The Uniqueness Restriction on E-type Pronouns
Pritty Patel, Patrick Grosz (Dept of Linguistics, MIT) Evelina (Ev) Fedorenko & Ted Gibson (Dept of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT)
Correspondence: pritty@mit.edu, grosz@mit.edu, evelina9@mit.edu, egibson@mit.edu THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Donkey Sentences & E-type Pronouns
(1a) [Every man [who owns a donkey]] loves it. = [Every man [who owns a donkey]] loves his donkey. (1b) [If a man owns a donkey], he loves it. = [If a man owns a donkey], he loves his donkey. adapted from Geach (1962), Heim (1982:44) Intended Reading: John loves John's donkey Bill loves Bill's donkey George loves George's donkey … The problem: "a donkey" doesn't c-command "it" "a donkey" cannot QR out of the RC CP qp 3 Every 3 man who 2 loves it
EXPERIMENT
Design & Materials
Off-line rating study 1-7 naturalness scale Design - 2 x 2 (Overt referent / No overt referent and Unique / Nonunique) 32 participants for the rating study 24 items (12 items contained N-less constructions, e.g. who was carless; 12 items contained N-owner constructions, e.g. who was a credit-card-owner) 72 fillers Statistical analysis used: Logistic regression with random intercepts for participants and items a. b. c. d. Non-unique referent for the pronoun; no overt NP antecedent: Every citizen who was carless had lost it during the recession. Unique referent for the pronoun; no overt NP antecedent: Every citizen who was houseless had lost it during the recession. Non-unique referent for the pronoun; overt NP antecedent: Every citizen who was without a car had lost it during the recession. Unique referent for the pronoun; overt NP antecedent: Every citizen who was without a house had lost it during the recession.
3 3 owns 6 a donkey
Hypotheses
(I) The Structural Hypothesis: E-type pronouns require a structural overt referent, cf. Heim (1990), Chierchia (1992) Prediction: Main effect of overt referent only. (II) The Pragmatic Hypothesis: E-type pronouns are licensed if and only if certain pragmatic conditions are met (e.g. uniqueness, as in husband vs. brother). Prediction: Main effect of uniqueness only. (III) The Compromise Hypothesis: E-type pronouns are licensed by an overt NP antecedent; if there is none, pragmatic conditions (e.g. uniqueness) can license them. (IIIa) Version 1: Both uniqueness and overt referent condition are deterministic. Prediction: An interaction between overt referent and uniqueness. (IIIb) Version 2: Both uniqueness and overt referent condition are probabilistic. Prediction: Main effect of overt referent and main effect of uniqueness. (IIIc) Version 3: Uniqueness is probabilistic, but overt referent condition deterministic. Prediction: Main effect of referent and interaction I II

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