Interpreting gender on bound pronouns *

Transcription

1 Interpreting gender on bound pronouns * Giorgos Spathas Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS In languages with grammtical gender like Modern Greek, the possibility arises that bound pronouns disagree in gender with the DPs that bind them. This paper explores the consequences of such cases for the interpreation of gender features on bound pronouns. It is argued that they can be both present and absent at LF. An analysis that wants to capture their distribution in examples with ellipsis and focus particles like only should include i. a mechanism that controls gender features at LF relativized to the properties of the binders, ii. a semantics for focus that ignores gender features at LF, and iii. a strict lexical idenity condition on ellipsis. 1. Presuppositional Semantics for Gender Features Originating with Cooper (1983), the semantics of gender features on pronouns are usually treated as presuppositions on the range of variables. In a sentence with a referential pronoun like (1a), then, it is asserted that Mary loves x (x a free variable), and it is presupposed that the discourse value of x is a male referent. In Heim s (2005) implementation of Cooper s analysis, gender features denote partial identity functions, as in (2). 1 Those are only defined if the referent (in the case of free pronouns) has the relevant property. In the case of bound pronouns, presupposition projection ensures that the presupposition on the pronoun is passed up to the level of the predicate abstract. The abstract, then, is a partial function that is only defined for, e.g., female individuals. Such a presupposition is visible in the case of gender-neuter nouns, like student in (3); (3) is felicitous only if every relevant student is female and true if every student did her homework. (1) a. Mary loves him. b. Mary loves x masc (2) a. [[masc]]= λx e : x is male.x b. [[fem]]= λx e : x is female.x * I am very grateful to Irene Heim for her commentary. I would also like to thank Eric Reuland, Cleo Condoravdi, Jacub Dotlacil, Floris Roelofsen, Nino Grillo and the audience at the Workshop on Greek Syntax and Semantics, MIT, for valuable discussions and suggestions. All errors are my own. 1 Heim (2005) extends the presuppositional analysis to other phi features (see also Schlenker 2003 for person, Sauerland 2004 for number, among others). I won t be discussing other phi features and I will only be presenting those aspects of the debate that are relevant for gender.

2 (3) a. Every student did her homework. b. every student (λx (x is female. x did x s homework)) Heim (1994, 2005) and Kratzer (1998) note a problem with the presuppositional account of phi-features on bound pronouns. The account seems to undergenerate in examples with the focus-sensitive particle only, as in (4) (from Heim 2005) under the bound variable reading. Simplifying a lot, only introduces a comparison set and states that the predicate abstract holds for its subject, but not for anybody else in the comparison set. (4) states that no other individual in the comparison set is such that it did its own homework. But if we allow the pronoun to trigger a presupposition, then (4) conveys that nobody else, except Mary, is such that it is female and did her homework. This predicts, then, that a presupposition failure should arise if the comparison set contains some male individual that did his own homework. There is no presupposition failure, however, and the sentence is simply judged to be false in such a context. (4) a. Only Mary did her homework. b. LF: only Mary (λx (x did x fem s homework)) A second problem with the presuppositional account is an overgeneration problem. It seems that at least for a number of native speakers, (5a) is felicitous in a context with students of both sexes. This can be captured if we assume the weak semantics for masc in (5b) (from Heim 2005). (6a) should, then, come out to mean that Mary did her homework but nobody else did theirs, as long as the comparison set includes members of both sexes; but this is clearly not the case. (6) cannot mean this, or, indeed, anything else (under the bound variable reading). (5) a. Every student did his homework. b. [[masc]]= λx e : x is not female.x (6) a. Only Mary did his homework. b. only Mary (λx (x did x masc s homework)) 2. Feature Transmission Heim (2005), Kratzer (1998, 2006), von Stechow (2003), and others, argue that a solution to the undergeneration problem would be to allow phi-features on bound pronouns to be semantically absent, i.e. to allow for LFs with featureless bound pronouns, like the one in (7) for (4). (7) LF: only Mary (λx (x did x s homework)) If the predicate abstract is unrestricted as in (9), it is free to apply to the nonfemale individuals in only s comparison set. If it applies to a male individual that turns out to be in the domain of the abstract, the sentence will be false, as it is judged to be in the relevant contexts.

