the NP and V
move overtly:
(2) AGRP
Spec AGR'
Zorai AGR XP
V AGR ....
arriveraj [sV] VP
will-arrive [sN] ti V'
V ...
tj
Other FCs are introduced as well. Thus, T(ense)P accompanied by V- and
N-features is included in (3), which is a typical tree structure. Categories
such as ASP(ect)P, VoiceP, Perf(ect)P, Num(ber)P, PersonP and others are also
possible:
(3)
CP
Spec C'
C AGRsP
Spec AGRs'
AGRs TP
Spec T'
T NegP
Spec Neg'
Neg AGRoP
Spec AGRo'
AGRo VP
Chomsky (1995: 349ff.) argues that there is no direct evidence for AGRs
and AGRo in English. Since agreement, tense and Case features would be checked
through Head-Head and Spec-Head agreement in the IP in (1) above, the tense and
agreement features are not necessarily connected to one particular functional
head and consequently not all projections need be present.
As mentioned above,
trees such as (3) are no longer assumed in Chomsky (1994; 1995). After taking
elements from the lexicon, they `merge' into phrases such as (4). Through
merge, the Head I(nflection) and Specifier are added to (4) after which the V
and N move into these positions. Thus, the tree is built from bottom to top:
(4) VP
N V
Zora left
In the remainder of this book, and especially in chapter 4, I assume a
version of (1), i.e. a tree structure with C and I. For the sake of clarity, my
structures will not be bare as in (4), but nothing hinges on this.
0.1.2 Interpretability
of features
For each linguistic expression, a grammar makes available two kinds of
information, phonetic and semantic, or a Phonetic Form (PF) and a Logical Form
(LF), in older terminology. The PF representation gives information to the
Articulatory-Perceptual system and the LF one to the Conceptual-Intentional
system. Legibility must be ensured at these interface levels (Chomsky 1998b:
119). Features are therefore divided as to whether they are phonetic, i.e. not
allowed at LF, or semantic, i.e. not allowed at PF. Thus, a derivation splits
into two parts. There are, however, features in language that are neither
phonetic nor semantic, thereby violating legibility. These features are
Uninterpretable and do not "enter into interpretation at LF" (Chomsky
1995: 277); they exist "to force movement, sometimes overtly" (p.
278) to a higher FC.
In the generative framework, movement has always been seen
as problematic. As Chomsky (1998a: 42) puts it, "[w]hy language should
have this [movement] property is an interesting question, which has been
discussed for almost 40 years without resolution". Verbal agreement and
Case are problematic as well since they are not relevant to the interpretation
in Modern English. Chomsky (1998a: 42-8) proposes to connect both of these
problems: the `offending' Uninterpretable Case and agreement are eliminated
through movement.
Thus, Uninterpretable
features trigger movement but Interpretable ones do not. Interpretable features
are relevant at LF and do not erase or delete but can be `used over.'
Uninterpretable features explain several phenomena earlier treated as separate;
for instance, (a) an NP has one and only one Uninterpretable Case feature, as
(5) shows, and (b) the features justify the inclusion of FCs in the numeration
and the ensuing movement into the heads and specifiers of these projections. In
(5), Zoya cannot check the Case in both subject positions:
(5) *Zoyai seemed ti
was annoyed with Amir.
According to Chomsky
(1995: 283), the person and number, i.e. phi-, features of Nouns are
Interpretable because they can be reused. The example given by Chomsky is (6)
where John moves to the subject of the IP to check its Case, checking
phi-features along the way:
(6) Johni is [ti
AGR [ti intelligent]].
However, in (6), there is no agreement between intelligent and John,
and AGR may not have been activated. Alternatively, the movement to Spec AGRP
may have to do with the categorial N-features in AGR that must be checked.
Thus, there is no empirical evidence that the phi-features are Interpretable.
In languages other than English, there is such evidence since the number
features appear twice, both on the verb and on the adjective or past
participle. An instance is French where the number features in (7) appear on
both the finite verb sont `are-3P' and the past participle parties
`left-FP.' The person features are only marked on the finite auxiliary and the
gender features only on the past participle (both in bold):
(7) Les femmes sont parties.
the women
are-3P left-FP
`The women
have left.'
