14Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives

SUSUMU KUNO

1 Introduction

This paper discusses two functional perspectives – the EMPATHY PERSPECTIVE and the DIRECT DISCOURSE PERSPECTIVE – that are indispensable for the study of syntactic phenomena in natural language. These perspectives, like other discourse-based perspectives, such as PRESUPPOSITION and THEME/RHEME, that interact closely with syntactic constructions, help us distinguish what is non-syntactic from what is syntactic and guard us from mistakenly identifying as syntactic the effects of non-syntactic factors on the construction under examination.

2 The Empathy Perspective

2.1 The Empathy Principles

Assume that John and Bill, who share a dormitory suite, had an argument, and John ended up hitting Bill. A speaker, observing this event, can report it to a third party by uttering (1a–c) or (2a–b), but not (2c):

(1)a. Then John hit Bill.

b.Then Johni hit hisi roommate.

c.Then Billj’s roommate hit himj.

(2)a. Then Bill was hit by John.

b.Then Billj was hit by hisj roommate.

c.??/*Then Johni’s roommate was hit by himi.

These sentences are identical in their logical content, but it is generally felt that they are different with respect to the speaker’s attitude toward the event, or

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toward the participants of the event. It is intuitively felt that in (1b), the speaker has taken a perspective that places him/her closer to John than to Bill, whereas in (1c), the speaker is closer to Bill than to John. The notion of EMPATHY was proposed in Kuno (1975), Kuno and Kaburaki (1977), and Kuno (1987) to formalize this intuitive feeling and thus to account for the unacceptability of (2c) and many other related phenomena.

The following definitions, assumptions, and hypotheses are in order:

(3)a. EMPATHY: Empathy is the speaker’s identification, which may vary in degree, with a person/thing that participates in the event or state that he/she describes in a sentence.

b.Degree of Empathy: The degree of the speaker’s empathy with x, E(x), ranges from 0 to 1, with E(x) = 1 signifying his/her total identification with x and E(x) = 0 signifying a total lack of identification.

c.DESCRIPTOR EMPATHY HIERARCHY: Given descriptor x (e.g. John) and another descriptor f(x) that is dependent upon x (e.g. John’s roommate),

the speaker’s empathy with x is greater than that with f(x):

E(X) > E(f(X))

d.SURFACE STRUCTURE EMPATHY HIERARCHY: It is easier for the speaker to empathize with the referent of the subject than with that of any other

NP in the sentence: E(subject) > E(other NPs)

e.TOPIC EMPATHY HIERARCHY: Given an event or state that involves A and B such that A is coreferential with the topic of the present discourse and B is not, it is easier for the speaker to empathize with A than with

B:

E(topic) ≥ E(nontopic)

f.SPEECH ACT EMPATHY HIERARCHY: The speaker cannot empathize with

someone else more than with himself/herself: E(speaker) > E(others)

g.HUMANNESS EMPATHY HIERARCHY: It is more difficult for the speaker to empathize with a non-human animate object than with a human, and more difficult to empathize with an inanimate object than with an

animate object:

E(human) > E(non-human animate) > E(inanimate)

h.TRANSITIVITY OF EMPATHY RELATIONSHIPS: Empathy relationships are

transitive.

i.BAN ON CONflICTING EMPATHY FOCI: A single sentence cannot contain logical conflicts in empathy relationships.

j.MARKEDNESS PRINCIPLE FOR DISCOURSE RULE VIOLATIONS: Sentences

that involve marked (or intentional) violations of discourse principles are unacceptable. On the other hand, sentences that involve unmarked (or unintentional) violations of discourse principles go unpenalized and are acceptable.

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The Descriptor Empathy Hierarchy (EH) states that, given two descriptors John and John’s/his roommate in (1b), the speaker’s empathy with John is greater than that with his roommate. The Surface Structure EH says that, given John in subject position and his roommate in non-subject position, the speaker’s empathy with John is greater than that with his roommate. Since these two empathy relationships are consistent, the sentence does not violate the Ban on Conflicting Empathy Foci, hence the acceptability of the sentence. I will schematize the above two relationships and the resulting conclusion in the following way:

E(John) > E(Bill) [no conflict]

The acceptability of (1c), on the other hand, is accounted for in the following fashion. According to the Descriptor EH, the use of the descriptor Bill to refer to Bill, and of Bill’s roommate to refer to John shows that the speaker’s empathy with Bill is greater than that with John. However, the Surface Structure EH says that the speaker’s empathy with the referent of the subject (i.e. Bill’s roommate = John) should be greater than that with the referent of the nonsubject (i.e. him = Bill). Therefore, there is a logical conflict between these two empathy relationships. This conflict has been created non-intentionally, however, by placing the agent NP Bill’s roommate in subject position and the theme NP him (=Bill) in object position, as dictated by the subcategorization requirement of the transitive verb hit. That is, there is no intentional/marked violation of the Ban on Conflicting Empathy Foci. Hence, there is no penalty for the violation. The above explanation is schematically summarized in (5):

Transitivity: *E(Bill) > E(John) > E(Bill)

Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations: The above violation is unintentional no penalty

Now we can account for the marginality or unacceptability of (2c):

(6) ??/*Then Johni’s roommate was hit by himi. (=2c) Descriptor EH: E(John) > E( John’s roommate = Bill)

Surface Structure EH: E(subject = John’s roommate = Bill) > E(him=John) Transitivity of Empathy Relationships: *E(John) > E(Bill) > E(John) [a violation of the Ban on Conflicting Empathy Foci]

Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations: The above violation has been created by the speaker’s intentional use of a marked construction (i.e. the passive sentence construction) a penalty

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Note that the Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations penalizes (2c) because the violation of the Ban on Conflicting Empathy Foci that the sentence contains is intentional. That is, the conflict in empathy foci has been created by the speaker’s intentional use of the passive sentence construction, which didn’t have to be used.