3 One possible direction for implementing this idea, found in Heim (1994, 2005) and Kratzer (1998, 2006) is to allow bound variables to enter the derivation without any phi-features and reach LF featureless. It is only at the PF side of the grammar that bound pronouns inherit the features of their binders. Heim s proposal is the one in (8). (8) Feature Transmission under variable binding (1) In the derivation of PF, features of a DP may be copied onto variables that it binds. Notice that the optional formulation of Feature Transmission (FT) in (8) doesn t solve the overgeneration problem, since LFs with inherent gender features are still possible. Heim makes Feature Transmission obligatory, as in (9). (9) Feature Transmission under variable binding (2) In the derivation of PF, all features of a DP must be copied onto all variables that it binds. (6) can no longer be derived, since the inherent feature of the variable (masc) and that of the binder (fem) contradict each other. This is ruled out as PF incoherent. An inherent/ base-generated feature is only allowed as long as it doesn t contradict the gender feature on the binder. In the resulting proposal of Heim (2005), the following LFs are allowed: i. Referential DPs (8) a. Mary did her homework. b. LF1: Mary (λx (x did x s homework)) empty pro c. LF2: Mary (λx (x did x fem s homework)) base-generated fem The presupposition in (8c) is redundant, but the LF is still derivable. ii. Quantificational DPs as binders (9) a. Only Mary did her homework. b. LF1: only Mary (λx (x did x s homework)) empty pro c. LF2: only Mary (λx (x did x fem s homework)) base-generated fem LF1, as we saw, solves the undergeneration problem. LF2 carries a redundant presupposition, if the context makes it clear that only s comparison set contains female individuals only. If the comparison set is of mixed gender, however, and contains a male individual that did his homework, LF2 comes out true. Heim s solution is to ensure that only projects universal presuppositions for all members of its domain. LF2, then, will always be a presupposition failure in a mixed gender context.

4 (10) a. Every princess went to her room. b. LF1: every princess (λx (x went to x s room)) empty pro c. LF2: every princess (λx (x went to x fem s room)) base-generated fem Again, LF2 is redundant (princesses are all female), but derivable. (11) a. Every professor went to her room. b. LF1: every professor (λx (x went to x s room)) empty pro c. LF2: every professor (λx (x went to x fem s room)) base-generated fem In the case of a variable gender noun, the question is whether LF1 is possible. The answer depends on whether we allow professor to carry gender features. Feature Transmission allows us to explain the presupposition of (37) by interpreting a gender feature on the noun; fem on the bound pronoun is, then, a result of FT at PF. Percus (2006) provides the example in (12a) to support this latter analysis. (12) a. Only the professor decorated her room. b. LF: only the professor (λx (x decorated x fem s room)) c. LF: only the professor fem (λx (x decorated x s room)) Under a bound variable reading of (12a), fem on the bound pronoun restricts the professor to a female individual. It, thus, carries a presupposition and is semantically visible. In Heim s account this means that it is base generated and not a product of FT (which is possible if the professor is not specified for gender), as in (12b). At the same time, if fem is interpreted, it should restrict the abstract to apply to female individuals only. Thus, the sentence should be felicitous if some male individual in the comparison set decorated his own office. Percus, however, reports that the sentence is judged false in a situation like this; i.e. there is no presupposition failure. One way to fix the contradiction would be to allow the professor to carry a fem feature, as in (12c), interpreted as a presupposition that defines the professor only if the professor is female. fem on the NP, then, takes over the job of fem on the pronoun. Thus, we can treat the latter as a result of FT and derive an LF that does not restrict the abstract to female individuals. Once we accept that, Percus continues, we can derive the presupposition of (11) the same, i.e. allowing every professor to bear a fem feature, deriving LF1 in (11) for Every professor decorated her office. LF2 in (11) can still be derived. The point is that it cannot be the only possible LF for (11); if it is, we miss Percus analysis for (12). Notice, however, that examples like (11), where the initial and only empirical argument to allow any inherent/ base-generated features on bound pronouns at all. In all other cases, the presuppositions of base-generated gender features were always redundant. If Percus analysis of (12) and (11) is right, then, it seems possible to adopt the generalization in (13).

