Syntax - Binding Theory

A phrase  (plus perhaps some additional adjuncts) Syntax XP minimal projection Complements vs. adjuncts PPs seem to be freely reorderable— when they are adjuncts.       But consider glance at Chris.    I ate lunch on Tuesday at Taco Bell with Pat I ate lunch on Tuesday with Pat at Taco Bell I ate lunch with Pat on Tuesday at Taco Bell I ate lunch on Tuesday with Pat at Taco Bell etc… I glanced at Chris on Tuesday *I glanced on Tuesday at Chris adjunct XP specifier  maximal projection maximal projection A full phrase can have all of these pieces head [X, …] X′ intermediate projection complement Binding Theory  Binding Theory consists of three Principles that govern the allowed distribution of NPs.  Pronouns: he, her, it, she, … Anaphors: himself, herself, itself, … R-expressions: John, the student, …   Ok: Why? R-expressions and anaphors  R-expressions are NPs like Pat, or the professor, or an unlucky farmer, which get their meaning by referring to something in the world. Most NPs are like this.  An anaphor does not get its meaning from something in the world—it depends on something else in the sentence.   John saw himself in the mirror. Mary bought herself a sandwich. Pronouns  A pronoun is similar to an anaphor in that it doesn’t refer to something in the world but gets its reference from somewhere else.    John told Mary that he likes pizza. Mary wondered if she agreed. …but it doesn’t need to be something in the sentence.  Mary concluded that he was crazy. 1 The problem Indices and antecedents There are very specific configurations in which pronouns, anaphors, and R-expressions can/must be used. Even though both he and himself could refer to John below, you can’t just choose freely between them.  John saw himself.  *John saw him.  John thinks that Mary likes him.  *John thinks that Mary likes himself.  John thinks that he is a genius.  *John thinks that himself is a genius.    The question Binding Theory strives to answer is: When do you use anaphors, pronouns, and R-expressions?   Anaphors and pronouns are referentially dependent; they can (or must) be coreferential with another NP in the sentence. The way we indicate that two NPs are coreferential is by means of an index, usually a subscripted letter. Two NPs that share the same index (that are coindexed) also share the same referent. Johni saw himselfi in the mirror. Indices and antecedents  Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.  An index functions as a “pointer” into our mental model of the world. John here is a name that “points” to our mental representation of some guy, John, which we notate by giving the pointing relation a label (“i”). himself here shares the same pointing relation, it “points” to the same guy John that John does. So, any two NPs that share an index (pointing relation) necessarily refer to the same thing.    Indices and antecedents  Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.  The NP from which an anaphor or pronoun draws its reference is called the antecedent.  John is the antecedent for himself. John and himself are co-referential. Constraints on co-reference Johni saw himselfi. *Himselfi saw Johni.  *John i’s mother saw himself i.  John’s mother   It is impossible to assign the same referent to John and himself in the second and third sentences. What is different between the good and bad sentences? John’s mother is an NP.    [John’s mother]i saw herselfi. She saw John.  But it’s an NP that is made up of smaller pieces (John’s and mother).  So what is the internal structure of the NP John’s mother? 2 [NP John’s mother]  Remember that pronouns come in three distinguishable forms (in English):      [NP John’s mother] I, he, she Me, him, her My, his, her  nominative accusative genitive   The genitive case forms seem to have pretty much the same kind of “possessive” meaning that John’s does. So, let’s suppose that John’s is the genitive case form of John.  Another point about John’s mother is that it seems that the head should be mother. John’s sort of modifies mother. Sort of like an adjective does… sort of like an adverb does for a verb… Let’s suppose (for now! In chapter 7 we’ll revise this) that John’s is just adjoined to the NP mother.  (Hard to draw clearly) NP NP NP i John’s mother Binding  Binding What is the difference between the relationship between John and himself in the first case and in the second case? * NP i John * V′ NP NP i John’s mother V see NP i himself NP i John B C D E A node X c-commands its sisters and the nodes dominated by its sisters. V′ V see NP i himself V′ V saw Tree relations  NP NP i John’s mother VP NP i himself A VP NP V′ V saw We think of the position that John is in in the first tree as being a position from which it “commands” the rest of the tree. It is hierarchically superior in a particular way. VP NP VP  NP i himself Tree relations  A B C D E  A node X c-commands its sisters and the nodes dominated by its sisters. B c-commands C, D, and E. 3 Tree relations  A B C D E   Tree relations A node X c-commands its sisters and the nodes dominated by its sisters. B c-commands C, D, and E. D c-commands E.  A B C D E    Binding  Binding So, again what is the difference between the relationship between John and himself in the first case and in the second case? * NP i John  * V′ NP NP i John’s mother V see NP i himself NP i John NP i himself NP i John NP NP i John’s mother V′ V saw NP i himself NP i himself V′ V saw NP i himself  Definition: A binds B iff  A c-commands B  A is coindexed with B “if and only if” * VP V′ NP VP V see Binding When one NP c-commands and is coindexed with another NP, the first is said to bind the other. * V′ NP NP i John’s mother VP Binding  VP NP V′ V saw In the first case, the NP John c-commands the NP himself. But not in the second case. VP NP VP A node X c-commands its sisters and the nodes dominated by its sisters. B c-commands C, D, and E. D c-commands E. C c-commands B. V see VP V′ NP NP i himself NP NP i John’s mother VP NP i John V see NP i himself V′ V saw NP i himself 4 Binding  Principle A Principle A of the Binding Theory (preliminary): An anaphor must be bound.  This also explains why the following sentences are ungrammatical: *Himselfi saw Johni in the mirror. *Herselfi likes Maryi’s father.  *Himself i likes Mary’s father i.  * VP  V′ NP NP NP i John’s mother VP NP i John V see NP i himself  V′ V saw NP i himself There is nothing which c-commands and is coindexed with himself and herself. The anaphors are not bound, which violates Principle A. Binding domains  But this is not the end of the story; consider    Binding domains *John i said that himself i likes pizza. *John i said that Mary called himself i. Johni saw himselfi in the mirror. Johni gave a book to himselfi.  *John i said that himself i is a genius.  *John i said that Mary dislikes himself i.   In these sentences the NP John c-commands and is coindexed with (=binds) himself, satisfying our preliminary version of Principle A—but the sentences are ungrammatical.     John didn’t say that anyone likes pizza. John didn’t say that Mary called anyone. What is wrong? John binds himself in every case. What is different? In the ungrammatical cases, himself is in an embedded clause. Binding domains   Pronouns It seems that not only does an anaphor need to be bound, it needs to be bound nearby (or locally). Principle A (revised): An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain. Binding Domain (preliminary): The binding domain of an anaphor is the smallest clause containing it. *Johni saw himi in the mirror. Johni said that hei is a genius.  John i said that Mary dislikes him i.  John i saw him j in the mirror.     How does the distribution of pronouns differ from the distribution of anaphors? It looks like it is just the opposite. 5 Principle B  Principle C Principle B A pronoun must be free in its binding domain.  We now know where pronouns and anaphors are allowed. So what’s wrong with these sentences? The pronouns are unbound as needed for Principle B. What are the binding relations here?  *Hei likes Johni. *Shei said that Maryi fears clowns. Hisi mother likes Johni. Free Not bound   *Johni saw himi. Johni’s mother saw himi.   Principle C     Binding Theory Binding is a means of assigning reference. R-expressions have intrinsic reference; they can’t be assigned their reference from somewhere else. R-expressions can’t be bound, at all. Principle C An R-expression must be free.      