The marginality or unacceptability of sentences with a first-person by- agentive, as in (7b), illustrates the working of the Speech Act EH:

b.??/*Then John was hit by me.

Transitivity: *E(speaker) > E( John) > E(speaker)

Markedness Principle: The above conflict has been created by the speaker’s intentional use of the passive sentence construction a penalty

The marginality or unacceptability of discourses such as (8b) illustrates the importance of the role that the Topic EH plays in the Empathy Perspective:

(8)a. Mary had quite an experience at the party she went to last week. √She slapped a drunken reporter on the face.

E(Mary) > E(a drunken reporter) [no conflict]

b.Mary had quite an experience at the party she went to last night. *A drunken reporter was slapped on the face by her.

Transitivity: *E(a drunken reporter) > E(Mary) > E(a drunken reporter) Markedness Principle: The above conflict has been created by the speaker’s intentional use of the passive sentence construction a penalty

Thus, (8b) is unacceptable because Passivization, which is an optional process, has been used intentionally to create a conflict in empathy relationships.1

Observe now the next discourse fragments:

(9)Mary had quite an experience at the party she went to last night.

a.She met a New York Times reporter.

b.*A New York Times reporter met her.

c.A New York Times reporter asked her about her occupation.

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Both (9b) and (9c) have a non-topic NP in subject position and a topic NP in non-subject position, but while there is nothing wrong with (9c), (9b) is totally unacceptable in the given context. The Empathy Principle accounts for this fact by attributing it to the fact that meet is a reciprocal verb. If two people (say, John and Mary) met, the speaker has the following four alternatives in reporting this event using meet:

(10)a. John and Mary met.

b.Mary and John met.

c.John met Mary.

d.Mary met John.

The relationship that (10c, d) have with (10a, b) is similar to the one that passive sentences have with their active counterparts in that they involve the speaker’s intentional choice of John and Mary in subject position, and Mary and John in non-subject position in (10c, d), respectively. That is, (10c, d) can be characterized as the passive versions of (10a, b) and thus constitute marked constructions. In contrast, if John asks Mary about her occupation, the subcategorization requirement of the verb ask automatically places the agent NP John in subject position and the theme NP Mary in object position. This difference between meet and ask accounts for the contrast between the unacceptable (9b) and the acceptable (9c). More schematically, the acceptability status of the three sentences in (9) is accounted for in the following fashion:

(11)a. She met a New York Times reporter. (=9a)

E(Mary) > E(a NY Times reporter) [no conflict]

b.*A New York Times reporter met her. (=9b)

Transitivity: *E(Mary) ≥ E(a NY Times reporter) > E(Mary) Markedness Principle: The above conflict has been created by the speaker’s intentional choice of a non-topic NP as subject of meet a penalty

c.A New York Times reporter asked her about her occupation. (=9c)

Transitivity: *E(Mary) ≥ E(a NY Times reporter) > E(Mary) Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations: The above violation is unintentional no penalty

Observe next the following sentences:

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(12)a. John told Mary that Jane was seriously sick.

b.Mary heard from John that Jane was seriously sick.

(13)a. John sent Mary a Valentine’s Day present.

b.Mary received from John a Valentine’s Day present.

Hear from in (12b) and receive from in (13b) are marked verbs in the sense that they place non-agent NPs in subject position and agent NPs in non-subject position. That is, they are like passive verbs in that they represent the speaker’s intentional choice of non-agent NPs in subject position. This fact accounts for the acceptability status of the following sentences:

(14)a. I told Mary that Jane was seriously sick.

b.??Mary heard from me that Jane was seriously sick.

(15)a. I sent Mary a Valentine’s Day present.

b.??Mary received from me a Valentine’s Day present.

(14b) and (15b) are marginal out of context because they contain a conflict in empathy relationships just as (7b) does, which conflict has been created by the speaker’s use of the marked verbs hear from and receive from.2

Now, we can account for the acceptability status of the following sentences:

(16)a. Johni told Maryj what shej had told himi two days before.

b.Johni told Maryj what hei had heard from herj two days before.

c.Maryj heard from Johni what shej had told himi two days before.

d.??Maryj heard from Johni what hei had heard from herj two days before.3

I give below the empathy relationships represented by the main clause and the embedded clause of each of (16a–d). I use the notation “E(x) m> E(y)” if the empathy relationship is derived from the Surface Structure EH due to the use of marked patterns (e.g. the passive construction and special verbs such as meet, hear from, and receive from).

(17)a. Johni told Maryj what shej had told himi two days before. (=16a)

Transitivity: *E(John) > E(Mary) > E(John)

Markedness Principle: No marked patterns are used no penalty

b.Johni told Maryj what hei had heard from herj two days before. (=16b) Surface Structure EH

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c.Maryj heard from Johni what shej had told himi two days before. (=16c) Surface Structure EH

d.??Maryj heard from Johni what hei had heard from herj two days before. (=16d)

Surface Structure EH

Transitivity: *E(Mary) m> E( John) m> E(Mary)

Markedness Principle: The above conflict has been created by the intentional use of the marked verb hear from penalty

The Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations states that conflicts in empathy relationships attributable to the speaker’s intentional use of marked constructions result in unacceptability, but when there is a good reason for using such a construction, an ensuing conflict in empathy relationships does not result in a penalty. Observe, for example, the following exchange:

(18)A: John says he hasn’t met you before.

B:That’s not correct. He met me last year at Mary’s party. Empathy Relationships for “He met me last year . . .”