There are other languages that have number and gender marked on the
past participle. In Spanish, for instance, the passive participle as in (8),
inflects for number and gender, but not for person; and in Swedish, number is
marked on the past participle in (9) (there is no gender in the plural on
Swedish verbs and finite verbs show no inflection). The data in (7) to (9)
might indicate that person is not Interpretable and cannot be checked twice:
(8) Las casas son vendidas.
the houses
are-3P sold-FP
(9) Tre bilder blev målade.
three
pictures were painted-P
There are, however, languages where person is marked on both auxiliary
and participle. Van Driem (1987: 119) gives instances from Limbu, a
Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Nepal. Anderson (1999) cites other cases of
what he calls `split inflection', namely Gorum (an Austroasiatic language) and
Venda (a Bantu language) display person on both the auxiliary and the past
participle. This is expected if the interpretability of features varies
cross-linguistically.
With object agreement,
as in (10) from O'odham, person features (in bold) do occur on the participle.
Here, person appears as well as number, and so, nothing blocks person marking
on participles. It just does not seem to be the case that person is `re-used',
i.e. Interpretable, in (7) to (9):
(10) Ceoj 'o 'ańi: ńceggia.
boy is/was
me 1S-fighting
`The boy
is/was fighting me.' (Zepeda 1983)
I therefore argue, contra Chomsky (1995), that person features in a number
of languages (including Modern English) are Uninterpretable and are checked
only once. Number can be re-used as in (7) to (9) above.
There is some
dialectal evidence from Belfast English that the features of pronouns are
checked differently from those of full NPs. Henry (1995: 16) describes Hiberno
English constructions as in (11) and (12) where the number features of the full
noun in (11) are not checked but the ones of the pronoun in (12) are:
(11) The eggs are/is cracked.
(12) They are/*is cracked.
In standard English, the phi-features of both pronouns and full nouns
must be checked before LF, again an indication that person might be
Uninterpretable.
According to Chomsky
(1995: 232 ff.), overt NP- and V-movement occurs if the features of the FC are
strong; covert feature attraction takes place when the features of the FC are
weak. Thus, the subject moves to Spec IP overtly to check the strong categorial
feature ([D][1])
in I. The phi-features and Case move along and are checked in due course. For
English, assuming the non-listed, categorial V-features are weak, movement of
the subject to check [D] is the only overt movement necessary. The phi-features
of the verb or Auxiliary are attracted to I without overt movement of the verb.
The object NP (or its features) moves to the specifier of (the small) v and the
main verb adjoins to v. The result is that all the Uninterpretable features are
checked:
(13)
IP
. I'
I vP
[D] . .
[Case] v VP
[D] NP V'
V NP[2]
[Case] [phi] [phi]
[phi] [Case] [Case]
The
woman sees a javelina
If only strong
features trigger overt movement, there is a possibility that Uninterpretable
features are not checked by LF. However, in Chomsky (1998ab), this is no longer
a possibility and features can be attracted through feature-attraction even if
the lexical element does not itself move. Feature-attraction is more economical
and involves only head-movement of the features (Chomsky 1995: 271); it is
formulated to "have the following property: an uninterpretable formal
feature UFF in the extended lexical item ELI seeks the closest matching feature
F in its c-command domain and attaches it to ELI, UFF then erasing if the match
is successful" (1998b: 124). Thus, the modification from Chomsky's (1995)
analysis is that it is not only strong features that must be checked before LF
is reached, but all Uninterpretable features since only Interpretable features
are visible at LF. Hence, the strong/weak distinction is replaced. The evidence
for this is (14), in which the expletive there does not check the Case
features, since otherwise the Case features of the postverbal five javelinas
would not be attracted. If this happened, the Uninterpretable Case features of
the NP would remain unchecked and the sentence would not be well-formed:
(14) There are five javelinas in our
backyard.
As Chomsky (1995) notes, if the expletive were present to check the
phi-features, the Interpretable plural phi-features of the noun would not be
attracted to I(nflection) and again, (14) would not converge. Since (14) is
grammatical, there is only inserted to check the Uninterpretable
categorial features. The problem now is to explain why the subject position in
(14) must be lexically filled and why attracted D-features do not suffice in
(15). Some stipulation for D-features must be made:
(15) *e are five javelinas in our backyard.
So far, the Case
discussed in (13) is grammatical or structural Case, dependent on the nominal's
position in the sentence. There is another kind of Case, namely inherent Case,
dependent on the thematic structure. Chomsky (1986a: 193) "distinguish[es]
the `structural Cases' objective and nominative, assigned in terms of
S-structure position, from the `inherent Cases' assigned at D-structure. . . .