5 (13) Gender features on bound pronouns are always the result of Feature Transmission. 3. Agreement Mismatches In this section I will argue that i. the generalization in (13) is wrong, ii. Feature Transmission cannot be obligatory as in (9), and iii. a semantics of focus is needed that can overlook gender features at LF. In order to do so, I will use evidence from Modern Greek, a language with a grammatical gender system, focusing on cases of agreement mismatches between the gender feature of the bound pronoun and the DP that binds it. 3.1 Grammatical vs. semantic gender in Greek Greek is a language with a grammatical gender system. DPs are specified for masculine, feminine or neuter. Grammatical gender is visible DP-internally, on determiners and adjectives, and is also visible on predicative adjectives (including secondary predication), verbal particles and pronouns. Grammatical gender is inherently specified on noun stems, with the exception of the variable gender nouns in (14). These are gender-neuter nouns whose gender is specified on the definite determiner. 2 (14) o / i dhikijoros / ipalilos / ipurjos the.masc / the.fem lawyer / employee / minister Morphological gender outside noun stems (with the exception, perhaps, of gender features on the determiners in (14) and on pronouns, which will be discussed in the next section) is the result of agreement. Consider the human nouns in (15). These are nouns specified with neuter grammatical gender, irrespective of their semantic/ natural gender (male, female, or gender-neuter). (15) to pedhi / melos / ajori / koritsi the.neu child / member / boy / girl In the case of, e.g., agreement on a predicative adjective, agreement will always follow the grammatical, rather than the semantic/ natural gender, as in (16). (16) a. Afto to koritsi ine poli eksipno/ * eksipni. this.neu the.neu girl is very smart.neu/ smart.fem This girl is very smart. b. Afto to pedhi ine poli eksipno / * eksipni / *eksipnos. this.neu the.neu child is very smart.neu / smart.fem / smart.masc This child is very smart. 2 For arguments and more discussion on this and all other issues in this section, see Spathas (2007) and the references cited there.

6 I will assume, then, that agreement in Greek is always agreement in grammatical and not in semantic/ natural gender LFs for bound pronouns in Greek Going back to bound pronouns, Feature Transmission together with the assumption that agreement can only target grammatical gender allow the following LFs for bound variable construals in Greek Match in gender The example in (17) is exactly parallel to the English example in (8). The only difference is that the morphological gender fem on the pronoun is the result of grammatical and not semantic agreement. Whether LF2 is possible or not depends on whether we allow for base-generated gender features. (17) a. I Maria pije sto jrafio tis. the.fem Mary went to.the office her Mary went to her office. b. LF1: Mary (λx (x went to x s office)) c. LF2: Mary (λx (x went to x fem s office)) The same is true for LF2 in example (18). LF1, on the other hand, solves the undergeneration problem (which manifests itself in Greek in exactly the same way as in the English example in (9)). (18) a. Mono i Maria pije sto jrafio tis. Only the.fem Mary went to-the office her Only Mary went to her office. b. LF1: only Mary (λx (x went to x s office)) c. LF2: only Mary (λx (x went to x fem s office)) Mismatch in gender Cases of gender mismatch are more revealing. Human neuter nouns can bind pronouns with either neuter, as in (19), or feminine gender, as in (20). Keeping with the assumption that natural gender cannot be the controller of agreement in Greek, the LF in (20a) cannot be derived. (20) is, then, unambiguous with (20b) its only possible LF. (19) a. To koritsi pije sto jrafio tu. the.neu girl went to-the office its The girl went to her office. b. LF: the.neu girl (λx (x went to x s office))

