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8. Accidental Coreference
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8 Accidental Coreference In this chapter, we argue that pronominal agreement of 3rd person pronouns with imposter antecedents is incompatible with a widely influential approach to anaphora found in Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993 and Heim and Kratzer 1998, 248, among other works (see Büring 2005 for a book-length development of Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s ideas). The argument strongly supports the conclusion of chapter 4 that the antecedence relation between DPs and pronouns must be understood to hold even across the boundaries of what are usually considered separate sentences. Further, this argument even undermines, we believe, the assumption that there is such a thing as accidental coreference for pronouns as understood in works such as Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993. To get a feel for the analysis being criticized, consider (1) and (2). (1) Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993, 77–78 “[C]oindexation is ambiguous in the standard binding theory, representing both coreference and bound variable interpretation. Since our theory allows coindexation to be interpreted only as bound variable anaphora, we are left with the question of how coreference is to be captured. Reinhart (1983, 1986) argues that the coreference interpretation is not obtained by means of syntactic coindexing at all. Rather, it is just a subcase of the broader process of reference resolution. . . . We assume, then, that coreference is the assignment of identical values to NPs with distinct syntactic indices, regardless of whether the two NPs occur in the same sentence or not.” (emphasis original) (2) Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993, 73 “Except for (referentially used) pronouns, all anaphoric elements share the same syntactic generalization: to be interpretable at all, they must be syntactically bound, that is, coindexed with a c-commanding antecedent.” An example can clarify the issues. 100 Chapter 8 (3) Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993, 80 Most of heri friends can’t stand Luciek. In (3), nothing in Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s system prevents her and Lucie from coreferring. But if Lucie and her were coindexed, (3) would be ruled out by their assumptions that “the only interpretation of coindexation is the bound variable one” and that the pronoun must be c-commanded by the antecedent to obtain an interpretation as a variable (Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993, 75, (15c)). Given this approach to coindexation and coreference, consider what Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s view claims about an imposter anteceding a 3rd person singular pronoun, as in (4). (4) a. Daddy1 got thirsty driving home. So he2 decided to stop and buy a Coke. b. Because Daddy1 was thirsty, he2 drank a Coke. In (4a), the imposter is the antecedent of a 3rd person singular pronoun that is not in the same sentence. In (4b), the imposter is in a because clause and antecedes a 3rd person singular pronoun in a different clause of the same sentence. In neither case does the imposter c-command the pronoun. Therefore, Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s proposals preclude the imposter and the pronoun from being coindexed, as indicated in each case by the distinct subscripting. It is, however, possible in Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s terms for the imposter and the pronoun to be understood as coreferential, since coreference is hypothesized not to require coindexing. What is important is that in Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s terms, no syntactic connection at all (other than their relative word order) can hold between the imposter Daddy and the pronoun he in (4a,b). In particular, the syntactic coindexing relation fails to hold. Since binding is defined in terms of coindexation, there is then no binding relation. Instead, coreference is the result of “assignment of identical values to NPs with distinct syntactic indices,” where these values are semantic. The semantic value of both Daddy and he in (4a,b) is the individual who is the speaker. Therefore, for Grodzinsky and Reinhart, in (4a,b) both Daddy and he independently refer to the speaker and they just happen to refer to the same individual. The fact that they denote the same person is then independent of any syntactic property (e.g., coindexation) characterized in the syntactic structure. Given these elements of Grodzinsky and Reinhart’s approach, consider (5a,b). (5) a. He2 decided to stop and buy a Coke. b. He2 drank a Coke. [44.220.245.254] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:34 GMT) Accidental Coreference 101 Spoken out of the blue, or in discourse-initial position, such sentences do not permit he to be interpreted as referring to the speaker. Since he in (4a,b) can denote the...