Inherent Case is associated with [theta]-marking, while structural Case is
not". Inherent Case is relevant at LF. As mentioned, in Old English, there
is more evidence for inherent Case than in Modern English (cf. also van
Gelderen 1996b). For structural Case, there is a one-to-one relationship
between Cases and nominal elements. Belletti (1988) and Mahajan (1990) assume
that inherent Case is optionally assigned/checked. The nominal, when it does
not have inherent Case, may check its structural Case, if available. Thus, in
many languages, nominals have either structural or inherent Case. The
structural Case features are Uninterpretable but the inherent ones are not. The
former make it necessary for a lexical element to move to an FC; the latter do
not.
In conclusion, I
assume that linguistic expressions have a phonetic and a semantic component. In
the `ideal case', all features would be relevant at either LF or PF. This is,
however, not true since there are features that force movement that are neither
semantic not phonetic. These are the Uninterpretable Case and agreement
features. They force movement but are not relevant to the interpretation.
Above, and throughout the book, I argue that languages and different stages of
the same language differ as to which features are Interpretable. In Modern
English, Case features and the person and number features of verbs are
Uninterpretable but, I argue, there is no direct evidence (cf. (6) versus (7))
that all nominal phi-features are Interpretable. In other languages, number
features on nominals are Interpretable, but not person. Case features are
Uninterpretable in Modern English (i.e. structural) but Interpretable in Old
English (i.e. inherent). Thus, the status of features ultimately accounts for
differences in word order, Case and agreement across languages, and for whether
a language is synthetic or analytic. It will also account for the referential
or non-referential nature of pronouns.
0.2 Background
on Binding
In this section, I outline several theories that have been formulated
to account for binding phenomena, namely Chomsky (1981; 1986a), Reinhart &
Reuland (1993), and Koster (1993). These attempt to explain the binding domain
and differences in this domain across languages. I also discuss Burzio (1996)
since he provides an account of person differences. I adopt and adapt Reinhart
& Reuland's account by focussing on the Chain Condition. The main points I
want to explain with this condition in the remainder of the book are: (a) why
pronouns function reflexively in Old English, (b) why special reflexives appear
first outside the argument domain of the verb, and (c) what explains the person
split. I will not be concerned with Long Distance Anaphora (cf. Koster &
Reuland 1991; Brinton 1995) or `irregular reflexives' (cf. Cantrall 1974).
Chomsky (1981: 220;
1986a: 166) formulates three well-known Binding principles:
(16) (A) an anaphor must be bound in its
governing category
(B) a
pronoun must be free in its governing category
(C) an
R-expression must be free
An instance of an anaphor is myself in (17). According to A, an
anaphor must be bound in a particular domain, defined in Chomsky (1981) as its
governing category. The governing category includes the anaphor, its governor,
and a SUBJECT (either the subject of a non-finite clause or the AGReement part
of a finite clause). Thus, (18) is ungrammatical since myself is not
bound inside the domain that includes it, the governor saw, and the
finite AGReement:
(17) I see myself.
(18) *I thought that [she saw myself].
Before the inclusion of SUBJECT in the domain, the Specified Subject
Condition (e.g. Chomsky 1973: 90) and Tensed Sentence Condition (e.g. Chomsky
1973: 98) excluded sentences such as (18), (19), and (20):
(19) *I want [her to see myself].
(20) *I thought that myself had won.
In (19), myself cannot be bound outside the subordinate clause
since the subject her blocks this, and in (20), myself cannot be
bound outside the tensed subordinate by I. Both (19) and (20) can be
accounted for by including SUBJECT in the definition of governing category
since her would be the SUBJECT in (19) and the finite AGReement would be
in (20). Cross-linguistically, there is variation as to what constitutes a
governing category. For instance, the Korean counterparts of (19) and (20) are
correct since Korean does not include SUBJECT. Instead, anaphors must be bound
in the root clause (see Wexler & Manzini 1987 for more on cross-linguistic
parameters).
According to Condition
B, pronouns such as me in (21) must be free. In (21), the pronoun is
bound and hence the sentence is ungrammatical. Thus, anaphors and pronouns are
frequently in complementary distribution:
(21) *I saw me.
