PART
dass
that
er
he
vor langer Zeit
a long time ago
einmal
once
einen
a
Vortrag
lecture
#vom
by-the
weak
/
/
von
by
dem
the
strong
Autor
author
besucht
attended
hatte.
had.
‘Hans discovered a novel about the Hudson in the library. In the process, he
remembered that he had attended a lecture by the author a long time ago.’
The strong-article definite the
strong
author is interpreted as the author of the novel
mentioned in the first part of the sentence. I argue that this comes about because the
relatum argument of the relational noun author receives an anaphoric interpretation.
4
Sage-plant examples are also highly relevant in this regard, though the picture gets slightly more
complicated, as we have to take into consideration the possibilities for interpreting the situation
pronoun on the definite: if it can be interpreted relative to the restrictor situations, uniqueness
should be met, and the weak article should, in principle, be available. However, this does not seem
to be the case.
(i)
Jeder,
everyone
der
that
heute
today
ein
a
Hemd
shirt
kauft,
buys
bekommt
gets
#zum
to-the
weak
/
/
zu
to
dem
the
strong
Hemd
shirt
ein
a
weiteres
further
Hemd
shirt
umsonst
for free
dazu.
along
‘Everyone that buys a shirt today gets another shirt for free along with the shirt.’
If this indeed holds generally, it could be taken as an argument against allowing situation pronouns
to be interpreted relative to the restrictor situations (which poses a significant theoretical challenge
anyway, as mentioned in chapter 4). Disallowing that option would predict that weak-article don-
key definites cannot receive a transparent interpretation, since I argued in chapter 4 that such an
interpretation requires the definite to be evaluated relative to the restrictor. I leave these issues for
future research.
246
Analyzing examples such as (275) as involving a relation with an anaphoric argument
is by no means new, but the question is where this relation comes from. Chierchia
(1995) makes a proposal along these lines for English definites, extending Cooper’s
(1979) analysis of pronouns to a general analysis of the (English) definite article (see
also the discussion of Chierchia’s proposal in chapter 3 above). This analysis assumes
a C-variable for domain restriction, and the relation needed for analyzing bridging
examples is assumed to be the contextually supplied value of the C-variable.
However, such a C-variable based account is not restrictive enough, as the rela-
tional nature of the noun in (275) plays a crucial role for making the anaphoric inter-
pretation available. Consider the slight variation of the bridging use of a strong-article
definite in (275) below, where author has been replaced by the nearly synonymous
novelist. Somewhat surprisingly, this renders the sentence infelicitous.
5,6
5
The contrast may be even more clear in a parallel quantificational pair of examples, such as in
the following:
(62)
X Jeder,
Everyone
der
that
einen
a
Roman
novel
gekauft
bought
hat,
has
hatte
had
schon
already
einmal
once
eine
a
Kurzgeschichte
short story
von
by
dem
the
strong
Autor
author
gelesen.
read
‘Everyone that bought a novel had already once read a short story by the author.’
(i)
# Jeder,
Everyone
der
that
einen
a
Roman
novel
gekauft
bought
hat,
has
hatte
had
schon
already
einmal
once
eine
a
Kurzgeschichte
short story
von
by
dem
the
strong
Schriftsteller
novelist
gelesen.
read
‘Everyone that bought a novel had already once read a short story by the novelist.’
More issues relating to quantificational examples will be discussed below.
6
Note that here, as well as in the examples below that make the same point about non-relational
nouns, the weak article is equally bad.
247
(275
0
)
# Hans
Hans
entdeckte
discovered
in
in
der
the
Bibliothek
library
einen
a
Roman
novel
¨
uber
about
den
the
Hudson.
Hudson.
Dabei
In the process
fiel
remembered
ihm
he
Dat
ein,
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |