Abstract for Alessandra Giorgi's talk

Long distance anaphors and blocking effects
Alessandra Giorgi (University of Venice)
September 14, 2006 (Thursday)
4:15 PM - 6:00 PM; Room 6417, The CUNY Graduate Center

In this talk I'm going to propose an account for the binding of long distance anaphors. The main idea 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.
I'll consider the distribution of long distance anaphors in two typologically unrelated languages, Italian and Chinese, and show that in spite of the superficial differences they are ruled by the same grammatical principles. I'll focus mostly on the so-called blocking effects ' namely, the impossibility for a long distance anaphor of extending its binding domain beyond certain elements, such as an indicative verbal form in Italian, or an indexical or context-related item in Chinese. In order to propose a theoretical account of these facts, I investigate the role of the speaker and the bearer of attitude in the sentence. I argue, capitalizing on proposals by Giorgi and Pianesi (1997, 2001, 2004) on Sequence of Tense, that they are syntactically realized and might act as binders and blockers both for temporal purposes and for binding ones.