Sloppy identity in vp ellipsis and bound variable anaphora

Author: 
Namkil Kang

It is a well-known fact that a sloppy reading and bound variable anaphora are constrained in the same way (Keenan (1971), Sag (1976), Williams (1977), Partee (1978), Reinhart (1983), Heim &Kratzer (1998), Safir (2004), Bϋring (2005), McKillen (2016)). The main goal of this article is to show that a sloppy reading and bound variable anaphora are not constrained in the same way. There are two hypotheses with regard to sloppy identity. One hypothesis is that local anaphors yield a sloppy reading only (Heim &Kratzer (1998)), whereas pronouns give rise to the strict/sloppy ambiguity under VP ellipsis (Heim &Kratzer (1998), Bϋring (2005)). The other hypothesis is that anaphors and pronouns produce the strict/sloppy ambiguity (McKillen 2016). It is worth pointing out that the Korean reflexives caki‘self’, caki-casin‘self-self’, and casin‘self’ induce only a sloppy reading under VP ellipsis, whereas ku-casin‘he-self’ produces the strict/sloppy ambiguity. On the other hand, the Korean pronoun ku‘he’ yields a strict reading only. It is noteworthy that a strict readingcomes from the assumption that pronouns are a referring expression, whereas a sloppy reading comes from the assumption that they function as a bound variable. This amounts to saying that a sloppy reading comes from bound variable anaphora. However, this article argues that when it comes to caki‘self’ and ku-casin‘he-self’, there is a discrepancy between a sloppy reading and bound variable anaphora. This leads us to hypothesize that a sloppy reading and bound variable anaphora are not constrained in the same way.

Download PDF: 
DOI: 
http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijcar.2021.23966.4748
Select Volume: 
Volume10