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2. Notional versus Syntactic Views of Imposters
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2 Notional versus Syntactic Views of Imposters The data cited in chapter 1 could suggest that imposters are fairly regular instances of the category of 3rd person DPs, except for their meanings. This could naturally lead to viewing (1) as a minimal characterization of imposters. (1) The Notional View Imposters are syntactically regular 3rd person DPs with the semantic/ discourse property that they denote either the speaker(s) (in the same sense as 1st person pronouns do) or the addressee(s) (in the same sense as 2nd person pronouns do). Implicit in the Notional View is the claim that as far as their syntax is concerned, imposters are just plain vanilla 3rd person DPs. Under this conception, the specific syntactic properties distinguishing imposters from other DPs are null. Whatever specifically needs to be said about them therefore has to fall into semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and so on. We call (1) a view rather than a hypothesis or claim, because it does not specify anymechanismwherebyimpostersreceivethesemantic/denotationalproperties that make them imposters. It is less a positive conception of imposters than a negative one, which asserts that however imposters are to be characterized, appeal to some special syntax for them is excluded.1 However, the view explored in this book is completely different. (2) The Syntactic View Imposters are a class of DPs with a distinctive syntax. They have the non–3rd person denotations they do because of this syntax. More precisely, they have 1st person or 2nd person denotations because their grammatical structure incorporates inter alia exclusively 1st person or 2nd person forms. Still more precisely, they incorporate exactly the kind of DPs that have such denotations in nonimposter cases, that is, 1st person or 2nd person pronominals. The covert character of these 10 Chapter 2 pronominals internal to the syntactic view is the basis for a term like imposters. The Notional View is by no means a straw man. In fact, our experience with commentators on, and referees of, earlier versions of this work indicates that some version of the Notional View is the default for linguists (including most syntacticians) faced with an exposition of imposter data. To pick a random example from the commentaries we have received, one linguist states, “Given that the notional theory has some immediate advantages for syntax , and complications for reference are needed anyway, I am left still thinking that the notional hypothesis is probably to be preferred over the authors’ theory.” The Notional View is seen in published work like Stirling and Huddleston 2002 and Baker 2008. (3) Stirling and Huddleston 2002, 1464 “As so often, therefore, it is necessary to distinguish carefully between meaning or reference and grammatical form: the reference here is to speaker/writer or addressee, but the form is 3rd person. Thus 3rd person does not mean that the reference is to an entity other than speaker or addressee: it means only that the reference is not derivable from the person feature, as it is with 1st and 2nd person.” (our emphasis) (4) Baker 2008, 126 “One minor pay-off of the PLC [Person Licensing Condition] is that it explains the fact that ordinary non-pronominal NPs are never first or second person, even when they refer to the speaker or hearer.” A particularly clear statement of the Notional View, worth quoting at length, is found at the outset of Siewierska’s (2004) crosslinguistic survey of person properties. (5) Siewierska 2004, 1–2 “It is often stated that the grammatical category of person covers the expression of the distinction between the speaker of an utterance, the addressee of that utterance and the party talked about that is neither the speaker nor the addressee. The speaker is said to be the first person, the addressee the second person and the party talked about the third person. This, however, is not quite correct. What is missing from the above characterization is the notion of participant or discourse role. In the case of the first and second persons, the grammatical category of person does not simply express the speaker and addressee respectively, but rather the participant or discourse roles of speaker and addressee. The difference [34.229.223.223] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:49 GMT) Notional versus Syntactic Views of Imposters 11 between the two characterizations can be appreciated by comparing the personal pronouns I and you in (1a) with that of the nominals mummy and Johnny in (1b). (1) a. I will spank you. b. Mummy will spank Johnny. In...