7 (20) a. To koritsi pije sto jrafio tis. the.neu girl went to-the office her The girl went to her office. b. * LF: the.neu girl (λx (x went to x s office) c. LF: the.neu girl (λx (x went to x fem s office) Two things immediately follow: i. there must be base-generated gender features on bound pronouns, contra the generalization in (13), and ii. Featue Transmission cannot be obligatory, as in (9); if it were, (20) would be ruled out as PF incoherent, since the transmitted neuter feature would clash with the basegenerated feminine feature. The result is, then, that every time binder and pronoun differ on their gender specification, the gender on the pronoun is base-generated, and, thus, semantically interpreted. This is most clearly seen in cases where the generated presupositions are not redundant, as with gender-neuter nouns, either specified for neuter grammatcal gender, as in (21), or not specified at all, as in (22). 3, 4 (21) a. Kathe melos tis omadhas zitise na tin plirosume. every member.neu the.gen team asked subj her pay-we Every member of the team asked us to pay her. b. LF: every member.neu (λx (x asked us to pay x fem )) (22) a. Kathe dhikijoros pije sto jrafio tis. every lawyer went to-the room her Every lawyer went to her office. b. LF: every lawyer (λx (x went to x fem s room)) A straightforward prediction of our assumptions so far is that gender features shoud be semantically visible in examples with only, as well, when mismatches in gender arise. This prediction is not borne out. Consider the 3 The variant of (21) with neu gender on the bound pronoun in i.,poses, as expected, no presuppositions; neu is the resul of Feature Transmission. i. a. Kathe melos tis omadhas zitise na to plirosume. every member.neu the.gen team asked subj it pay-we Every member of the team asked us to pay him or her b. LF: every member.neu (λx (x asked us to pay x)) 4 Example (22) is more complicated than presented here. It seems that non-specified nouns like dhikijoros lawyer can license gender agreement on predicative adjectives, as in ii. below, even when they are part of a quantficational DP with no overt gender specification. ii. Kathe dhikijoros se afto to jrafio ine poli eksipni. every lawyer in this the firm is very smar.fem Every layer in this firm is very smart. If so, it is possible that fem on the bound pronoun in (22) is the result of agreement. An argument from ellipsis against this analysis is given in section 4.

8 examples with neuter human nouns in examples (23) and (24), which are akin to Percus example (12). As in (20)-(22), fem on the bound pronoun must be basegenerated. Hence, it should also be semantically visible. We expect, then, that a context where the comparison set includes some male individual will give rise to a presupposition failure. Yet, native speaker s detect no presupposition failure and simply judge the sentence false in case the relevant male individual went to his own room. (23) a. Mono to koritsi pije sto dhomatio tis. only the.neu girl went to-the room her Only the girl went to her room. b. LF: only the.neu girl (λx (x went to x fem s room)) (24) a. Mono to pedhi mas pije sto dhomatio tis only the.neu child our went to-the room her Only our child went to her room. b. LF: only the.neu child (λx (x went to x fem s room)) We are left, then, with the following puzzle: how is it possible for fem in, e.g., (24) to be able to restrict the antecedent to a female referent, but at the same time remain invisible for the purposes of calculating the semantic requirements of the focus particle? 3.3 Spector s alternative Heim (2005, handout 2005) discusses an analysis that can provide a solution to the puzzle above. The analysis is named Spector s alternative and is attributed by Heim to Benjamin Spector (p.c.). I present here Heim s (2005, handout) implementation. The idea is to combine a 2-dimensional semantics for focus (as in, Rooth 1985), with a 2-dimensional semantics for presuppositions. Each expression is associated with an assertion value, a presupposition value and a focus value. The crucial assumption of this analysis is, though, that the presupposition value of a constituent does not enter the computation of its focus value. Assume, in addition, that only is a sentential operator associated with a focus on the subject, and has the semantics in (25). (25) only S a. assertion value: that all elements of S s focus value except S s assertion value are false b. presupposition value: assertion value of S & presupposition value of S c. focus value: singleton of asssertion value Consider, now, the semantic value of (26a/b) in (26c). Applying (26c) to the semantics of only S in (25) we can calculate the semantic value of the crucial example (24). The assertion value of only S in (25a) is that all members of the focus value in (26c) are false, except the assertion value in (26c). Since, (26c) is not restricted in any way by any gender feature it is free to include alternatives of both sexes (and if any member of the focus value in (26c) -even a

