Truly Minimal Pronouns

Auteurs

  • Anders Holmberg Newcastle University/University of Cambridge On-Usa Phimsawat Burapha University, Tailand
  • On-Usa Phimsawat Burapha University, Thailand

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.35520/diadorim.2017.v19n0a13512

Mots-clés :

pronome genérico, pronome genérico inclusivo nulo, língua com concordância, línguas sem concordância

Résumé

Tis paper examines the properties of inclusive generic constructions, focusing on languages where the inclusive generic pronoun is a null category. We investigate empirical data from a set of languages with and without agreement to test Phimsawat's (2011) hypothesis that the inclusive generic pronoun lacks all phi-features, and therefore has the least restricted reading, due to there being no restriction on the reference. We show that this hypothesis cannot hold true universally, as phi-features trigger agreement in inflecting languages. We show that there is a correlation between presence of agreement and restriction to human reference for null inclusive generic pronouns, based on comparison of a set of languages without agreement (Tai, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Sinhala) with a set of languages with agreement (Finnish, Brazilian Portuguese, Hebrew, Basque, and Tamil). An explanation in terms of feature architecture is proposed for this correlation. A prediction for generic PRO is discussed and shown to be inconclusive or false.

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Publiée

2017-10-30

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