SGER: The Historical Development of the English Anaphora System

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

In Old English (700 - 1150) "Everyone defended him" could be understood as in Modern English with 'him' referring to a contextually given individual, or it could be understood like "Everyone defended himself", with 'him' understood as semantically binding the object of the verb to the subject 'Everyone'. The project documents the creation of the reflexive pronouns (c1200) and provides a quantitative record of their obligatory use as binders of objects to subjects (the 1500s). Using a database of about 7,500 examples of bindings from 800ad to 1800ad, the study will provide historical explanations for several distributional facts about Modern English: notably, why reflexives do not occur as possessors (we cannot say "John lost himself's book", though this is common in languages with Noun Phrase reflexives), and, much more contentiously with regard to current theories of grammar, why bare reflexives can only be locally bound (as objects to their subjects, but not for example to subjects of higher clauses: we do not say "John believes that Mary defended himself", with 'himself' understood as bound to 'John'). Finally, the study presents a new type of historical change and two new principles governing historical change.