9 male one- turns out to be true, (24) will be false, as indeed it is judged to be in the relevant context). At the same time, the presupposition value of only S in (25b) is the combination of the assertion and the presupposition values in (26c). Thus, to pedhi the child in (24) is restricted to apply to some female individual. (26) a. To pedhi mas pije sto dhomatio tis the.neu child our went to-the room her Our child went to her room. b. LF: the.neu child (λx (x went to x fem s room)) c. assertion value: that our child went to x s room & x=our child presupposition value: that our child is female focus value: {that x went to x s room x D} By dissociating the interpretability of the gender feature on the pronoun from the licensing of only-sentences, Spector s alternative provides a solution to the undergeneration problem of the presuppositional account that does not rely on Feature Transmission and featureless LFs. The problem with examples like (4), (12) and (18=27) was that the comparison set of only (the set of members of its focus value) can contain male individuals that renter the sentence false, if some of them went to his own office, with no presupposition failure arising. Feature Transmission provided LF1 that solved the problem by generating a featureless predicate abstract. It is easy to verify, however, that Spector s alternative predicts the correct truth- and admitance-conditions for, e.g, (27), even if we assume LF2. (27) a. Mono i Maria pije sto jrafio tis. Only the.fem Mary went to-the office her Only Mary went to her office. b. LF1: only Mary (λx (x went to x s office)) c. LF2: only Mary (λx (x went to x fem s office)) Indeed, Spector s alternative is proposed by Heim as a general alternative to Feature Transmission and the necessity of LFs with featureless pronouns. Adopting Spector s alternative neutralizes the empirical argument from onlysentences for LFs with featureless pronouns. It is now possible to adopt the generalization in (28). (28) All (bound) pronouns enter the derivation specified for gender. (i.e. gender features on bound pronouns are always present at LF) 4 Ellipsis In this section I provide evidence from ellipsis examples in Modern Greek against the generalization in (28). It is argued that both Feature Transmission and Spector s alternative fail to predict the unexpected unavailability of some

