Logophora with n-words

-Ljiljana Progovac-

It seems well established that there are instances of reflexives that are not formally licensed, i.e., which occur either without an antecedent, or without an antecendent that can bind in the governing category (see e.g. Ross (1970), Huang and Tang (1989), Zribi-Hertz (1989)). Typically, this logophoric use is attested in conjuncts, adjuncts, and other positions which are not direct arguments of the predicate, see (1) and (2); logophors are not allowed in argument positions, as shown in (3) (Pollard & Sag (1992), R&R (Reinhart and Reuland (1993)):

(1) There were five tourists in the room apart from myself.

(2) She gave both Brenda and myself a dirty look.

(3) *She gave myself a dirty look.

If one understands "logophoric" to mean exempt from a formal licensing requirement, then it turns out that logophora is not restricted to reflexives. Negative words in negative concord languages, such as I(talian) and S(erbo)-C(roatian), show equivalent unlicensed uses, and equivalent contrasts between argument and non-argument positions. While adjuncts (4) and conjuncts (5) tolerate unlicensed n-words, n-words in argument positions in SC cannot occur without clausal negation "non/ne" (6) (Italian examples are from Zanuttini (1991)):

(4) I: Ha detto cio con nessuna malizia. "(He) said that with no malice."

SC: Rekao je to sa nimalo zlobe.

(5) I: Compreso solo rose e nessun garofano. "(I) will buy only roses and no carnations."

SC: Kupi|cu samo ru«ze i nijedan karanfil.

(6) SC: *Kupi|cu nijedan karanfil. "(I) will buy no carnations."

The data suggest that R&R's (1993) formulation of Reflexivization in (7) be extended to "Negativization" in the way formulated in (8):

(7) Reflexivization: A predicate (formed of P) is reflexive -marked iff either P is lexically

reflexive or one of P's arguments is a SELF anaphor.

(8) "Negativization:" A predicate (formed of P) is negative-marked iff either P is lexically

negative, or one of the event participants is an n-word.

It is quite plausible that "lexically negative" predicates in (8) correspond to negative idioms of the kind: budge an inch, lift a finger, etc. In addition, while reflexivization seems sensitive only to arguments, negativization can be achieved by any event participant, including place and time adverbials, rendering logophoric contexts for n-words a proper subset of logophoric contexts for reflexives:

Place adverbials: Not logophoric:

(9) *Uradio je to u nijednom gradu. (logophors prohibited)

"He did that in no town." (Predicate negated)

Time adverbials: Not logophoric:

(10) *Rekao je to nijednom prilikom. (logophors prohibited)

"He said that at no occasion." (Predicate negated)

In contrast, adverbials that do not achieve negativization, such as manner and reason adverbials, admit logophoric n-words:

Manner adverbials: Logophoric:

(11) Rekao je to sa nimalo zlobe. (logophors acceptable)

"(He) said that with no malice." (Predicate not negated: He did say it.)

Reason adverbials: Logophoric:

(12) On pla«ce zbog ni«cega. (logophors acceptable)

"He cries for nothing." (Predicate not negated: He does cry.)

To the extent to which this analysis is correct, it shows that logophora is not an inherent property of reflexives, but rather a reflex of a more general, deeper phenomenon that identifies "marginal" phrases in which formal conditions do not apply. What counts as "marginal" depends on the grammatical process performed on the predicate. Thus, reflexivization identifies non-argument positions as marginal, whereas negativization does so with phrases which are not obligatory event-participants. The overlap, however, is significant. If, indeed, reflexive and n-logophors are but two facets of the same deep phenomenon, a full understanding of both is necessary to understand the phenomenon.