R-expressions, where R stands for Referential, such as the second NP in
(22), must be free in the entire sentence:
(22) *Rolando noticed that Rolando left
early.
In Chomsky (1995:
211), the three conditions are recast as interpretative principles at LF but
the basic insights remain. In this book, anaphors as in (16A) will be referred
to as reflexives. When a referring item is not in an argument position (e.g.
not a direct, indirect, or prepositional object position), it is referred to as
an emphatic (cf. König & Siemund 1997; 1998 for conditions under which
these appear).
Other cross-linguistic
and cross-dialectal variation in the binding domain exists in the famous
`snake'-sentences. It is well-known that in English, as (23) below shows, the
pronoun can be coreferential with the subject; in German, as in (24), ihr
cannot and the reflexive sich is needed; and in Dutch, as in (25), both
are possible (although not all speakers accept haar):
(23) I saw a snake near *myself/me.
(24) Sie sah eine Schlange neben sich/*ihr.
`She saw a
snake next to herself/her.'
(25) Zij zag een slang naast zich/haar.
`She saw a snake next to
herself/her.'
Other languages display similar variation (cf. de Jong 1996 for
Romance), which is problematic since the governing category for an element
should not be so different for different languages. Condition (B) is also problematic
for (26) and for languages such as Old English where sentences such as (21) are
grammatical (see also Baker 1995; Haiman 1995):
(26) I 'll buy me a dictionary.
To account for the
`snake'-sentences, different types of solutions have been proposed. Reinhart
& Reuland (1993) argue that Binding Theory should be formulated as a
condition on predicates (the verb and its arguments) rather than as a condition
on anaphors and pronouns. Their conditions are listed in (27) (I will ignore
the distinction between syntactic and semantic predicates):
(27) (A) A
reflexive-marked syntactic predicate is reflexive.
(B) A reflexive semantic predicate is
reflexive-marked. (p. 678)
In (17), the predicate is reflexive-marked (one of its arguments has -self)
and therefore its two arguments must be coindexed. This condition is met since I
and myself corefer. In (21), the predicate is reflexive since two of its
arguments are coindexed but it is ungrammatical since it is not reflexively
marked. In (23), me is not part of the predicate and hence the predicate
need not be marked as reflexive. In sentences such as (28), the reflexive is an
argument (a benefactive object) and, hence, part of the predicate, as opposed
to (23), where the pronoun is part of an adverbial:
(28) I bought it for myself.
Reinhart & Reuland's definition differs from the three conditions
in (16) in that the governing category, i.e. the binding domain, is
reformulated as the predicate. Indirect or beneficial objects as in (26) and
(28) are problematic because they are sometimes treated as obligatory arguments
and sometimes as optional ones. This has consequences for Binding Theory.
Reinhart & Reuland's Condition (B) is stated so that a predicate with two
coindexed arguments must have reflexive marking. Hence, (21) is ungrammatical.
In (23) and (26), if me is not a proper argument to the predicates see
and buy respectively, reflexive marking is not necessary and the
sentences are correctly predicted to be grammatical.
In addition to (27),
Reinhart & Reuland claim there is a Chain Condition that allows pronouns to
be used anaphorically if they are not fully marked for Case and phi-features.
This allows for variation among languages and between stages of a language as I
show in chapters 1 and 2. The Condition on A-Chains can be formulated as in
(29):
(29) Condition
on A-Chains: a maximal A-chain contains exactly one link -- α1
--that is both +R and Case marked (cf. Reinhart & Reuland, p. 696).
The property R involves referential independence and is defined as
having "a full specification for φ-features and structural Case"
(p. 697). In Reuland & Reinhart (1995: 255ff.), a full specification
includes having a nominative/accusative contrast. Nichols (1997: 79-84) also
shows that inherently Case marked arguments in Zuni are not visible to other
arguments, which means that inherently Case marked elements are not referential
for purposes of binding. So, only by being checked, i.e., as I argue, by having
Uninterpretable features, can an element function referentially.
Even though Reinhart
& Reuland do not mention (26), the Chain Condition allows anaphoric me
if one argues that indirect objects do not check structural Case but have
inherent Case connected to thematic structure and would not be fully specified[3].
Likewise, the pronoun in (23) could be argued to have inherent Case (even
though pseudo-passive constructions do not provide evidence either way: both
`She was looked next to/near' and `Her was looked next to/near' are
ungrammatical)[4].