Constraints on interpretation   Binding Theory is about interpretation. Only a structure that satisfies Binding Theory is interpretable. Principle A. An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain. Principle B. A pronoun must be free in its binding domain. Principle C. An R-expression must be free. The binding domain for an anaphor is the smallest clause that contains it. Bound: coindexed with a c-commanding antecedent (Free: not bound). Constraints on interpretation  If we put together a tree that isn’t interpretable, the process (derivation) is sometimes said to crash. pronounce Lexicon Merge Workbench pronounce Lexicon interpret Merge Workbench interpret 6 Constraints on interpretation  Negative Polarity Items If we succeed in putting together a tree that is interpretable (satisfying the constraints), we say the process (derivation) converges.  Certain words in English seem to only be available in “negative” contexts.   pronounce   Lexicon Merge    Workbench interpret  Negative Polarity Items   These are called negative polarity items. They include ever, yet, anyone, anything, any N, as well as some idiomatic ones like lift a finger and a red cent. Pat didn’t lift a finger to help.  Pat didn’t have a red cent.  *Pat lifted a finger to help.  *Pat had a red cent. Licensing  NPI’s are only allowed to appear if there’s a negative in the sentence.         John didn’t invite Mary to the party, did he? John didn’t invite anyone to the party. John invited Mary to the party, didn’t he? *John invited anyone to the party. Nobody invited Mary to the party, did they? Nobody invited anyone to the party. We say that negation gives them “license to appear”: NPI’s are licensed by negation in a sentence.  Just like you need a driver’s license to drive a car (legally), you need negation to use a NPI (grammatically). Any  Just to introduce a complication right away, there is a positive-polarity version of any that has a different meaning, known as the “free choice any” meaning. This meaning is distinguishable (intuitively) from the NPI any meaning, and we are concentrating only on the NPI any meaning—for now, we will just consider any to be ambiguous, like bank.    John read anything the professor gave him. Anyone who can understand syntax is a genius. In fact, there are a couple of things other than negation that license NPIs, though we’ll ignore them for now.   Pick any card. Did anyone bring cake? Pat didn’t invite anyone to the party. Pat does not know anything about syntax. Pat hasn’t ever been to London. Pat hasn’t seen Forrest Gump yet. *Pat invited anyone to the party. *Pat knows anything about syntax. *Pat has ever been to London. *Pat has seen Forrest Gump yet. Negative Polarity Items  But it isn’t quite as simple as that. Consider:      I didn’t see anyone. *I saw anyone. *Anyone didn’t see me. *Anyone saw me. It seems that simply having negation in the sentence isn’t by itself enough to license the use of an NPI. 7 Negative Polarity Items  Negative Polarity Items As a first pass, we might say that negation has to precede the NPI.   *[The picture of nobody] surprised anyone Nothing surprised anyone VP I didn’t see anyone. Nobody saw anyone.  *Anyone didn’t see me. *Anyone saw nobody.   But that’s not quite it either.  The picture of nobody Giving trees to ditransitives     NP anyone Giving trees to ditransitives You may recall our discussion of θ-theory, where we triumphantly classified verbs as coming in three types:  V surprised V′ V NP i suprised anyone V′ NP *[The picture of nobody] pleased anyone. NP i nothing VP  You may also recall that we believe that trees are binary branching, where:  Intransitive (1 θ-role) Transitive (2 θ-roles) Ditransitive (3 θ-roles)  Syntactic objects are formed by Merge. There’s just one complement and one specifier. Theta roles go to obligatory arguments, not to adjuncts. Giving trees to ditransitives   Fantastic, except that these things just don’t fit together. We know what to do with transitive verbs.   VP SUB V  But what do we do with ditransitive verbs? We’re out of space! Problems continue…  V′  I showed Mary to herself. *I showed herself to Mary. I introduced nobody to anybody. *I introduced anybody to nobody. OBJ  This tells us something about the relationship between the direct and toobject in the structure. (What?) 8 Problems continue…   The OBJ c-commands the PP. But how could we draw a tree like that? Even if we allowed adjuncts to get θ-roles, the most natural structure would be to make the PP an adjunct, like this, but that doesn’t meet the c-command requirements. Some clues from idioms  Often idiomatic meanings are associated with the verb+object complex—the meaning derives both from the verb and the object together.  