Abstract for Erika Troseth's talk

Middle voice and anaphora without coreference
Erika Troseth (CUNY Graduate Center)
May 16, 2006 (Tuesday)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM; Room 7102, The CUNY Graduate Center

The first goal of this talk is to motivate analyzing middle voice sentences (This book reads easily) in tandem with sentences that feature a phonologically overt reflexive NP (This book reads itSELF). Evidence for such an approach comes from the thematic properties of the overt NPs, interactions with tense, and the distribution of adverbs and negation. The second goal of the talk is to argue that the stressed reflexive NP of sentences like (1&2) is a nonreferential phonologically overt anaphor.

1. The book reads itSELF. Paraphrasable as: the book is easy to read
2. The strawberry poison dart frogs killed themSELVES. Paraphrasable as: the strawberry poison dart frogs were easy to kill

Evidence that the anaphors in (1&2) are not referential comes from comparisons with middle voice sentences, comparisons with sentences that do feature referential reflexives (3&4), and from using wh-questions to diagnose referring positions.

3. Evangeline stabbed herself.
4. The strawberry poison dart frogs killed themselves.

The primary feature shared by middle voice sentences and the sentences in (1&2) is argued here to be that the predicates in these sentences are one-place predicates. This has been much argued about in the literature on middle voice; to my knowledge the discussion has not addressed sentences like (1&2).