Transitivity: *E(I) > E(he) m> E(I)

The sentence he met me last year at Mary’s party in Speaker B’s answer involves the use of the marked verb meet, and therefore, there should be a penalty for the conflict in the empathy relationships that the sentence contains. In spite of this fact, the sentence is perfectly acceptable in the given context. I attribute this to the application of the following principle:

(19)THE CORRECTIVE SENTENCE PATTERN REQUIREMENT: In correcting a por-

tion of a sentence uttered by someone else maintain the same sentence pattern and change only that portion of the sentence that needs to be corrected, together with necessary tense and personal pronoun switches.

Speaker B wants to correct Speaker A’s remark that “he [John] hasn’t met you before.” In accordance with the Corrective Sentence Pattern Requirement, Speaker B maintains the same sentence pattern, keeping he ( John) in subject position, but switching you in object position to me referring to the speaker himself/herself. Thus, the conflict in empathy relationships contained in Speaker B’s answer in (18) is not by design, but is required by the Corrective Sentence

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Pattern Requirement. Thus there is no intentionality in the conflict, and hence there is no penalty for the conflict.

There is another discourse principle that makes sentences involving empathy relationship conflicts acceptable. Observe first the following sentences:

(20)a. John read War and Peace last night.

b.??/*War and Peace was read by John last night.

The unacceptability of (20b) is due to the fact that an inanimate NP is in subject position in a passive sentence construction:

(21) Empathy Relationships for (20b)

Transitivity: *E(John) > E(War and Peace) m> E(John)

Markedness Principle: The above conflict has been created by the speaker’s intentional use of the passive sentence construction a penalty

The above accounting for the unacceptability of (20b) predicts that the following sentences should be as marginal or unacceptable as (20b), but these sentences are perfectly acceptable:

(22)a. War and Peace was written by Tolstoy.

b.War and Peace has been read by millions of people all over the world.

c.War and Peace has been read even by Bill.

The difference between the unacceptable (20b) and the acceptable (22a–c) lies in the fact that while the latter sentences characterize what kind of book War and Peace is, the former does not have such a characterizational property. That is, the fact that Tolstoy wrote War and Peace gives a robust characterization of the novel. The fact that millions and millions of people all over the world have read the novel says what kind of book it is. Likewise, the fact that even Bill – apparently someone who doesn’t ordinarily read books – has read the book implicates that many other people have read it, and characterizes what kind of book it is. In contrast, (20b) cannot be interpreted as a characterizational sentence: a single event of John’s reading the novel doesn’t characterize what kind of book it is.

Given that passive sentences with inanimate subjects and human by-agentives are acceptable if they robustly characterize the referents of the subject NPs, we still need to explain why the empathy relationship conflicts created by the use of the marked sentence pattern (i.e. Passivization) that (22a–c) contain do not make them unacceptable. It seems that this is due to the fact that sentences that characterize or define the referent of an NP are the most felicitous when that NP is placed in subject position. For example, observe the following sentences:

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Let us examine some more examples relevant to the Word Order EH:

(28)a. I saw John and a policeman walking together yesterday.

b.??I saw a policeman and John walking together yesterday.

(29)a. I saw you and a policeman walking together yesterday.

b.??I saw a policeman and you walking together yesterday.

(30)a. John and someone else will be there.

b.*Someone else and John will be there.

The marginality of (28b) and (29b) arises from the conflict between the Word Order EH and the Topic EH. The unacceptability of (30b) arises from the conflict between the Word Order EH and Descriptor/Topic Empathy Hierarchies. Note that someone else in the sentence is a descriptor that is dependent upon John.

Recall now that I mentioned previously that since meet is a reciprocal verb, if John and Mary met, there are four ways to describe this event:

(10)a. John and Mary met.

b.Mary and John met.

c.John met Mary.

d.Mary met John.

I have already explained the difference between (10c) and (10d) by saying that the former involves the speaker’s intentional placement of John in subject position, while the latter involves his/her intentional choice of Mary in that position. The Word Order EH can account for the difference between (10a) and (10b): the speaker’s empathy with John is greater than that with Mary in (10a), and the speaker’s empathy with Mary is greater than that with John in (10b).

The Word Order EH interacts in an interesting way with a “modesty” principle taught in prescriptive grammar. For example, observe the following sentences:

(31)a. ??I and John are good friends.

b.John and I are good friends.

(31b) involves the following empathy hierarchy conflicts:

(32) Empathy Relationships of (31b):

Transitivity: *E(I) > E(John) m> E(I)

Markedness Principle: The above conflict is intentional because the speaker has intentionally placed John in the left-hand position, and I in the right-hand position a penalty

Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives 325

That is, from the point of view of the Empathy Perspective, (31b) should be unacceptable, and (31a) acceptable. However, prescriptive grammar says that the first person nominative pronoun should be placed at the end of a list. I will refer to this artificial rule as the Modesty Principle:

(33)THE MODESTY PRINCIPLE: In the coordinate NP structure, give the least prominence to the first person pronoun.

We can now account for the acceptability of (31b) by stating that the choice of the expression John and I, which is instrumental in creating an empathy relationship conflict, is not intentional, but is forced on the speaker by the Modesty Principle. Therefore, there is no penalty for the violation.4

2.2More on the Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations

The contrast in the acceptability status of the following two sentences seems to be unexplainable without resorting to the Markedness Principle for Discourse Rule Violations:

(34)a. *At the gate were Johni’s brother and Johni/hei smiling at me.

b.At the top of the rank list were Johni’s brother and Johni in that order.