So, Reinhart & Reuland's theory contains both a condition on predicates and
one on arguments.
In Old English,
predicates are not reflexively marked, i.e. there is no argument marked by self.
This means that Reinhart & Reuland's Condition on Predicates does not
apply. The Chain Condition does, however. I will show that, in Old English, the
Chain Condition is relevant with respect to Case features, and in Middle
English, with respect to person and number features. The question then arises
if the Condition on Predicates can be reduced to the Chain Condition for other
languages as well. I argue it can for Modern English, for example, if one
considers forms such as myself unspecified for person features, and
hence unable to be referential. In Old English, `self' is an adjective, but in
Middle English, it becomes a noun and the head of the reflexive pronoun
complex. Due to the lack of person features of self in (Middle and)
Modern English, the features of the pronoun complex are unspecified and the
complex can function reflexively. This lack of person features is similar to
the situation in Yiddish, for example, where zikh (Weinreich 1949
[1965]: 100) can be used as a first, second or third person reflexive. The
reason me is ungrammatical in (21) can also be explained using the Chain
Condition since the Case is structural and renders the pronoun referential.
Hence, condition (29) is sensitive to the distinction between Interpretable and
Uninterpretable features.
There are two related
issues about (29) that neither Reinhart and Reuland (1993) nor Reuland &
Reinhart (1995) address: (a) what role inherent Case, i.e. an Interpretable
feature, plays in the interpretation so as to make an element non-referential,
and (b) what role structural Case, i.e. a Uninterpretable feature, plays in
making an element referential. One could argue that the unspecified or Uninterpretable
features of the object in (17) are checked on the verb (through movement to an
FC) before LF but make the predicate `reflexive' at LF. The relations between
the subject and object with Interpretable features in (23) are `calculated' at
LF and hence do not obey the Chain Condition. Thus, pronouns with Interpretable
features can be either referential or reflexive and the interpretation of an
Old English pronoun can be reflexive, as in (30), or referential, as in (31):
(30) Beowulf 1799
Reste
hine ža rumheort
rested him
the big-hearted one
`The
big-hearted one rested himself.'
(31) Beowulf 447
gif
mec deaš nimeš
if me-ACC
death takes
`If death
seizes me.'
Koster (1993)
reformulates the notion of governing category in Minimalist terms and crucially
uses Case checking. He argues that morphologically marked anaphors are strong
and must be checked with AGR(eement) (assuming a split IP as in (32), which
Chomsky 1995 no longer does). Languages differ as to where the feature is
located. If it occurs with AGRs, the position responsible for subject
agreement, as in German (and Slavic), non-argument pronouns cannot function as
anaphors; if it occurs with AGRo, the position responsible for object
agreement, as in English, non-argument pronouns function anaphorically. Thus,
in (24), the reflexive is in the domain of AGRs and checks its feature; in
(23), it is not and a pronoun appears. The anaphor in (17) is in the domain of
AGRo and checks its structural Case there. Since inherent (or oblique) Case is
not checked in AGR, obliquely marked pronouns can function anaphorically:
(32) AGRsP
. AGR'
AGRs ...
AGRoP Adjunct
. AGRo' ... neben ihr/next to her
AGRo VP
Thus, both Reinhart & Reuland and Koster argue that domains can
vary in terms of whether or not adjuncts are included and that inherent Case
marking enables a pronoun to serve as an anaphor. Since the presence of
inherent Case varies from language to language, pronouns function anaphorically
in some but not in other languages.
Another approach to
Binding is provided by Burzio (1996). He argues that the antecedent is
important[5] and
that anaphora is a kind of agreement between the anaphor and the
Subject/Inflection complex. If verbal agreement is strong (as in many
Indo-European languages), pronominal reflexives are less likely than if it is
weak (as in East Asian languages). However, agreement in languages such as
Modern English, with no pronominal reflexives, is weaker than in Old English
(see chapter 4 below), a language with pronominal reflexives. Hence, this
cannot be correct.
Burzio also makes a
claim that is possibly relevant to the person split found in Old and Middle
English. He argues that, in Italian, "[c]ertain reflexives . . . are
morphologically invariant for all gender, number, and person, a fact which [he]
interpret[s] as actual lack of morphological features. . . . If correct, this
means that these reflexives cannot truly agree with their antecedents . . . but
can only `pseudo' agree, in the sense of not bearing distinct features"
(pp. 4-5):
(33) Ioi parlo di *sei/mei.
