| (1) | a. | * | Himself is busy at the moment. |
| b. | * | Herself is feeding the cats. | |
| c. | * | Themselves will arrive later on tonight. |
What is wrong with these sentences? Their ungrammaticality seems to be due to the inability of reflexive pronouns to refer, properly speaking. Rather, reflexive pronouns are obligatorily anaphoric; that is, their reference is parasitic on that of some other noun phrase in the sentence, the so-called antecedent. Thus, the sentences in (2) are grammatical. The antecedent is italicized. As in Exercise 3 of Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet's Chapter 1, I use indices to indicate the referential dependency of the reflexive pronoun on its antecedent.
| (2) | a. | John-i is shaving himself-i. | |
| b. | Kathy-i admires herself-i. | ||
| c. | The Joneses-i will nominate themselves-i. |
Now it isn't just any old noun phrase that can serve as the antecedent of a reflexive pronoun. This is illustrated by the variants of (2) given in (3).
| (3) | a. | * | Mary-i/The Joneses-i is shaving himself-i. |
| b. | * | John-i/The Joneses-i admires herself-i. | |
| c. | * | John-i/Mary-i will nominate themselves-i. | |
| d. | * | We-i will nominate themselves-i. |
What is wrong with (3)? The ungrammaticality of these sentences is due to the lack of agreement of the reflexive pronouns don't agree with the only available (potential) antecedents in certain grammatical properties (specifically, gender, number and person).
It is worth emphasizing, incidentally, that although etymologically, "antecedent" means "one who goes before", antecedents (in the grammatical sense) need not precede the element that depends on them for reference. We will see examples of this later on in connection with our discussion of ordinary pronouns (Section 2.2). Conversely, not every noun phrase that precedes a reflexive pronoun can serve as its antecedent, even if the noun phrase and the reflexive pronoun agree in gender, number and person. We will see examples of this directly (Section 1.3).
There are two further conditions that sentences containing reflexive pronouns must fulfill in order to be grammatical. We motivate the first one by considering (4).
| (4) | * | Rembrandt's portrait of Susanna-i pleased herself-i. |
(4) contains a potential antecedent for herself that agrees with it in gender, number and person---Susanna. So why is (4) ungrammatical? The answer is that reflexive pronouns and their antecedents must satisfy the condition in (5). The term "c-command" is short for "constituent command" (as Pinker suggests, "Don't ask"), and it is defined in (6).
| (5) | A reflexive pronoun must be c-commanded by an agreeing antecedent. | ||
| (6) | A c-commands B iff (= if and only if) the first branching node that contains A also contains B. |
Armed with this definition, let us now consider (7), the tree associated with (4) (we ignore that fact that the subject has moved from the Spec(VP) position to Spec(IP) because that movement is irrelevant for present purposes).
(7)
________IP________
/ \
___NP___ _I'_
/ \ / \
NP __N'__ I VP
/ \ / \ | |
/ \ N PP [past] _V'_
/______\ | | / \
Rembrandt's portrait P' V NP
/ \ | / \
P NP pleased /____\
| / \ herself
of /____\
Susanna
Is the reflexive pronoun c-commanded by its potential antecedent Susanna? To find out, we identify A in the definition in (6) as the noun phrase that exhaustively contains Susanna (that is, contains Susanna but nothing else) and B as the noun phrase that contains herself. It is worth emphasizing that we take A and B here to be noun phrases and not words. The definition in (6) is perfectly general, and it would allow us to determine the c-command relation for any pair of nodes in the trees. However, at the moment, we are interested in the expression of referential dependency between individuals, and it is entire noun phrases, not isolated words, that refer to individuals.
So starting from the NP containing Susanna, we travel upward to the first branching node. This turns out to be P', which we hit immediately. Does this node contain the NP that contains herself? The answer is no. The answer to the question whether (the NP containing) Susanna c-commands (the NP containing) herself is therefore no as well. As a result, herself in (4) doesn't satisfy the condition in (5). This is the reason for the ungrammaticality of (4).
