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Research into the morphosyntax of anaphora (Faltz 1977, Lebeaux 1983, Pica 1987, Huang & Tang 1991, Cole & Sung 1994, Davison 2001) has revealed a threeway correlation between the monomorphemicity of anaphors, their subject-oriented property, and their ability to take long-distance antecedents out of embedded infinitival clauses. Hindi apnaa falls into this category as well. Our goal is to provide an account for the optionality of long-distance anaphora that correlates this property with other grammatical phenomena in the language, rather than simply recoding it as [+optional] excorporation. Moreover, our goal is to demonstrate that an account of the learnability of long-distance anaphora property of a language is consistent with Degree-0 Learnability (Lightfoot 1989), a restriction that the learner may only consider matrix clauses in constructing the target grammar.

apnaa has no phi-features. All such monomorphemic anaphoric items require valuation of their phi features, which can occur on either first-merge (e.g. him+self) or via head-movement to Tense. Sentences such as (1), however, are ambiguous, as to whether apne is being bound by (A) the specifier in subject position (Spec-T) or (B) the DP that controls verbal agreement, as Sumita is both. Call these two distinct grammatical policies, which happen to yield the same result in this case. However, Hindi has an independent grammatical property rendering it different from English: the ability to have non-nominative subjects, as in (2). On sentences of this form, the two policies diverge: (A) allows binding by the dative subject in Spec-T, while (B) allows binding by the nominative object. Thus, the optionality of binding in (2) is a consequence of following one of these two distinct policies.

Now consider embedded infinitival clauses, and what these two strategies predict. apnaa head-moves to its local Tense head, and, having had its phi-features valued, has no reason to move on further. In this position, policy (A) allows for binding by the local specifier of T, which is PRO controlled by the object. Policy (B), however, allows for binding by the controller of phi-agreement. Infinitival verbs lack their own independent tense and agreement features ((4);Stowell 1982, Enc 1987), and, to
establish temporal reference, require an operation of Tense-Agree (Pesetsky & Torrego 2004), on which phi-agreement is parasitic (independently found in Hindi with optional long-distance agreement with infinitives; Butt 1994; Bhatt 2003 (5)). Due to Tense- Agree, infinitival T comes to share the features of matrix T, which is itself sharing features with the matrix subject. By the logic of the transitivity of feature sharing (Pollard & Sag 1994, Frampton & Guttman 2002), embedded T will thus share the features of the matrix subject. Policy (B), independently established for simplex clauses above, thus chooses the matrix subject as a possible antecedent for apnaa embedded in an infinitival clause.

The grammatical ambiguity of whether a “subject-oriented” binder is the element in Spec,T or the element controlling agreement leads to a grammar with two distinct policies. The optionality of long-distance anaphora in examples such as (3) becomes an automatic consequence of three properties of Hindi: the fact that (i) embedded tense is featurally dependent on matrix tense, with parasitic agreement; (ii) nominative DPs that are not in subject position can still bind apnaa; (iii) apnaa has no inherent phi-features, and can be bound by an antecedent of any person, number, or gender.

Examples

(1) Sumita har-ek din apne becce-se kheltii hai
Sumita every day self’s child-with play-fem be-pres.sg
“Sumitai plays with heri child every day”

(2) Sumitai-ko Mohan apnei/j-se sharmindaa lagtaa
Sumita-dat Mohan self-from ashamed strikes
“Mohani strikes Sumitaj as ashamed of himselfi/herj”

(3) Sumitai Amitabhj-ko [PRO apnei/j-ko dekhne] ke-liye majbuur kartii hai.
Sumita Amitabh-Dat [PRO self-Dat look-inf] for force do-fem be
“Sumitai forces Amitabhj to look at himselfi/herj”

(4) a. John wonders what problem he should have solved yesterday
b. *John wonders what problem to solve yesterday

(5) Shahrukh-ne [Tehnii kaaTni] chaahii
Shahrukh-Erg [branch-fem cut-fem] wanted-fem
“Shahrukh wanted to cut the branch”

References

Butt, M. 1995. The Structure of Complex Predicates in Urdu. CSLI.

Bhatt, R. 2003. Long Distance Agreement in Hindi-Urdu. Manuscript.

Cole, P. & Sung, L. 1994 Head Movement and Long-Distance Reflexives. LI 25.

Enc, M. 1987. Anchoring Conditions for Tense. LI 18.

Faltz, L. Reflexivization: A Study in Universal Syntax. PhD thesis, Berkeley.

Frampton, J. & S. Gutmann. Agreement is Feature-Sharing. Manuscript.

Huang, C.-T.J. & Tang, C.-C.J. 1991. The nature of the long-distance reflexive in
Chinese. NELS 19.

Davison, A. 2001. Long-Distance Anaphors in Hindi/Urdu. In Cole, Hermon, &
Huang (eds.) Syntax & Semantics 33. Academic Press.

Lebeaux, D. 1984. Locality and Anaphor Binding. The Linguistic Review 4.

Lightfoot, D. 1989. The child’s trigger experience: Degree-0 Learnability.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12.

Pesetsky, D. & E. Torrego. 2004. The Syntax of Valuation and the Interpretabilty of
Features. Manuscript.

Pica, P. 1987. On the nature of the reflexivization cycle. NELS 17.

Pollard, C. & I. Sag. Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. CSLI.

Stowell, T. 1982. The Tense of Infinitives. LI 13.