I talk
about self/me
`I talk
about myself.' (Burzio 1996: 4)
In (33), se is partly specified and is not allowed in Italian,
probably because the first person features are stronger in Burzio's terms
(however, me-stesso `myself' is also allowed (Burzio 1996: 6)). So, as
in Reinhart & Reuland (not cited in Burzio), the features of the reflexive
play a role: se is unspecified and must be anaphoric.
The person split could
be accounted for in structural terms as well, assuming that first and second
person pronouns check their features in different FCs, as in Rice & Saxon
(1995) and Ritter (1995). For instance, one might argue that first and second
person pronouns are checked as in (34) but that third person ones, as in (35),
need not be. I will not entertain these structures for Old and Middle English
because (a) there is no person split in Old or Modern English, and (b) there is
no structural evidence for such FCs in Middle English (cf. van Gelderen 1993):
(34) PsP
. Ps'
Ps IP
. I'
I VP
You V'
V NP
saw you
(35) IP
. I'
I VP
She V'
V NP
saw her
In short, I will use
(29) extensively in chapters 1 and 2 to explain the behavior of reflexives. I
argue that it explains the facts in Modern English and that Reinhart &
Reuland's additional Condition on Predicates is not necessary. Chapters 3 to 6
provide support for using the Chain Condition.
0.3 Old
English Morphology and Inherent Case
In this section, I list the basic pronominal paradigm since this will
be helpful in the chapters that follow. Partly on the basis of the
morphological richness of this paradigm and the thematically predictable nature
of the (object) Cases in sentences such as (31) to (40) below, I argue in
chapter 5 that (object) Case is inherent. There are also other arguments,
namely lack of verbal passives, and exceptional Case marking. First, however, a
brief note on the status of pronouns in Old and Middle English.
Pronouns in Old
English act like clitics in that they occupy fixed positions in the sentence
(more in 2.5.1), as has been argued by Traugott (1972) and van Kemenade (1987).
For instance, in (36) to (40) below, object pronouns are fronted. My focus, in
this book, will be on the feature content of pronouns rather than on their
position in the sentence. I argue that even though first, second and third
person pronouns all occupy clitic positions, their internal structure is
different. Since I do not focus on their position, I continue to refer to these
elements as pronouns. The same is true for the distinction between weak and
strong pronouns (cf. also 2.5.1). For instance, in Dutch and Middle English,
first and second person weak pronouns act positionally like third person ones
but differ in terms of feature content.
Campbell (1959: 288-9)
lists the basic Old English pronominal paradigm as one where me and že
are used for dative and accusative even though some texts are said to have a
distinct accusative form. Quirk & Wrenn (1957: 38) also list the basic
paradigm without special forms for first and second person accusative but note
that "[e]arly texts sometimes have distinctive a.sg. forms for the 1st and
2nd pers". The paradigm given below lists separate forms for first and
second person accusative since they are quite frequent in texts such as Beowulf,
Vespasian Psalter and The Lindisfarne Gospels.
Individual texts vary
a great deal both in forms and in orthography, especially for third person
pronouns (e.g. hiene, hie, hio, hiere, hyne,
hym, hyre and hy). Gericke & Greul (1934: 85ff.)
comment on dialect differences regarding these pronouns. In general, if
variants exist, I use single quotation marks around the word, e.g. `him' for hem,
him, hym when referring to the third person dative pronoun:
Table 0.1: Old
English Pronouns
_______________________________________________________________
Singular Dual Plural
_______________________________________________________________
First NOM ic wit we
GEN min uncer ure
DAT me unc us
ACC mec uncet usic
Second NOM žu git ge
GEN žin incer eower
DAT že inc eow
ACC žec incit eowic
Third NOM he/heo/hit -- hi
(M/F/N) GEN his/hire/his -- hira
DAT him/hire/him -- him
ACC hine/heo/hit -- hi
______________________________________________________________
Instances of some of these in Beowulf are (31) above, (36) to
(40), where mec, žec and hine are accusatives, dependent
on niman `take' in (31), oferswyšan `overpower' in (36), and teodan
`prepare' in (40); ic, žu, hio and hi are
nominatives; and eow and us are datives, dependent on wisian
`show' in (37), and a benefactive connected to be god `be good' in (38).
Full nouns are also marked, e.g. as in (39), through an -e ending for
the dative:
(36) Beowulf 1768
žęt
šec dryhtguma deaž oferswižež
that
you-ACC mighty-ruler death overpowers
`that
death overpowers you, mighty ruler.'
(37) Beowulf 292
Ic
eow wisige
I-NOM
you-DAT show
`I will
lead you.'
(38) Beowulf 269
Wes
žu us larena god
be you-NOM
us-DAT teaching-GEN good
`Give us
good counsel.'
(39) Beowulf 623-4
žęt
hio Beowulfe ...
...
medoful ętbęr
that
she-NOM Beowulf-DAT ... meadcup brought
`that she
brought Beowulf the meadcup.'
(40) Beowulf 43
Nalęs
hi hine lęssan lacum teodan
no-less
they-NOM him-ACC less gifts-DAT.P prepared
`They made
him no fewer gifts.'
Table 0.1. shows that
there is a difference between the nominative forms and the others, especially
in the first person and the second person non-singular (ic vs m-;
we vs u-; ge versus eow-). This is a remnant of the
Indo-European split between active and non-active which is later reanalyzed as
a Case split: nominative against the others (cf. Lehmann 1993). The third
person develops late and a demonstrative is used (cf. Beekes 1990: 250). Hence,
no suppletion occurs in the paradigm.
0.4 The
Structure of Pronouns
Since Abney (1987), it has been assumed that the structure of a phrase
such as the house is a D(eterminer)P, as in (41):
(41) DP
D NP
the N
house
An advantage of this structure over the traditional NP, as in (42), is
that the head the heads its own phrase in (41), just like the head house
does, and that the head the does not occupy the position of a maximal
projection:
(42) NP
the N'
N
house
The D head expresses in/definiteness and is considered an FC, on a par
with the I position, as in (10) above. The DP has been split into many other
FCs, e.g. a Num(ber)P (cf. Ritter 1995), an n(oun)P (Bejar 1999), and a
P(er)s(on)P. There is also evidence that indefinite and definite NPs have
different structures (e.g. Zamparelli 1995). I abstract away from these splits
and use DP.
Modern English
pronouns are generally considered DPs but it is undecided whether the pronoun
is base generated in D or if it moves to D. The reason it is argued to occupy D
is that other Ds cannot co-occur with pronouns, e.g. *the he, *her
she, and *that me. In older versions of English, this is not so
clear. Mustanoja (1960: 120) gives examples of že he `the he' and Wood
(p.c) finds examples in Early Middle English of sum heo `some they.' The
status of articles is not clear either and they occur much less frequently than
in Modern English (e.g. Traugott 1972: 85-7). Thus, the evidence for the
presence of a D(P) is not as straightforward for Old English. This is not
special to Old English. Kornfilt (1991) argues that Old Turkish lacks a D and
Philippi (1997) argues that indefinites do not have a DP in Early Germanic.
The position of
adjectives is controversial as well: should the adjective appear in Spec NP or
as a separate FC? In Old English (and Modern German, Dutch, Swedish, to name
but a few), adjectives have either definite or indefinite endings depending on
whether or not they are preceded by no article or a definite one. The structure
could therefore be as in (43), with the adjective moving to D if there is no
article or if the article is indefinite:
(43) DP
D NP
^ A N
grimne gripe
fierce attack
`the
fierce attack' (Beowulf, l. 1148)
In the case of a definite NP such as se grimma gęst `the fierce
spirit' (Beowulf l. 102), this movement does not take place and the adjective
has an indefinite ending. Most of the time (in e.g. Beowulf), the
adjective occurs without noun and it has been argued that the indefinite
inflection is a nominal inflection (see Curme 1905). When there is more than
one adjective, only the first has a definite ending (Spamer 1979: 245). This
fits with (43) because there is only one D position where definiteness can be
checked.
In this section, I
have indicated a number of questions about the status of the DP. Is the DP
universally present (as in Progovac 1998) or does it have to be activated by
the language learner on the basis of language data? Does the pronoun move to D
or is it base generated there? In this book, I assume that there is some
representation of definiteness in Old English, probably as D, as in (43).
However, I will argue that pronouns are not always DPs, for instance, first and
second person Old English ones are not.
