Long‐Distance Anaphora: Syntax and Discourse

Abstract Cross‐linguistically, long‐distance reflexives do not form a unitary phenomenon but come in a variety of subtypes: as long‐distance bound anaphors, as pronominals, or as entities of an intermediate category. This chapter focuses on the first subtype and on Chinese and some other Asian languages: it describes the prominent syntactic and interpretive properties of long‐distance reflexives and addresses theoretical questions about their analysis and typological features and about the role of discourse. The interpretive properties of long‐distance reflexives bear remarkable similarities to those of logophoric pronouns. We clarify the notion of logophoricity as used in African linguistics and in formal semantics and situate a grammatical account of bound‐anaphor long‐distance reflexives that interfaces with notions of logophoricity, attitudes de se, consciousness and perspectivity. The distribution and reference of long‐distance reflexives are subject to syntactic and discourse/pragmatic restrictions that can be quite complex. It is argued, however, that the core patterns observed can be explained through an analysis according to which the property of long‐distance antecedence is only apparent, since both the movement of the long‐distance reflexive to the edge of its local domain and the predication relation between the edge position and the ultimate antecedent are local. We consider some well‐known properties of long‐distance reflexives in Chinese (monomorphemicity, subject orientation, and blocking effects) and explore the way they may follow from grammatical or discourse‐pragmatic principles. We also provide a detailed discussion of the various proposals for the interpretation of long‐distance reflexives, capitalizing on three approaches that make crucial use of a silent operator position on the left edge of the long‐distance reflexive's local domain (a notion along the lines of the traditional governing category). We compare two versions of covert movement (head movement and XP‐movement) in detail, in addition to the alternative of a base‐merged operator position.