10 sloppy readings when the antecedent clause contains bound pronouns with basegenerated gender features. 4.1 Ellipsis and Feature Transmission Heim (2005) discusses the possibility of ellipsis examples to provide evidence for featureless LFs and, thus, for Feature Transmission. Consider, first, Heim s argument. 5 Assume that ellipsis is deletion and Rooth s (1992) licensing condition on ellipsis in (29). The elliptical conjunct in, e.g., (30) should, then, be i Maria <zitise na tin plirosume> episis Mary asked us to pay her too. In order for the sloppy reading to be obtained, her should be construed as a bound variable and it shouldn t trigger any presuppositions that would exclude John from the domain of the abstract in which it is bound. If it did, the antecedent John asked us to pay him couldn t be a member of the focus-value of the ellipsis {that x is female.x asked us to pay x x D e }. Thus, it should be possible for the elliptical conjunct to generate an LF with no features on the bound pronoun, and Feature Transmission ensures just that. (29) Appropriate Contrast Condition (Rooth 1992) Ellipsis is licensed if the denotation of an antecedent constituent is contained in the focus value of a constituent containing the elided material (30) O Janis zitise na ton plirosume, ke i Maria F episis. the.masc John asked subj him pay-we, and the.fem Mary too John asked us to pay him, and Mary did too. (31) John asked us to pay him, and Mary did too. This account seems to fail, though, for some cases with gender mismatches. Consider, first, (32a). A sloppy reading is only licensed if the child in the elided clause has a female referent, i.e. if it has an LF with a basegenerated, interpreted fem feature on the bound pronoun, as in (32d). Even if the focus value of (32d) restricts the alternatives to female individuals, ellipsis will be licensed, since the child in the antecedent clause is female. The same way, however, sloppy identity will be licensed in the case of (32e) that poses no restriction on its focus value, but leaves the possibility open that the child in the elided clause is male. (32) a. To pedhi/ koritsi mas pije sto dhomatio tis, the.neu child girl our went to-the room her ke to pedhi sas episis. and the.neu child your too. Our child/ girl went to her room, and your child did too. 5 Heim s examples involve person features. I adapt the examples for gender.

11 b. ContextA: Our child:, Your child: sloppy c. ContextB: Our child:, Your child: sloppy *? d. ke to pedhi sas pije sto dhomatio tis episis and the.neu child your went to-the room her too LF: the.neu child (λx (x went to x fem s room)) focus value: { that x is female. x went to x s room x D e } e. ke to pedhi sas pije sto dhomatio tu episis and the.neu child your went to-the room its too LF: the.neu child (λx (x went to x s room)) focus value: { that x went to x s room x D e } The same is true for the contrast in (33)-(34). Feature Transmission and the Appropriate Contrast Condition correctly license a sloppy reading in (34) under both possible LFs in (34c/d). Once more, though, the account overgenerates in the case of (33). Notice that it is LF1 in (33c) that license the impossible sloppy reading; since the bound pronoun is featureless and poses no restricion to the alternatives in the focus value, any antecedent will do to license a sloppy reading. However, an LF with a featureless bound pronoun is possible in (34) too. Thus, if it is featureless LFs that can license sloppy identity in ellipsis, the contrast between (33) and (34) will remain unexplained. (33) a. To pedhi/ koritsi mas pije sto dhomatio tis, the.neu child girl our went to-the room her ke o Janis episis. and the.masc John too. Our child/ girl went to her room, and John did too. sloppy *? b. ke o Janis pije sto dhomatio tu episis and the.masc John went to-the room his too c. LF1: John (λx (x went to x s room)) focus value: { that x went to x s room x D e } d. LF2: John (λx (x went to x masc s room)) focus value: {that x is male. x went to x s room x D e } (34) a. To pedhi/ koritsi mas pije sto dhomatio tis, the.neu child girl our went to-the room her ke i Maria episis. and the.fem Mary too. Our child/ girl went to her room, and Mary did too. sloppy b. ke i Maria pije sto dhomatio tis episis and the.fem Mary went to-the room her too c. LF1: Mary (λx (x went to x s room)) focus value: { that x went to x s room x D e } d. LF2: Mary (λx (x went to x fem s room)) focus value: { that x is female. x went to x s room x D e } The pattern is confirmed in the case of examples with quantificational DPs that have no gender specification at all. The example in (35) is parallel to

