Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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of diachrony and grammaticalization, as with on and a gente. Inherent clitics are
lexicalizations of true objects, some plain 3 rd persons, some [+person] reflexives.
3 rd person pronouns for the addressee are presumably related to 'impostors' like
Madame in French, originally not [+person]. This is so in Spanish, where they
originate as pro-drop agreement or clitics referring to the impostor vuestra
merced(es) 'your grace(s)', which still survives in the dedicated 3 rd person strong
pronoun usted(es) 'you (polite)' (Lehmann 2002: 3.2). Yet in Spanish, the full
grammaticalization of 3 rd person for the addressee use has added [+person] to it on
this use. Leísmo is the extension to direct objects of dative clitics, sometimes retaining
their syntactic properties (Ormazabal and Romero 2009, 2010). [+person]
may be among them, if datives always are [+person] (section 5.2). Finally, for reflexive
se, the presence or absence of [+person] may be arbitrary from a diachronic
as well as synchronic point of view. In all these cases, differences in syntactic
[+person] specification do not appear to have an interpretive correlate.
6.5 Person in interpretation
While syntactic phi-specifications may be autonomous of interpretive ones, the
inverse autonomy of interpretive phi from syntax is uncertain. No clear cases have
been seen where interpretation imposes [+person] absent in syntax. It might be,
for instance, that reflexives and animates must end up being [+person] in interpretation,
and it is supplied to them there when absent in syntax. That however depends
on what [+person] is, interpretively. This section brings together three independent
phenomena that bear on this question. They have great potential for better
understanding [+person], but they remain to be studied. No conclusions are drawn
from them, only patterns and hints displayed whose exploration may prove fruitful.
They are fake indexicals, [+person] omission due to the PCC, and [+person]
omission by interpretive coercion to inanimate speaker/addressee.
Fake indexicals are 1 st /2 nd person pronouns whose phi-features seem to be ignored
by interpretation. (395) has two readings, one of which entails that nobody
else lost their own, rather than the speaker's, locket. To arrive at it on Rooth's
(1992) semantics for only, only needs the property Ii lost xi's locket rather than Ii
lost myi locket. The presupposition that my refers to the speaker must be absent or
obviated. It is a 'fake' 1 st person. French clitics have the same fake readings in
(396). The strong pronoun que moi 'only me' may antecede either 1SG me or 3SG
se in the relative clause. The 1SG me has both the true and fake 1SG readings, Ii
complain about mei/xi. The 3SG se only has the latter reading.
(395) Only I lost my locket. (Therefore Ronja didn't lose hers.)
∀P[P ∈ [ x lost x's locket ] ∧ P → P = [ I lost my locket ] ]
(396) Il n'y a que moi pour PRO me/se plaindre.
There is only me for me/SE.A complain