Both (34a) and (34b) contain a conflict between the Descriptor EH (i.e. E( John) > E(John’s brother)) and the Word Order EH (i.e. E( John’s brother) > E( John)). (34a) is unacceptable because the placement of John’s brother to the left of John in the NP coordination is by the speaker’s design. In contrast, (34b) is acceptable because the placement of John’s brother to the left of John has been forced on the speaker by the relative ranking of the two siblings. That is, the empathy relationship conflict that (34b) involves was forced upon the speaker and was not intentional, and therefore, there is no penalty for the violation.

Observe next the following sentences:

(35)a. John gave a book to the girl.

b.John gave the book to a girl.

(36)a. John gave the girl a book.

b.??John gave a girl the book.

(35a, b) are examples of the periphrastic dative sentence pattern, whereas (36a, b) are examples of the incorporated dative sentence pattern. What needs to be explained is the marginality of (36b). It is reasonable to assume that (36b) is marginal because it violates the well-known discourse principle given below:5

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(37)FROM-OLD-TO-NEW PRINCIPLE: In languages in which word order is relatively free, the unmarked word order of constituents is old, predictable information first and new, unpredictable information last.

Let us assume that the above principle applies to English in places where there is freedom of word order. In (36b), a girl, which represents new information, appears before the book, whose anaphoric nature marks that it represents old information. Therefore, the marginality or unacceptability of (36b) can be attributed to its violation of the From-Old-To-New Principle. However, once one adopts this approach to account for the marginality of (36b), the acceptability of (35a), repeated below, becomes a puzzle:

(35)a. √John gave a book to the girl. New Old

As shown above, (35a) violates the From-Old-To-New Principle as much as (36b) does.

The above dilemma can be resolved by assuming that the periphrastic dative pattern represents the underlying pattern for giving verbs, and that the incorporated dative pattern is derived by applying DATIVE INCORPORATION to the underlying periphrastic dative pattern.6 According to this hypothesis, the violation of the From-Old-To-New Principle that (35a) involves is non-intentional because the speaker simply used the underlying sentence pattern, and placed the theme NP a book in verb object position and the goal NP the girl in prepositional object position. Therefore, there is no penalty for the violation. In contrast, the violation of the Principle that (36b) involves is intentional because the speaker has chosen to apply Dative Incorporation, an optional transformation. Therefore, the resulting violation of the From-Old-To-New Principle cannot go unpenalized, and the unacceptability of the sentence results.7

2.3Empathy and reflexive pronouns

There are languages (e.g. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese) that require that the antecedents of reflexive pronouns be animate and, most preferably, human. This suggests that the reflexive pronoun, at least in these languages, requires a high degree of the speaker’s empathy with its referent. The fact that sentences such as (38b) below are acceptable might give a false impression that English reflexives are free from such a requirement, but the fact that (39b) is unacceptable shows that they are subject to an empathy requirement, albeit to a lesser degree.

(38)a. John criticized himself.

b.Harvard overextended itself in natural sciences in the sixties.

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(39)a. John wrote to his friends about himself.

b.*Harvard wrote to its alumni about itself.8

The unacceptability of (39b) shows that English reflexive pronouns in oblique case position require a high degree of the speaker’s empathy with their referents. (39b) is unacceptable because it is not possible for the speaker to empathize to a high degree with inanimate objects like Harvard University.

Empathy factors influence the interpretation of reflexive pronouns even when their referents are human. Observe first the following sentences:

(40)a. John talked to Mary about himself.

b.√/?/??Mary talked to Bill about himself.

While all speakers accept (40a), some speakers consider (40b) awkward or marginal. This fact can be explained by assuming that a sentence containing a reflexive pronoun in oblique position is most felicitous when the referent of the reflexive receives the highest degree of empathy in the sentence. There is no problem with (40a) because the subject NP is the sentence’s unmarked empathy focus (cf. the Surface Structure EH) and the reflexive pronoun has that NP as its antecedent. In contrast, (40b) is problematic in that the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun is not the highest-ranked candidate in the empathy hierarchy on the unmarked interpretation of the sentence. Likewise, observe the following sentences:

(41)a. √/?/??Mary talked to Bill about himself. (=40b)

b.?/??/*I talked to Bill about himself.

There are many speakers who consider (41b) less acceptable than (41a). This can be attributed to the fact that the subject NP in (41b), because it is a first person pronoun, is even stronger than Mary in (41a) in its qualification as the focus of the speaker’s empathy, and hence as the antecedent of the reflexive. This makes the Bill of (41b) less qualified to be the antecedent of a reflexive pronoun than the Bill in (41a), and makes (41b) less acceptable than (41a).

Observe next the following sentences:

(42)a. √/?/??John talked to Mary about herself.

b.*John talked about Mary to herself.

The fact that (42a) (and (40b)) is acceptable or nearly so for many speakers has been a problem in the framework of Chomsky’s (1981) theory of grammar because the reflexive pronoun is not c-commanded by its intended antecedent Mary. According to Chomsky’s binding theory, a reflexive must be c-commanded by a co-indexed NP in a local context.9 Chomsky (1981) circumvented this problem by claiming that talk to in (42a) is reanalyzed as a single V, with a resulting loss of the PP node dominating to Mary. Thus, Mary becomes

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the direct object of the V, and it c-commands the reflexive pronoun. Chomsky argued that (42b) is unacceptable because reanalysis of talk about does not take place, apparently because about Mary is not base-generated next to talk.

There is, however, a serious problem with the above account of the acceptability of (42a) and the unacceptability of (42b). Observe the following sentence:

(43) ??/*John discussed Mary with herself.