N.B.: (4) is a case of a noun phrase preceding a reflexive pronoun with which it shares gender, number and person, yet still not being able to serve as its antecedent. This shows that the notion of antecedenthood differs from that of precedence.
Note, incidentally, that the NP containing the entire subject Rembrandt's portrait of Susanna does c-command herself. However, it is ruled out as an antecedent because its gender is neuter, whereas that of herself is feminine.
On the basis of the preceding discussion, you should now be able to explain why the sentence in (8) isn't ambiguous. That is, herself can only be understood as referring to Susanna's mother, not to Susanna.
| (8) | [Susanna's-i mother]-j admires herself-j/*i. |
We turn now to a final condition that reflexive pronouns must satisfy. Consider the contrast in (9).
| (9) | a. | Bill suspects that Mary-i will cut herself-i. | |
| b. | * | Mary-i suspects that Bill will cut herself-i. |
The structure that (9a,b) share is given in (10). The matrix and subordinate clause subjects are left blank because they are filled by different noun phrases in (9).
(10)
IP
/ \
NP I'
/ \
I VP
| |
[pres] V'
/ \
V CP
| |
suspects C'
/ \
C IP
/ / \
that NP I'
/ \
I VP
| |
will V'
/ \
V NP
| / \
cut /____\
herself
Regardless of whether Mary is the subordinate clause subject, as in the grammatical (9a), or the matrix clause subject, as in the ungrammatical (9b), the NP containing it c-commands the NP containing herself (the first branching nodes above them, the subordinate IP and the matrix IP, both contain herself). The contrast in (9) is therefore puzzling given the discussion so far.
Intuitively, the (potential) antecedent Mary strikes one as being "too far away" from the reflexive pronoun in the ungrammatical (9b); it ought to be "closer". But how close counts as close? One reasonable hypothesis is that the antecedent must be a constituent of the (lowest) IP that contains the reflexive pronoun. If Mary is the subject of the subordinate clause, as in (9a), then this condition is fulfilled. On the other hand, if Mary is the subject of the matrix clause, as in (9b), then it is not a constituent of the lowest IP that contains herself, namely of the subordinate clause.
It turns out that the exact definition of "close" is a bit more involved and must refer to the lowest IP or NP that contains the reflexive pronoun. The condition that sentences containing reflexive pronouns must satisfy is therefore (11).
| (11) | The lowest IP or NP that contains a reflexive pronoun must also contain its antecedent. |
We call the lowest IP or NP referred to in (11) the reflexive pronoun's locality domain. The motivation for including the disjunction IP or NP in (11) comes from sentences like (12). Can you explain why?
| (12) | Mary-i bought Joan's-j book about herself-j/*i. |
For convenience, we combine the two conditions in (5) and (11) in (13).
| (13) | A reflexive pronoun must be c-commanded by an agreeing antecedent that is contained within the lowest IP or NP that contains the reflexive pronoun. |
| (14) | a. | He is busy at the moment. | |
| b. | She is feeding the cats. | ||
| c. | They will arrive later on tonight. |
But ordinary pronouns can have antecedents within the same sentence. If so, they must agree with their antecedents in gender, number and person in just the same way that reflexive pronouns do. This is illustrated in (15).
| (15) | a. | John-i claimed that Bill invited him-i / *her-i / *them-i. | |
| b. | Kathy-i thinks that everyone admires her-i / *him-i / *them-i. | ||
| c. | The Joneses-i suggested that we nominate them-i / *him-i / *her-i. |
| (16) | An ordinary pronoun must not be c-commanded by an agreeing antecedent that is contained within the lowest IP or NP that contains the ordinary pronoun. |
To understand why we need the condition in (16), consider the sentences in (17), which are all ungrammatical under the interpretations expressed by the indexing.
| (17) | a. | * | John-i is shaving him-i. |
| b. | Kathy-i admires her-i. | ||
| c. | The Joneses-i will nominate them-i. |
These sentences all have the (schematic) structure in (18).
