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17. Camouflage Revisited
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17 Camouflage Revisited 17.1 A Previously Ignored Problem We return to the SHCC discussed in chapter 6. The goal is to explain the alternation between 2nd and 3rd person pronominal possessors in forms such as (1a,b). (1) a. Would Your Majesty like some tea? b. Would Her Majesty like some tea? The relevant case is the one where the interpretation of (1b) is equivalent to that of (1a).1 How is this possible? In our terms, the issue is how the 3rd person pronominal can have as its antecedent the 2nd person DPADDRESSEE. Since our Pronominal Agreement Condition requires a pronominal to agree with a source, the question is what in (1b) is the source for the 3rd person feature value of the possessive pronoun. After answering that question, we compare the SHCC situation illustrated in (1) with that of the AAE ACC (e.g., your ass), where the analog of (1b) does not exist. We probe the nature of the relevant constraint in the variant of English that allows the ACC, showing that it is a special case of a much more general restriction on the interaction of agreeing forms with ACC DPs. Our analysis of cases like (1a,b) assumes that this alternation should be accounted for in the same general way as those in (2). (2) a. The present authors will defend ourselves/themselves. b. I am the only teacher who takes care of myself/herself. c. Every one of us thinks he/we will be victorious. In each case in (2), the pronominal agrees either with its immediate antecedent (3rd person in all three cases) or with a secondary source. In (2a), the immediate antecedent is the present authors and the secondary source is its ultimate antecedent ,AUTHOR. In (2b), the immediate antecedent is the RELDPdominating 208 Chapter 17 who and the relevant secondary source is the subject of the predicate nominal DP. In (2c), the immediate antecedent is every one of us and the secondary source is the set DP of the quantifier DP. We argue that the agreement alternation in (1) should also be explained by the existence of two different sources for the ϕ-feature values of the pronominal possessor. 17.2 A Further Application of the Shared-Lexical-Basis Primary Source First, consider the immediate antecedent in (1a). As discussed in chapter 6, the possessor pronoun’s immediate antecedent is ADDRESSEE. This is consistent with the pronoun’s interpretation (i.e., that it shares the denotation of ADDRESSEE ) and with the fact that it is 2nd person. Since we also assumed in chapter 6 that the whole camouflage construction has ADDRESSEE as an antecedent, the immediate-antecedent relations for (1a) are those in (3). (3) Since ADDRESSEE is the immediate antecedent of the pronominal possessor, the possessor DP can agree with ADDRESSEE and hence be 2nd person in accord with the Pronominal Agreement Condition in (4) of chapter 14. Recall from chapter 6 that a fundamental feature of our analysis of camouflage constructions is that the shell DP and possessor DP share a lexical basis. This is not a property of standard possessive structures or of arbitrary pairs of DPs where one dominates the other. Given that fact, we can invoke the definition of primary source referencing shared lexical bases in (22) of chapter 14, repeated here. (4) Definition: primary source (second and final version) A is a primary source for B if and only if a. A immediately antecedes B, or b. A is a key conjunct of B, or c. A shares a lexical basis with B. Hitherto, we appealed to (4c) to deal with secondary-source agreements hinging on restrictive relative clauses and their REL DPs (see chapter 13). But we can now appeal to the fact that under our analysis of camouflage constructions, their shell DPs share a lexical basis with their pronominal core DPs and hence, [18.205.114.205] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:26 GMT) Camouflage Revisited 209 according to our definition of primary source, the shell DPs are primary sources for their pronominal possessor DPs. This is of course not a possibility for ordinary possessive DPs on any plausible analysis including those we sketched in chapter 6, since there is no basis for recognizing a common lexical basis in, for example, the prince’s stallion. In (1b), as in (1a), the 2nd person DP ADDRESSEE is the immediate antecedent of both the SHCC DP and its pronominal DP possessor. In (1a), the...