Focus-related phenomena have long been used to draw conclusions about the syntax and semantics of anaphora. I use examples in which focus is the result of information-structural considerations to argue for a semantics of reflexive anaphors. I show that a theory that treats reflexive anaphors as reflexivizing functions is empirically superior to theories that interpret them like variables. The discussion also leads to some interesting conclusions about focus theory. It is argued that the domain of application of the relevant information-structural notion should be limited to verb phrases and sentences and that the relevant economy condition should be localized accordingly.
Focus related phenomena have long been used to draw conclusions about the syntax and semantics of anaphora. I use examples in which focus is the result of information-structural considerations to argue for a semantics of reflexive anaphors. I show that a theory that treats reflexive anaphors as reflexivizing functions is empirically superior to theories that interpret them like variables. The discussion also leads to some interesting conclusions about focus theory. It is argued that the domain of application of the relevant information-structural notion should be limited to verb phrases and sentences and that the relevant economy condition should be localized accordingly.
Merchant (2014, “Gender mismatches under nominal ellipsis”, Lingua, 151: 9–32) makes the following two claims about nominal ellipsis in (Modern) Greek. (i) There are three classes of MASCULINE-FEMININE noun pairs that differ in whether nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is possible. (ii) Nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is possible in predicative positions but not in argument positions. We take issue with both of these claims. Our qualms about (i) are relatively minor. It appears that his primary data are hard to replicate, but we present novel sets of data involving focus constructions that also demonstrate that Greek has three classes of MASCULINE-FEMININE noun pairs. As for (ii), we argue that it is empirically inaccurate and nominal ellipsis with gender mismatch is in fact possible in argument positions as well. This is problematic for the analysis Merchant develops, as it is tailored to derive (ii). Furthermore, we argue that his analysis does not give a straightforward account of our observations about focus constructions. We put forward an alternative account of the interpretation of gendered nouns according to which there are three types of nouns with gender inferences: (a) those that have gender inferences in both assertive and presuppositional dimensions of meaning, (b) those that only have gender inferences in the presuppositional dimension of meaning, and (c) those that do not have gender inferences in their semantics but through competition with the opposite gender (gender competition).
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