12 the one in (32). 6, 7 Notice that if we allowed Percus solution to generate the gender features for (35) on the nouns rather than on the pronouns, we would overgenerate. (35e) would be licensed in context (35c) if dhikijoros lawyer carried fem and jiatros doctor carried masc. The appropriate contrast condition would be satisfied as long as dhikijoros fem is a member of {Alt(jiatros masc )}. (35) a. Kathe dhikijoros pije sto jrafio tis, every lawyer went to-the office her ke kathe jiatros episis. and every doctor too. Every lawyer went to her office and every doctor did too. b. ContextA: lawyers:, doctors: sloppy c. ContextB: lawyers:, doctors: sloppy *? d. ke kathe jiatros pije sto jrafio tis episis and every doctor went to-the office her too LF: every doctor (λx (x went to x fem s office)) focus value: {that every x (λy (y is female. y asked us to pay y)) x Alt(doctor)} e. ke kathe jiatros pije sto jrafio tu episis and every doctor went to-the office his its too LF: evry doctor (λx (x went to x masc s room)) focus value: {that every x (λy (y is male. y asked us to pay y)) x Alt(doctor)} The examples in (32)-(35) suggest that there should be a stricter requirement on the licening of ellipsis. In addition to the Appropriate Contrast Condition, Rooth (1992) poses a requirement that the elided constituent can be syntactically reconstructed. Whatever this means exactly, the minimum requirement is some sort of lexical identity. If pronouns with base-generated gender features are distinct lexical items than pronouns that enter the derivation featureless, the relevant condition could be formulated as in (36), as part of a more general lexical identity requirement on ellipsis. 6 The argument is not affected if we assign weak semantics to masc; a sloppy reading is not licensed even in a context where the relevant group of doctors is of mixed gender. 7 The contrast in (33)-(34) can also be reproduced, as in i.-ii. below. i. Kathe dhikijoros pije sto jrafio tis, ke o Janis episis. every lawyer went to-the office her and the.masc John too. Every lawyer went to her office and John did too. sloppy *? ii. Kathe dhikijoros pije sto jrafio tis, ke i Maria episis. every lawyer went to-the office her and the.fem Mary too. Every lawyer went to her office and Mary did too. sloppy

13 (36) Ellipsis is licensed if the bound variable in the antecedent constituent has exactly the same feature specification in gender as the parallel bound pronoun in the elided constituent. Ellipsis will never be licensed in case the elided and the antecedent constituent differ on whether they carry pronouns with base-generated features or not. Ellipsis will only be licensed if the pronouns in both constituents are featureless (e.g. (30), (31)) or if they carry the same base-generated feature. This is how sloppy identity is licensed in (32) and (35) in contexts (32b) and (35b), as well as in (34). The elided constituents contain bound pronouns with base-fenerated fem features, going through the lexical identity requirement, since in all the examples above the LFs of the antecedent claues contain bound pronouns with base-generated fem. Moreover, they go through the appropriate contrast condition, since in, e.g., (35), that every lawyer asked us to pay her (where all lawyers are female) is a member of the focus value {that every x (λy (y is female. y asked us to pay y)) x Alt(doctor)}. Examples like (33), on the other hand, go through the Appropriate Contrast Condition, but fail the lexical identity condition. 4.2 Ellipsis and Spector s alternative In order to capture the ellipsis facts in the previous section, it was essential to allow for LFs with featureless bound pronouns. Examples like (30) were the crucial ones; if the LFs of the antecedent and the elided clause both necessarily contained bound pronouns with base-generated gender features the Appropriate Contrast Condition would not be satisified. It is important to see, then, if Spector s alternative would be suffiecient to capture the ellipsis facts, wihout any appeal to Feature Transmission and LFs with featureless bound pronouns. Indeed, the modification of Rooth s appropriate contrast condition in (37) along te lines of the 3-dimesional semantics in Spector s alternative is said to dispense with the argument from ellipsis. (37) Ellipsis is licensed when the assertion value of the antecedent clause is an element of the focus value of the elliptical clause. (Heim 2005, handout) Consider, again, (30=38). Ellipsis will be licensed if the assertion value in (38b) is a member of the focus value in (38c). This is, indeed, so. Given that presupposition values are irrelevant for licensing ellipsis, ellipsis is licensed irrespective of whether the gender features at the given LFs are interpreted or not and there is no argument for a featureless LF here. (38) a. O Janis zitise na ton plirosume, the.masc John asked subj him pay-we, ke i Maria F episis. and the.fem Mary too John asked us to pay him, and Mary did too. sloppy