0.5 Justification
of the Texts used and Outline of the Book
I have selected the texts used in this book by looking through a
variety of texts representing different time, dialect area, and text type. In
addition, I have searched the Helsinki Corpus (Kytö & Rissanen 1988) for
texts with `interesting' instances of reflexives. With some texts, I have
examined and listed every possible reflexive, but doing that for all texts
would have been too time and space-consuming. I have used the computer-readable
versions of Beowulf, The Vespasian Psalter, The Junius
Manuscript, The Exeter Book, The Lindisfarne Gospels, The
Rushworth Glosses and works by Alfred and Aelfric. Please see Appendix A
for a description of the texts and the standard editions. The computerized
editions are readily available from the Oxford Text Archive and Dictionary of
Old English Project (Toronto). I have used TACT as a Concordance builder.
Middle English material is less readily available in computerized form. I have
used the computerized versions of Layamon's Brut (both Caligula and
Otho), Gawain and the Green Knight, and Chaucer's entire works. I have
also examined texts from the Katherine Group (with the help of the
Penn-Helsinki annotated computer version), The York Plays (with the help
of Kinneavy's Concordance) and Cursor Mundi. For Early Modern English
texts, I have relied on The Paston Letters and the First Folio Edition
of Shakespeare's works (both available from Oxford Text Archive). On occasion,
where relevant, I have used additional examples from other texts which I did
not systematically examine for all aspects dealt with here.
The outline of the
book is as follows: In chapter 1, I describe the reflexive constructions in Old
English where the vast majority of reflexive elements are simple pronouns.
According to the Chain Condition (cf. (29) above), this is not surprising since
Old English has a system of inherent Case. In Middle English, described in
chapter 2, the situation changes and a special reflexive is introduced,
especially with third person pronouns. I argue that changes in the Case, person
and number features are responsible for this. If Case becomes structural, it is
checked in an FC, which become activated in Early Middle English independently.
This is one step in the direction of becoming an analytic language. The first
and second person features become un(der)specified or weak (e.g.
phonologically), which enables first and second person pronouns, such as `me'
and `thee', to continue to be used reflexively (in accordance with the Chain
Condition). The specially marked pronoun (e.g. `himself') is first introduced
outside the direct domain of the verb and with third person pronouns. I argue
that due to the loss of overt Case marking, the adjectival `self' is changed
into the head of the complex pronoun. Once `self' is the head, the complex
form, i.e. `himself', can function reflexively since it has no features of its
own (like Yiddish zikh).
Chapters 3 to 6 provide support for the claims in chapters 1 and 2. In chapter 3, I argue that the underspecification of certain person features can also be seen in the lack of pro-drop with those persons: less pro-drop with first and second than with third. This means the verbal agreement features cease to license an empty subject, another step toward an analytic language. In chapter 4, the underspecification is examined with respect to agreement on the verb: again less agreement with first and second than with third person. Chapters 5 and 6 show that Old English has a system of inherent Case which is first lost in first and second person. This can be seen from the morphology as well as from certain constructions, such as passives and impersonals (discussed in chapter 6), that show a person split. Third person inherent Case is the last to be lost.
Notes
[1]. In Chomsky (1995: 233), a
D-feature is assumed to trigger NP movement whereas in Chomsky (1992) it is an
N(P)-feature.
[2]. As in Chomsky (1995: 349), I
assume that Functional Categories do not have phi-features but that I has Case
(when finite). In (13), Chomsky allows for the subject being in Spec vP rather
than being in Spec VP.
[3]. Reuland & Reinhart (1995:
255ff.) argue that if there is a Case distinction between he/him then
Case is fully specified. Since heself is impossible, anaphors in English
lack the distinction for Case and that enables them to function anaphorically.
[4]. I will not go into all the
details of the Chain-Condition. For instance, even though German has inherent
Case in (24), the third person phi-features render ihr pronominal, but
not mich or mir in (i) and (ii):
(i) Ich wasche mich
I wash me-ACC
`I wash myself'.
(ii) Ich wasche mir die Hände
I wash me-DAT the
hands-ACC
`I wash my hands'.
This is similar to the case of Dutch that I
discuss in 2.5.1.
[5]. There are others that focus on
the antecedent as well: for example, Authier & Reed (1997) show that
whether or not the antecedent is a quantifier has consequences for binding. I
will not be concerned with such instances here.