There is no doubt that the reflexive pronoun in the above sentence is c- commanded by a co-indexed NP (i.e. Mary) in its local domain. In spite of this fact, (43) is marginal or unacceptable. Observe, however, that (43) and (42b) are more or less synonymous. Therefore, the unacceptability of (42b) seems to be a non-syntactic phenomenon, rather than a syntactic one. In comparing the acceptable (42a) with the unacceptable (42b), we note that while the antecedent of the reflexive pronoun in the former is Mary as a human being, the antecedent of the reflexive in (42b) and (43) is semantically inanimate; that is, the antecedent is what Mary is or what she has done. Thus, the unacceptability of (43) is automatically accounted for in the framework of the Empathy Perspective via the requirement that the referents of the antecedents of the reflexive pronouns in oblique position in English must receive a high degree of the speaker’s empathy. That is, (42b) and (43) are unacceptable because Mary, the antecedent of the reflexive pronouns, cannot receive a high degree of the speaker’s empathy because it is semantically inanimate.

Finally, observe the following picture-noun sentences involving reflexive pronouns:

(44)a. Mary cost John a picture of himself in the paper.

Intended Interpretation: “In order to impress Mary, John paid for a picture of himself to be printed in the newspaper.” or “John was adversely affected by the fact that what Mary had done caused his picture to appear in the newspaper.”

b.*Mary cost John a picture of herself in the paper.

Intended Interpretation: “In order to impress Mary, John paid for her picture to be printed in the newspaper.”

Note that in these sentences John is semantically human because it represents the experiencer of the cost or damage, whereas Mary is semantically inanimate because it represents notions such as “what Mary had done,” “( John’s) desire to impress Mary,” and so on. These sentences also show that reflexive pronouns in picture nouns are also empathy expressions, and as such require a high degree of the speaker’s empathy with their referents. There are several other factors that conspire to produce the acceptability judgments for these sentences; see Kuno 1987: Chap. 4.5) for details.

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3 Direct Discourse Perspective

3.1 Logophoric NP constraint

Observe the following sentences:

(45)a. John said, “I am a genius.”

b.Johni said that hei was a genius.

(46)a. John said to Mary, “You are a genius.”

b.John said to Maryj that shej was a genius.

(47)a. John said about Maryj, “Maryj/Shej is a genius.”

b.John said about Maryj that shej was a genius.

(45a), (46a), and (47a) contain direct discourse quotations, whereas (45b), (46b), and (47b) contain indirect discourse clauses. In the indirect discourse clauses in (45b), (46b), and (47b), the pronouns are coreferential with main-clause NPs. However, there is a significant difference between the pronouns in (45b) and (46b) and the pronoun in (47b). That is, in the former, the pronouns correspond to the first and second person pronouns in the corresponding direct quotations: they cannot correspond to non-pronominal NPs because the following sentences are unacceptable:10

(48)a. *Johni said, “Johni is a genius.”

b.*John said to Maryj, “Maryj is a genius.”

Let us refer to saying and asking verbs as LOGOPHORIC VERBS (abbreviated as LogoV), and to their complement clauses as LOGOPHORIC COMPLEMENTS (abbreviated as LogoComp). Given a sentence with a logophoric complement, I will use the term Logo-1 NP (or the abbreviation Logo-1) to refer to the NP in the main clause that refers to the speaker of the utterance represented by the logophoric complement. Likewise, I will use the term Logo-2 NP (or the abbreviation Logo-2) to refer to the hearer of the utterance. These terms are illustrated in (49):

I assume that even sentences with complements that do not have direct discourse counterparts are logophoric complements if they represent the thoughts, feelings, or realization of the referent of the main-clause Logo-1 or Logo-2 NP:

(50)a. John thinks that he is a genius. Logo-1 LogoV LogoComp

b.Hypothetical Structure: [John thinks, “[I am a genius.]”]

b.Hypothetical Structure: [John heard from Mary, “[I am sick]”]

I will refer to an analytical framework that makes use of the notions described above as a direct discourse perspective, or alternately as a LOGOPHORIC

PERSPECTIVE.

Kuno (1987: Chap. 3) has shown that an NP in a logophoric complement (in an extended sense, as shown above) that is intended to be coreferential with the main-clause Logo-1 or Logo-2 NP behaves very differently from those NPs that are not coreferential with either of them. I will illustrate this difference by using a few examples from (Kuno 1987) and add a new set of data from Kuno (1997) that further illustrates the importance of the direct discourse perspective. Observe, first, the following sentences:

(52)a. The remark that Churchilli was vain was often made about himi.

b.*The remark that Churchilli was vain was often made to himi.

While (52a) is acceptable on the interpretation in which the non-pronominal full NP Churchill in the embedded clause is coreferential with the pronoun him in the main clause, such an interpretation is ruled out for (52b). This contrast can be explained only by paying attention to who said what. I will represent what was said using a direct discourse representation:

(53)a. [People often made about Churchill the remark “[Churchill is vain]”] Logo-1 -Logo-1/2

b.[People often made to Churchill the remark “[You are vain]”]

Observe that Churchill in the matrix clause of (53a) is marked as -Logo-1/2 because it is neither the speaker NP nor the hearer NP of the proposition represented by the direct discourse quotation. The subject of the direct discourse quotation is Churchill, and not you, because, again, Churchill was not the hearer of the remark. In contrast, Churchill in the matrix clause of (53b) is marked as Logo-2 because it is the hearer NP of the direct discourse quotation, which has you, and not Churchill, in subject position. The fact that (52a) is acceptable but (52b) is not suggests that a full NP (i.e. a non-reflexive and non-pronominal NP) in the direct discourse representation of a logophoric complement can remain as a full NP if other conditions are met, as in (52a), but a second person pronoun in the direct discourse representation of a logophoric complement cannot be realized as a full NP. That is, a second person pronoun you must remain pronominal in indirect discourse formation.