(18)
IP
/ \
NP1 I'
| / \
ante- I VP
cedent |
V'
/ \
V NP2
|
ordinary
pronoun
Given this structure, it is easy to see that the ordinary pronouns in (17) violate the condition in (16). In each case, the antecedent is in the NP1 position, and the ordinary pronoun is in the NP2 position. NP1 c-commands NP2 because the first branching node that contains NP1 (= the IP) also contains NP2. Furthermore, and this is important, the smallest IP or NP that contains the ordinary pronoun (as it happens, the IP again) also contains the antecedent.
To deepen our understanding of (16), let us now consider the grammatical sentences in (15), which all have the schematic structure in (19).
(19)
IP1
/ \
NP1 I'
| / \
ante- I VP
cedent |
V'
/ \
V CP
|
C'
/ \
C IP2
/ \
NP I'
/ \
I VP
|
V'
/ \
V NP2
|
ordinary
pronoun
In these sentences, the antecedent in the NP1 position c-commands the ordinary pronoun in the NP2 position (the first branching node that contains NP1 is IP1, and IP1 contains NP2). However, NP1 isn't contained in the smallest IP or NP that contains NP2 (= IP2), and so NP1 turns out to be a possible antecedent for NP2.
In the grammatical sentences in (15), the antecedent c-commands the ordinary pronoun, but is sufficiently "far away" not to run afoul of (16). There are also cases where the antecedent is "close" to an ordinary pronoun (contained in the same IP or NP as the ordinary pronoun), but is permitted as an antecedent because it doesn't c-command the pronoun. An example is given in (20), which has the structure in (21).
| (20) | Rembrandt's portrait of Susanna-i pleased her-i. |
(21)
________IP________
/ \
___NP___ _I'_
/ \ / \
NP __N'__ I VP
/ \ / \ | |
/ \ N PP [past] _V'_
/______\ | | / \
Rembrandt's portrait P' V NP
/ \ | / \
P NP pleased /____\
| / \ her
of /____\
Susanna
As we saw in connection with (4) and (7), the NP containing Susanna doesn't c-command the object of please. This is what made (4) ungrammatical. In the case of (20), which contains an ordinary pronoun, not a reflexive pronoun, it is precisely this absence of a c-command relationship that allows Susanna to serve as the antecedent for her. The fact that the antecedent is contained within the lowest IP or NP that contains the ordinary pronoun is irrelevant in the absence of the c-command relation.
Finally, let's consider the variant of (20) given in (22), which is an example of a sentence where an antecedent doesn't precede the expression that is referentially dependent on it.
| (22) | Rembrandt's portrait of her-i pleased Susanna-i. |
(23)
________IP________
/ \
___NP___ _I'_
/ \ / \
NP __N'__ I VP
/ \ / \ | |
/ \ N PP [past] _V'_
/______\ | | / \
Rembrandt's portrait P' V NP
/ \ | / \
P NP pleased /____\
| / \ Susanna
of /____\
her
This sentence is grammatical with the given interpretation because in this case as well, (the NP that contains) Susanna doesn't c-command (the NP that contains) her. The reason is that the first branching node that dominates (the NP that contains) Susanna is V', which doesn't contain (the NP that contains) herself.
| (24) | A full noun phrase must not be c-commanded by an agreeing antecedent (= any other agreeing noun phrase or pronoun with the same index). |
The condition on full noun phrases is reminiscent of that on pronouns, except that in the case of full noun phrases, it doesn't matter how "far away" the antecedent is from the full noun phrase.
An example of a sentence that violates (24) is (25), with the structure in (26).
| (25) | * | He-i claimed that Bill invited John-i. |
(26)
IP
/ \
NP1 I'
/__\ / \
he I VP
| |
[past] V'
/ \
V CP
| |
claimed C'
/ \
C IP
/ / \
that NP I'
/__\ / \
Bill I VP
| |
[past] V'
/ \
V NP2
| /__\
invited John
The matrix clause subject he c-commands the subordinate
clause object John, and the sentence is ruled out. The fact
that the matrix clause subject isn't contained in the subordinate
clause isn't relevant because the condition in (24) makes no reference
to a locality domain, in contrast to the conditions in (13) and (16).
Last modified: 12/3/97