Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T14:45:31.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Good intensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

W. C. Watt
W. C. Watt
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

1. There seems still to be some controversy over the matter of whether or not the putative presence in English of obligatory anaphoric references to overtly missing antecedents is of any service in resolving the question of where, if anywhere, these overtly missing antecedents are covertly present.

2. The matter at hand was originally raised by Postal (1969), who asserted that if English permitted anaphors to recover missing antecedents from ‘within’ or ‘beneath’ their sentences' surface antecedents, then the (syntactic) derivations of those sentences had better include somewhere beneath the surface whatever it was that was recovered. Having said this, Postal concluded that English was (with trifling exceptions) unhappily devoid of such anaphoric recovery, since prime examples where such recovery would be required – for example, (1) – were plainly ungrammatical.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 83 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bach, E. (1970). Problominalization. Lin. 1. 121–122.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1955). Meaning and synonymy in natural languages. Phil. Studies 7. 33–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1975). Reflections on language. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Postal, P. (1969). Anaphoric islands. PCLS 5. 205–239.Google Scholar
Sampson, G. (1975). Thoughts on the recent marriage of philosophy and linguistics. FL 12. 537–560.Google Scholar
Watt, T. (1704). A new method of teaching Latin, by ten English particles, to which is added, a critical syntax. Bound in with Grammar made easie: containing Despauter's Grammar reform'd, and render'd plain, and obvious to the capacity of youth. Edinburgh: Andrew Symson.Google Scholar
Watt, W. C. (1973) Late Lexicalizations. In Hintikka, K. J. J., Moravscik, J. M. E. & Suppes, P. (eds), Approaches to natural language. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Watt, W. C. (1975). The indiscreteness with which impenetrables are penetrated. Lingua 37. 95–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar