Reflexives and tree unification grammar
Although there has been a great deal of research into identifying the constraints responsible for the distribution of reflexive pronouns (like <i>himself, herself, themselves</i>), accounts of reflexivisation are often based entirely on syntactic factors. Furthermore, it is usually assumed that a reflexive and its antecedent (i.e. the noun phrase to which a reflexive pronoun 'refers') must be from the same sentence, and the anaphoric relationship between a reflexive and its antecedent is often established based on a complete structural analysis of the sentence containing them. In this thesis, we propose a treatment of reflexives in which an anaphoric relationship between pronoun and antecedent can be established based on information contained in partial structures associated with linguistic expressions. There is no need to obtain a complete structural analysis before performing anaphora resolution, and information obtained from anaphora resolution can be used to constrain possible analyses. In presenting an account for the distribution of locally bound reflexives in English and of long distance reflexives in Icelandic, we will see that the same general treatment will be applicable to local as well as non-local
Popowich, Frederick Paul
Reflexives and tree unification grammar. Although there has been a great deal of research into identifying the constraints responsible for the distribution of reflexive pronouns (like <i>himself, herself, themselves</i>), accounts of reflexivisation are often based entirely on syntactic factors. Furthermore, it is usually assumed that a reflexive and its antecedent (i.e. the noun phrase to which a reflexive pronoun 'refers') must be from the same sentence, and the anaphoric relationship between a reflexive and its antecedent is often established based on a complete structural analysis of the sentence containing them. In this thesis, we propose a treatment of reflexives in which an anaphoric relationship between pronoun and antecedent can be established based on information contained in partial structures associated with linguistic expressions. There is no need to obtain a complete structural analysis before performing anaphora resolution, and information obtained from anaphora resolution can be used to constrain possible analyses. In presenting an account for the distribution of locally bound reflexives in English and of long distance reflexives in Icelandic, we will see that the same general treatment will be applicable to local as well as non-local
tree unification grammar although_great deal identify constraint responsible distribution reflexive pronoun like account often base entirely syntactic factor furthermore usually assume reflexive antecedent noun_phrase reflexive pronoun refers must sentence anaphoric relationship reflexive antecedent often establish base complete structural_analysis sentence_contain them propose treatment reflexive anaphoric relationship pronoun antecedent establish base information_contain partial structure associate linguistic_expression need obtain complete structural_analysis perform anaphora resolution information_obtain anaphora resolution use constrain possible analysis present_account distribution locally bind reflexive english long_distance reflexive icelandic see general treatment applicable local well non_local