Likewise, observe the following sentences:

(54)a. The allegation that Johni was a spy was vehemently denied by himi.

b.*The claim that Johni was a genius was made by himi.

Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives 331

While (54a) is acceptable on the interpretation whereby the full NP John in the embedded clause is coreferential with the pronoun him in the main clause, such an interpretation is ruled out for (54b). This contrast can also be explained by observing the direct discourse representation of what was said by whom:

(55)a. [John denied the allegation “[John is a spy]”]

b.[John made the claim “[I am a genius]”]

Note that John was neither the “speaker” nor necessarily the hearer of the allegation. This explains why John, and not I or you, appears in subject position of the direct discourse representation in (55a).11 In contrast, John was necessarily the “speaker” of the claim, and therefore, the subject of the direct discourse representation in (55b) must be a first person pronoun. The fact that (54b) is unacceptable suggests that a first person pronoun in the direct discourse representation of a logophoric complement cannot be realized as a full NP in the derived surface sentences. That is, the first person “I” in a direct discourse representation has to remain pronominal in indirect discourse formation. I should hasten to add that if Passivization does not apply to (52a) and (54a), there is no way to pronominalize the main clause NPs Churchill and John and keep Churchill and John in the embedded clause unpronominalized:

(56)a. *People often made about himi the remark that Churchilli was vain.

b.*Hei vehemently denied the allegation that Johni was vain.

But the unacceptability of (56a, b) can be attributed to violation of Principle C (see section 3.2 of this paper) of my version of the Binding Theory, which says that an R-expression (a full NP) cannot be c-commanded by a co-indexed NP (with PP nodes not counting for the purpose of delimiting the c-command domain of a given node).

Let us depart from the account given above, which is based on the direct discourse representation of logophoric complement clauses, and move to one which assumes that indirect discourse logophoric complements are basegenerated as such. In that framework, the constraint that we have observed above can be restated in the following manner:

(57)LOGOPHORIC NP CONSTRAINT: Given a sentence with a matrix Logo-1/2 NP and a logophoric complement attributable to that Logo-1/2 NP, a full NP in the logophoric complement cannot be coreferential with the Logo-1/2 NP in the main clause. (cf. Kuno 1987: 109)

According to this constraint, the acceptability status of the sentences in (52) and (54) can be accounted for in the following manner:

(58)a. The remark that [Churchilli was vain] was often made about himi. LogoComp -Logo-1/2

For those readers who are not familiar with the notion of c-command and Chomsky’s Binding Theory, it is sufficient for the purpose of this paper to interpret Principle C in a much more limited sense as meaning that, given a sentence with NP1 in subject position and NP2 elsewhere in the same sentence, NP2 cannot be interpreted as coreferential with NP1, as illustrated below:

(63)a. *Johni/*Hei hates Johni’s mother.

b.*Johni/*Hei hated the man that Johni shared an office with.

c.*Johni/*Hei thinks that Johni is a genius.

The above sentences are all unacceptable because the italicized John is intended to be coreferential with the main clause subject, in violation of Principle C.

Returning to (61a), it has been assumed that Principle C applies to the open sentence portion of the abstract representation (called the LF representation) of the structure of the sentence informally shown in (64):

(64)LF representation of (61a):

[Which x [he was willing to discuss [x claim that John was asleep]]]

{____________Open sentence _____________________}

That is, it has been assumed, in essence, that the LF representation given in

(64)is illicit on the coreferential interpretation of he and John because it violates Principle C in the same way that the following sentence does:

(65)*Hei was willing to discuss which claim that Johni was asleep.

The above account of the unacceptability of (61a) immediately runs into difficulty, however, because it predicts that (61b) should also be unacceptable because it violates Principle C in the same way that (67) does:

(66)LF representation of (61b):

[Which x [he did later deny [x claim that John made]]]

(67)*Hei did later deny the claim that Johni made.

Attempts have been made in the framework of the Minimalist Program (Freidin 1986, 1994, 1997; Lebeaux 1988, 1992, 1995; Chomsky 1993) to resolve

334 Susumu Kuno

the above puzzle and account for the acceptability of (61b) and the unacceptability of (61a) by attributing it to the difference in the ways that complements and adjuncts are introduced into sentence structures. Noting that the embedded clause in (61a) is a complement clause of the noun claim, whereas the embedded clause in (61b) is an adjunct relative clause of the noun, minimalist theorists have claimed that the contrast in acceptability status between these two sentences can be accounted for by assuming the following:

(68)(i) The introduction of complements into sentence structures must be cyclic.

(ii)The introduction of adjuncts into sentence structures can be cyclic or non-cyclic.

Thus, they have assumed that Principle C applies to the LF representations that are informally shown below:

(69)a. LF representation of (61a):

[Which claim that John was asleep [he was willing to discuss {which claim that John was asleep}]]

b.LF representation of (61b)

[Which claim that John made [he was willing to discuss {which claim}]]

In the above LF representations, the copy of a fronted wh-expression is shown in curly brackets. Note that the complement clause that John was asleep in (69a) is adjoined to the noun claim before the syntactic fronting of the wh-expression, whereas the adjunct clause that John made in (69b) is adjoined to the fronted which claim, and not to the expression before wh-movement takes place. Principle C disallows the co-indexing of the full NP John with the c-commanding he in the open sentence part (i.e. [he was willing to discuss {which claim that John was asleep}]). In contrast, Principle C does not apply to the open sentence portion of the LF representation in (69b) because there is no full NP there. Principle C does not apply to John in the fronted wh-expression because it is not in the open sentence part of the LF representation (and he does not c-command John anyway).

