Abstract for Jeffrey T. Runner's talk

Structural Constraints on Exempt Anaphors
Jeffrey T. Runner (University of Rochester)
March 18, 2008 (Tuesday)
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM; Room 7102, The CUNY Graduate Center

It has become fairly standard to treat reflexives in "picture" Noun Phrases (PNPs) such as 'a picture of herself' as not constrained by Condition A of the Binding Theory (BT). Two such approaches are the "exempt" anaphor approach of Pollard & Sag (1992) and the logophor approach of Reinhart & Reuland (1993). These approaches have in common the claim that PNP reflexives are not structurally constrained but instead are subject to pragmatic and/or discourse constraints. In collaboration with Elsi Kaiser (USC), Rachel Sussman (UW-Madison) and Michael Tanenhaus (Rochester), I have been examining these pragmatic and discourse constraints on PNP anaphors. Though our studies have identified several plausible non-structural constraints on PNP reflexives, we consistently find a surprisingly strong effect of structural (syntactic) constraints on these anaphors. This raises the following questions: if these structural constraints are not the effects of Condition A of the BT, what are they, where do they come from, and how do they fit in with the BT? I will present two sets of "visual world" eye-tracking studies examining these questions. The first set investigates the constraints on anaphors in PNPs lacking possessor phrases ('a picture of herself') and the second set investigates those in PNPs with possessor phrases ('Joan's picture of herself'). In addition—and perhaps more controversially—I will present parallel pronoun data, showing the effects of very strong structural Condition B-type effects, but which are clearly modulated by discourse-type constraints. As the pronoun constraint is arguably Condition B of the BT, these results raise further questions about the appropriate analysis of the interactions of structural and non-structural constraints on anaphora.