Suppose that this is due being Merged into the structure together initially. VP * V′ SUB V′ V PP OBJ    Idioms in ditransitives  Bill threw a baseball. Bill threw his support behind the candidate. Bill threw the boxing match. So V and PP are sisters… In ditransitives, it seems like this happens with the PP.  Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to the world.  Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to his patron.  Lasorda sent his starting pitcher to the showers.  Lasorda sent his starting pitcher to Amsterdam.  Mary took Felix to task.  Mary took Felix to the cleaners.  Mary took Felix to his doctor’s appointment.   Larson (1988) took this as evidence that the V is a sister to the PP oringinally. Yet, we see that on the surface the OBJ comes between the verb and the PP.   Mary sent a letter to Bill. Where is the OBJ? It must c-command the PP, remember. Why is the V to the left of the OBJ when we hear it? V′ V Where’s the V? Where’s the OBJ?   Causatives We can paraphrase John gave a book to Mary as John caused a book to go to Mary. Chichewa:   Mtsikana ana-chit-its-a kuti mtsuku u-gw-e girl agr-do-cause-asp that waterpot agr-fall-asp ‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’ Mtsikana anau-gw-its-a kuti-mtsuku girl agr-fall-cause-asp that waterpot ‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’    Suppose that in both cases Merge puts things together in the same way initially:  [[that waterpot] fall] Mtsikana ana-chit-its-a kuti mtsuku u-gw-e girl agr-do-cause-asp that waterpot agr-fall-asp ‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’ Mtsikana anau-gw-its-a kuti-mtsuku girl agr-fall-cause-asp that waterpot ‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’ [[that waterpot] fall]  Then it’s merged with cause (basically transitive: needs a causer and a causee):  And then it’s Merged with the Agent  At which point, one can move fall over to cause.   PP   [cause [[that waterpot] fall]] [girl [cause [[that waterpot] fall]]] [girl [cause+fall [[that waterpot] ]]] 9 Ditransitives again Where’s the V? Where’s the OBJ?  The proposal will be that English ditransitives are really a lot like Chichewa causatives. One moves fall over to cause to get:  Starting with  Merging cause and an Agent  One then moves go over to cause to get:        Larson’s proposal was basically this. Logically, if we’re going to have binary branching and three positions for argument XPs (SUB, OBJ, PP), we need to have another XP above the VP.  Since the subject is in the specifier of the higher XP, that must be a VP too. [girl [cause+fall [[that waterpot] ]]] vP [[the book] [go [to Mary]] [John [cause [[the book] [go [to Mary]]]]] [John [cause+go [[the book] [ [to Mary]]]]] John “gave” the book to Mary.  Ditransitive verbs really come in two parts. They are in a “VP shell” structure.  Furthermore, the higher part seems to correlate with a meaning of causation. Where’s the V? Where’s the OBJ?  The higher verb is a “light verb” (we’ll write it as vP to signify that)—its contribution is to assign the θ-role to the subject. The lower verb assigns the θ-roles to the OBJ and the PP.   That is, V has [uP, uN] features, and v has a [uN] feature.   Hierarchy of Projections (so far):  v′ v+V VP OBJ  “V comes with v” V′ OBJ V′ V PP (1) Mama Bear is pointing to her. (2) Mama Bear is pointing to herself. Suppose that contrary to appearances, kids do know and obey Principle B. Look carefully at the definitions of Binding Theory. If Principle B isn’t the problem, what do you think kids are getting wrong to allow (1) to have the meaning of (2)?  v>V VP Young kids (5-6 years) seem to accept sentences like (1) as meaning what (2) means for adults.  SUB v Exercise to ponder  vP v′ SUB Think in particular about how you decide which index to assign to her. What is the implication of having the same index? What is the implication of having different indices? PP 10