The above account of the contrast between (61a) and (61b) appears to be credible when coupled with the contrast between (70a) and (70b), which also

appears to show an ARGUMENT/ADJUNCT ASYMMETRY:

(70)a. ??/*Which pictures of Johni did hei like? (Lebeaux 1992)

b.Which pictures near Johni did hei look at? (Lebeaux 1992)

Observing that of John in (70a) is a complement of pictures, but near John in (70b) is an adjunct, Lebeaux (1992) attempts to account for the marginality/ unacceptability of (70a) and the acceptability of (70b) on the coreferential interpretation of John and he in the following way:

Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives 335

(71)a. LF representation of (70a)

[Which pictures of John [he did like {which pictures of John}]]

b.LF representation of (70b):

[Which pictures near John [he did look at {which pictures}]]

The introduction of of John in (70a) takes place before the fronting of the wh- expression which pictures because it is a complement of pictures. Therefore, a copy of the fronted wh-expression which pictures of John is in the object position of the verb like, as shown in (71a). Thus, Principle C disallows the co-indexing of John with the c-commanding he. This explains the unacceptability of (70a) on the coreferential interpretation of John and he. In contrast, the introduction of near John in (70b) can take place after the wh-movement of which pictures because it is an adjunct, not a complement, of pictures. Therefore, the copy of John is absent in the open sentence part of the LF representation of the sentence, as shown in (71b). Principle C is inapplicable to the open sentence part of (71b), and hence Principle C does not mark (70b) unacceptable on the coreferential interpretation of John and he.

The above account of the contrast between (61a) and (61b) and between (70a) and (70b), based on the claimed asymmetry in the ways that arguments and adjuncts are introduced into sentence structures, does not go far beyond these four sentences, however. Once the database of sentences with the same patterns is only slightly extended, it becomes clear that the claimed asymmetry is an illusion. Observe the following sentences:

(72)a. Whose allegation that Johni was less than truthful did hei refute vehemently?

b.Whose opinion that Weldi was unfit for the ambassadorial appointment did hei try to refute vehemently?

c.Whose claim that the Senatori had violated the campaign finance regulation did hei dismiss as politically motivated?

d.Which psychiatrist’s view that Johni was schizophrenic did hei try to get expunged from the trial records?

The embedded clauses in the above sentences are all complement clauses. Therefore, a Minimalist analysis based on argument/adjunct asymmetry predicts that they should all be unacceptable. In spite of this prediction, however, most speakers consider these sentences acceptable, and even those speakers who judge them as less than acceptable report that they are far better than (61a).

The argument/adjunct asymmetry-based analysis of the contrast between (70a) and (70b) fares as poorly, as witnessed by the acceptability of sentences such as the following:

(73)a. Which witness’s attack on Johni did hei try to get expunged from the trial records?

b.Which artist’s portrait of Nixoni do you think hei liked best?

c.Whose criticism of Johni did hei choose to ignore?

336 Susumu Kuno

(74)a. Which doctor’s evaluation of Johni’s physical fitness did hei use when hei applied to NASA for space training?

b.Which psychiatrist’s evaluation of Johni’s mental state did hei try to get expunged from the trial records?

The PPs in the above sentences are all complements of the nouns (i.e. attack, portrait, criticism, evaluation) and therefore, Freidin (1986), Lebeaux (1988) and Chomsky (1993) all predict that their LF representations violate Principle C. But these sentences are all perfectly acceptable. The acceptability of the sentences in (72)–(74) shows not only that an argument/adjunct-asymmetry-based account of the contrast between (61a) and (61b) and between (70a) and (70b) is untenable, but also that to the extent that the account is derived from the theoretical framework of the Minimalist Program, there is something wrong with the theory itself.

3.3Logophoric analysis

Observe now the contrast in acceptability status of the following sentences:

(75)a. *Which claim that Johni had helped develop new technologies did hei make at last year’s national convention?

b.Which claim that Johni made did hei later deny? (Lebeaux 1992)

The Logophoric NP Constraint can automatically account for the contrast between these two sentences: (75a) involves a logophoric complement that is attributable to the matrix subject NP he. The sentence violates the Logophoric NP Constraint because a full NP (i.e. John) in the logophoric complement is co-indexed with the matrix Logo-1 NP (i.e. he). (75b), in contrast, does not involve a logophoric complement, and therefore, the Logophoric NP Constraint has nothing to do with this LF representation, hence the acceptability of this sentence.

The acceptability of the sentences in (72) can be accounted for in the same fashion. For example, observe the following:

(72)a. Whose allegation that Johni was less than truthful did hei refute vehemently?

The above sentence has a logophoric complement (i.e. that John was less than truthful), but the Logo-1 NP of this complement is not he (= John), but whose. Therefore, the Logophoric NP Constraint does not disallow the co-indexing of

John and he.

Now let us re-examine (61a), the sentence that Chomsky, Lebeaux, and Freidin have all considered unacceptable:

(61)a. *Which claim that Johni was asleep was hei willing to discuss? (Chomsky 1993)

Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives 337

It seems that the sentence is potentially ambiguous with respect to whether the claim that John was asleep is to be interpreted as John’s claim or someone else’s claim. As must be clear to the reader by this time, the Logophoric NP Constraint predicts that the sentence is unacceptable if the claim is interpreted as John’s, but acceptable if it is interpreted as someone else’s claim. This prediction is consistent with the judgments that most, if not all, native speakers make about the sentence.