14 b. antecedent LF: LF: John (λx (x asked us to pay x masc )) assertion value: thata John asked us to pay x & x=john c. i Maria zitise na tin plirosume episis the.fem Mary asked subj her pay-we too LF: Mary (λx (x asked us to pay x fem )) focus value: {that x asked us to pay x x D e } It seems, however, that Spector s alternative licenses all the impossible sloppy reading that we saw in the previous section. Take, e.g., (33), which is judged to lack a sloppy reading. Under the assumptions of Spector s alternative the asertion value of the antecedent clause and the focus value of the elided clause will be the ones given in (39). Here, however, ellipsis is licensed since the assertion value of the antecedent in (39a) is clearly a member of the focus value of the elliptical clause in (39c). (39) a. assertion value, antecedent clause: that our child went to x s room & x=our child b. focus value, elided clause: {that x went to x s room x D e } The same is true for every ellipsis example that we ruled out in the previous section because of lack of lexical identity between the bound pronouns in the antecedent and the elliptical clauses. In the previous section we solved this problem by appealing to a strict lexical identity condition on ellipsis. Doing the same, under Spector s alternative, can rule out ellipsis licensing in, e.g., (33), but will also do the same in (30). Ellipsis examples, then, provide crucial evidence against the generalization in (28) and for the need to allow, at least for some cases, the possibility of LFs with featureless bound pronouns. 5. Conclusions Modern Greek cases of agreement mismatches in gender between bound pronouns and the DPs that bind them have been used to explore the interpretation of gender features on bound pronouns. It has been shown that examples with focus particles like only can only be handled by an analysis, like Spector s alternative, that dissociates the licensing of focus from the presuppositional value of a given sentence. This, however, can lead to the conclusion that gender features on bound pronouns are always present at LF. Ellipsis examples show that this cannot be the case. A strict lexical identity condition is needed to exclude impossible sloppy identity readings. Under this additional condition possible sloppy readings are also ruled out. The problem is solved if we allow gender features to be absent at LF. Feature Transmision or some equivalent mechanism is, then, responsible for licensing morphological gender. The empirical argument for its existence, however, doesn t come from only-sentences any more, but from some licensed sloppy readings in ellipsis.

15 References Cooper, R Quantification and Syntactic Theory. Reidel: Dordrecht. Heim, I Puzzling reflexives in de se attitude reports, unpubl. handout, semantics archive Heim, I Features on bound pronouns. Ms. MIT. Heim, I Features on bound pronouns. Unpubl. handout. May MIT. Kratzer, A More structural analyses between pronouns and tenses. In SALT8, Strolovitch, T.D. and Lawson, A. (eds). CLC publications. Kratzer, A Minimal pronouns. Ms. Semantics archive. Percus, O Antipresuppositions. In Ueyama, A. (ed.). Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Reference and Anaphora: Towards the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science. Japan society for the promotion of sciences. Rooth, M Association with focus. Ph.D dissertation. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. Rooth, M Ellipsis redundancy and reduction redundancy. In Berman, S. and Hestvik, A. (eds). Proceedings of the Stuttgart Workshop on Ellipsis. University of Stuttgart. Sauerland, U A new semantics for number. In SALT13. Youn, R.B. and Zhou, Y. (eds). CLC Publications: Ithaca. Sauerland, U On the semantic markedness of phi features. Proceedings of the Phi Workshop. McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Author s homepage Schlenker, P A plea for monsters. Linguistics and Philosophy 26: Spathas, G On the interpretation of gender on nouns and pronouns. Draft ms. University of Utrecht. Von Stechow, A Feature deletion under semantic binding. Ms. Presented at NELS33, author s homepage Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS Janskerkhof BL Utrecht The Netherlands giorgos.spathas@let.uu.nl