The independence of binding and intensification.

摘要

A new approach to the interaction of binding and intensification is advanced. While most current approaches to (e.g. Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Huang & Liu 2001, among others) take the selv element in so-called SELF-anaphors (e.g., Dan. sig selv) to be itself a reflexive, we argue that it is in fact an adnominal intensifier (cf. Baker 1995, and Konig & Siemund 2000). Thus we achieve a unified account of all types of intensified nominal expressions, be they intensified DPs (e.g., Dan. Peter selv 'Peter himself'), intensified reflexives (e.g., Dan. Peter hader sig selv 'Peter hates REFL self'), or intensified pronouns (e.g., Dan. Peter sagde at Mary dansede med alle andre end ham selv "Peter said that Mary danced with everyone except himself.')---something most current approaches to binding and intensification are unable to do. In contrast to predicate-based approaches to binding (e.g. Reinhart & Reuland 1993), we call for a nominal approach in which binding is defined as the interaction of intrinsic properties of nominal expressions and syntactic locality constraints. We also argue that the Danish reflexive sig (=Dutch zich , Norwegian seg, etc.) is not an anti-local anaphor specialized for long-distance binding, thus falsifying those binding theories which crucially rely on this assumption. Finally, concerning intensification, we argue that the semantic contribution of adnominal intensifiers (e.g. Danish selv, Eng. himself) is not similar to that of scalar focus particle (as argued by Eckardt 2001) or reducible to centrality-effects (as argued by Konig (1997) and Siemund (2000)), but rather very similar to that of contrastive focus, which---depending on the context---may or may not involve scalar ordering of focus-generated alternatives. The analysis is extended to English and Chinese where himself and ziji 'self-self'are argued always to be intensifiers (≈ Dan. selv) modifying O-reflexives (≈ Dan. sig), e.g. Peter, shaved O, himself . We show that this analysis provides answers to hitherto unanswered questions related to the evolution of Modern English reflexives and intensifiers from Old English which had a monomorphemic self intensifier and no reflexive pronouns.