The above observations show that the account of the contrast between (61a) and (61b) that is based on argument/adjunct asymmetry is untenable. That is, there is no justification for assuming that arguments and adjuncts are different with respect to when they must or must not be introduced into sentence structures. Let us assume that they are both introduced cyclically. According to this hypothesis, (72a), (61b), and (75a) have the structures shown below:

(76)a. LF representation of (72a)

[Whose allegation that John was less than truthful [he did refute vehemently {whose allegation that John was less than truthful}]]

b.LF representation of (61b)

[Which claim that John made [he did later deny {which claim that John made}]]

c.LF representation of (75a)

[[Which claim that John had helped develop new technologies] [he did make {which claim that John had helped develop new technologies} at last year’s national convention]]

The way that the Binding Theory (cf. Chomsky 1981) is organized, Principle C applies to the open sentence part of these LF representations, and marks them as unacceptable. But (72a) and (61b) are perfectly acceptable. Therefore, the Binding Theory needs to be re-examined to see if it has been properly organized. The problem with its current organization is that it is based on the assumption that since there are three types of NPs (i.e. anaphors, pronominals, and R- expressions), there should be one rule for each NP type. I have proposed a different organization of the binding theory in Kuno (1987). I show below first the overall difference in organization and then present revised binding principles:

(77)Chomsky’s Organization of the Binding Theory

a.anaphors in a local domain [coreference]

b.pronominals in a local domain [disjoint reference]

c.R-expressions in all domains [disjoint reference]

(78)Kuno (1987)’s Organization of the Binding Theory

a.anaphors in a local domain [coreference]

b.non-anaphors (pronominals and R-expressions) in a local domain [disjoint reference]

c.R-expressions in all domains [disjoint reference]

338 Susumu Kuno

(79) Kuno (1987)’s Binding Principles

Principle A′: An anaphor may receive a coreferential interpretation only with a c-commanding NP within its local domain. N.B. An LF representation that contains an anaphor which is not interpreted coreferentially with any NP in it is unacceptable.

Principle B′: A non-anaphor (pronominal or R-expression) is obligatorily assigned disjoint indexing vis-à-vis a c- commanding NP within its local domain.

Principle C′: An R-expression is barred from receiving coreferential interpretation vis-à-vis a c-commanding non-anaphor NP in either A- or A′-position.13

N.B. Principle C′ does not apply to the reconstructed portion of the LF representation. (That is, in a theoretical framework in which the binding theory applies to syntactic structures rather than to LF representations, Principles A′ and B′ apply cyclically, and Principle C′ applies post-cyclically.)

C-command: A c-commands B iff the non-PP branching node α1 most immediately dominating A either dominates B or is immediately dominated by a node α2 that dominates B, and α2 is of the same category type as α1.

With the above revised binding theory, (76a–c) pose no problem. In these LF representations, since the non-anaphor John is in the embedded clause and the c-commanding NP he in the main clause (that is, since he is not in John’s local domain), Principle B′ does not apply. Therefore, they are not assigned disjoint indexing. Furthermore, Principle C′ does not apply to an R-expression which is in the reconstructed portion of the LF representation, and therefore, it is not assigned disjoint indexing vis-à-vis the c-commanding he. (The John in the fronted portion of the LF representation is not assigned disjoint indexing with he either, because the latter does not c-command the former.) Thus, there are no binding principles that block the coreferential interpretation of he and John. The Logophoric NP Constraint does not apply to (76a) because he is not the Logo-1 NP of the complement clause. It does not apply to (76b), either, because that sentence does not involve a logophoric complement at all. Hence the acceptability of (72a) and (61b). On the other hand, the Logophoric NP Constraint applies to (76c) because he is the Logo-1 NP of the complement clause and disallows a coreferential interpretation of he and John, hence the unacceptability of (75a).

The above revised binding principles can also account for the contrast among the following three sentences:

Empathy and Direct Discourse Perspectives 339 (70)a. ??/*Which pictures of John did he like? (Lebeaux 1992)

(73)a. Which witness’s attack on John did he try to get expunged from the trial records?

(70)b. Which pictures near John did he look at? (Lebeaux 1992) These sentences have the following LF representations:

(80)a. LF representation of (70a)

[Which pictures of John [he did like {which pictures of John}]]

b.LF representation of (73a)

[Which witness’s attack on John [he did try to get {which witness’s attack on John} expunged from the trial records]]

c.LF representation of (70b)

[Which pictures near John [he did look at {which pictures near John}]]

Note in (80a) that the non-anaphor John is c-commanded by he in its local domain. Therefore, Principle B′ obligatorily assigns disjoint indexing to he and John. Hence the unacceptability of (70a). In contrast, in (80b), John is not c- commanded by he in its local domain because John’s local domain is which witness’s attack on John. Hence Principle B′ does not assign disjoint indexing to he and John. Principle C′ does not apply to John in the reconstructed portion of the LF representation. (It applies to John in the fronted wh-expression, but it is not c-commanded by he, and thus no disjoint indexing takes place.) Therefore, there is no binding principle that disallows the co-indexing of he and John. Furthermore, the Logophoric NP Constraint does not apply to he and John either, because no logophoric complement is involved. Therefore, it does not disallow the co-indexing of the two NPs, hence the acceptability of (73a). Finally, in (80c), the c-commanding he is not in John’s local domain because there is a clause boundary between he and John, as witnessed by the fact that John is not in a reflexive context:

(81)a. *He looked at pictures near himself.

b. *[He did look at [pictures [PRO near himself]]]

(82)a. *Mary talked with people angry about herself.

b.*[Mary talked with people [PRO angry about herself]]

Therefore, Principle B′ does not apply to (80c), and consequently, there is no obligatory disjoint-indexing of he and John by Principle B′. Principle C′ does not apply to John in the reconstructed portion of the LF. (It applies to John in the fronted wh-expression, but since that is not c-commanded by he, it does not bar co-indexing of the two NPs.) The Logophoric NP Constraint does not apply because the sentence does not contain a logophoric complement. Thus,