LONG DISTANCE REFLEXIVES AND LOGOPHORIC INTERPRETATIONS
Wynn Chao and Xian Fu Yu
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London
In Chinese, two distinct types of reflexive have been widely
discussed in the literature: simplex reflexives such as ziji ,
which may be bound by either local or long-distance antecedents and
complex reflexives such as taziji, which are normally
considered to require local binding.
This paper reconsiders the local vs. long distance binding
distinction, and argues that under certain conditions both sets of
reflexives can show the full range of local and non-local binding
possibilities. It will be argued, based on proposals in Yu (1996),
that there are two systems of anaphoric resolution at work. When a
reflexive is locally bound its interpretation is constrained by the
Binding Theory as implemented via head movement (cf. Battistela
(1989), Huang and Tang (1991) and Cole and Sung (1994)). When a
reflexive is either long-distance bound or fails to have a syntactic
antecedent, it is a logophoric element and its interpretation is
constrained by the interaction between the morphological structure of
the reflexive itself and the predicates which license it in the
syntactic structure. The role of the predicates is essential in that
they help determine the `logophoric subject' -- the referent from
whose point of view the clause containing the reflexive is
evaluated.
It will be argued (pace Reinhart and Reuland (1991) ) that every (non-clitic) type of reflexive in Chinese admits of two structures: one is an anaphoric structure, while the other is a logophoric structure. When a verb assigns an anaphoric theta-role (Williams (1994)), the reflexive may be realized with its anaphoric structure, and the head of the reflexive is forced to undergo local movement. Alternatively the reflexive can be morphologically instantiated with a logophoric structure. In this case the head of the reflexive is the empty pronominal pro, and must as a result be disjoint in reference from the subject of the local clause. Anaphoric resolution in this case is the result of determining the antecedent of pro. This is the process of identifying the logophoric subject, and it will be argued, is essentially what underlies the Generalized Control Rule first proposed in Huang (1984) for the identification of pro in Chinese.