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The Role of Structure in Interpretation

The document discusses how syntactic structure affects the interpretation of sentences, including structural ambiguity, pronoun interpretation, and quantificational noun phrases. Structural ambiguity can lead to multiple interpretations of a sentence. Pronoun interpretation is often dependent on syntactic structure and context. Binding theory principles govern reflexive and non-reflexive pronoun interpretation. Quantificational noun phrases can introduce bound variable interpretations for pronouns when the noun phrase c-commands the pronoun.

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응웬 티투 웬학부생
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19 views

The Role of Structure in Interpretation

The document discusses how syntactic structure affects the interpretation of sentences, including structural ambiguity, pronoun interpretation, and quantificational noun phrases. Structural ambiguity can lead to multiple interpretations of a sentence. Pronoun interpretation is often dependent on syntactic structure and context. Binding theory principles govern reflexive and non-reflexive pronoun interpretation. Quantificational noun phrases can introduce bound variable interpretations for pronouns when the noun phrase c-commands the pronoun.

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응웬 티투 웬학부생
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The role of structure in interpretation

- Syntactic structure plays a crucial role in the interpretation of sentences.


- Several examples of how structure can affect meaning.

1. Structural ambiguity
- Some sentences are ambiguous because of the meaning of their individual
words.
- Many sentences are ambiguous because the words can be grouped together in
more than one way structural ambiguity
- The company wants to hire young engineers and mathematicians.
Two interpretations
young engineers and mathematician Only the engineers are young.
young engineers and mathematician Both are young.

- Haley caught the frog with the hat.


Two interpretations
a. the frog are wearing a hat.
b. caught the frog by using a hat.

- 1 -
2. Pronouns
- The interpretation of pronouns often requires drawing on information from the
context in which they occur.
- Syntactic structure can also have an important role to play in pronoun
interpretation.
- Two classes of pronouns based on their morphological composition plain
pronouns (I, you she he and reflexive pronouns myself yourself herself
himself
- The most salient property of pronouns is that they do not have a meaning all
by themselves the interpretation of a pronoun depends on another linguistic
expression e its antecedent.

(57) Sonia believes that the CEO will hire her.


- Two interpretations
(1) Sonia believes that the CEO will hire Sonia e Sonia is the antecedent for
the pronoun the two are co-referential since they refer to the same person.
(2) Sonia believes that the CEO will hire some other female individual e there
is no antecedent in the sentence the listener must resort to non-linguistic
information.

(58) a. John will hire him₂/*₁


b. Bill₁ believes [that John₂ will hire him₁/*₂]
- Plain pronouns need to have their antecedent outside their clause.
- The situation is reversed for reflexive pronouns: A reflexive pronoun must have
a linguistic antecedent within its clause.

- 2 -
(59) a. John₁ will hire himself₁.
b. Bill₁ believes [that John₂ will hire himself₂/*₁].

- We have the following two simple generalizations.


(60) a. A reflexive pronoun must have an antecedent in the same clause.
b. A (plain) pronoun cannot have an antecedent in the same clause.

(61) [[The girl’s]₁ father]₂ congratulated her₁/himself₂/herself*₁]


- Although the antecedent of herself is in the same clause, the reflexive pronoun
cannot refer to the girl. How can this be?
- We need to introduce an important linguistic notion: the structural concept of
c-command.

- 3 -
(62) C(onstituent)-Command
NP₁ c-commands NP₂ if and only if the first category above NP₁ contains NP₂.

- In (58) and (59), John c-commands the pronoun in the same clause: the first
category above the NP (=TP) also contains the pronoun him or himself.
- The new generalizations called Binding Theory.

(63) a. Principle A
Reflexive pronouns must have a c-commanding antecedent in the same clause.
b. Principle B
(Plain) pronouns cannot have a c-commanding antecedent in the same clause.

- The NP the girl does not c-command the pronoun in this structure since the
1st category above it (= the NP the girl’s father) does not contain the pronoun.
- The girl can serve as the antecedent for her without violating Principle B; it
cannot serve as the antecedent for herself, which requires a c-commanding
antecedent (Principle A).
- The girl’s father c-commands the reflexive pronoun himself rather than herself.
- One more problem: Harry₁ admires [his₁ teacher].

- 4 -
3. Quantificational noun phrases
- Quantificational noun phrases(QNP) has a quantifier such as every, each, some,
a, no, most, or one in its determiner position.

(65) Every farmer is hard-working.


(66) [Every farmer]₁ worried about his₁ crop.

- The pronoun here can have two quite different interpretations:


(1) It can refer to a specific individual not mentioned in the sentence: perhaps
all the farmers were worried about Mr. Park’s crops because he was ill and
unable to work.
(2) The referent of the pronoun can also co-vary with the individuals in the set
denoted by the QNP: each farmer could be worried about his own crop: called
the bound variable interpretation.
- The bound variable interpretation is available only when the QNP c-commands
the pronoun. When there is no such relationship, his can only refer to a
specific person not mentioned in the sentence.

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