Explicit and Implicit Information in Text. Information Structure across Languages
June 8–10, 2006
Adreflexive Intensification and the Theory of Focus
and Information
Kjell Johan Sæbø
University of Oslo
Introduction
Quite some languages have both “true” and “false” reflexives, (SE +) SELF and SE anaphors.
Norwegian has the complex reflexive seg selv beside the simple reflexive seg. Hellan (1988)
argued that basically, these are in complementary distribution, as suggested by:
(1)
Sangerne akkompagnerte seg #(selv) på gitar.
singers-the accompanied SEG SELF on guitar
(2)
Christina Aguilera har sagt ja til å kle av seg (#selv).
Christina Aguilera has said yes to to dress off SEG SELF
(3)
Olaf Gulbransson drakk [seg (#selv) full]SC.
Olaf Gulbransson drank SEG SELF drunk
(4)
Huni har sitt eget band med til å akkompagnere [seg (#selv)]i .
she has her own band with to to accompany SEG SELF
Hellan developed an ingenious theory to predict this (SELF encodes coargumenthood).
However, there are problems with this account, both theoretical and descriptive.
The worst is that seg and seg selv are not in complementary distribution:
(5)
Han begynte å kle av meg. Så kledde han av seg selv også.
‘He started undressing me. Then he undressed himself too.’
(6)
Når han skal sove, synger han [seg selv i søvn]SC.
when he shall sleep sings he SEG SELF in sleep
Defense of CD consists in appeal to “homophony”, “proxy readings” (e.g. Safir 2004: 130).
Also, SELF is not ascribed the same meaning as when it modifies another entity type element.
Some (Moravcsik 1972, Edmondson & Plank 1978, Siemund & Gast 2006, ... ) have suggested
that it is basically the same intensifier as elsewhere, e.g. Norwegian (7) and (8):
(7)
Hun vil gi datteren nok
til at hun kan få et enklere liv enn hun selv har hatt.
she will give daughter enough to that she can get a simpler life than she SELF has had
(8)
De gode gjerningene hennes har reelt sett gagnet henne selv.
the good deeds
hers have really seen benefitted her SELF
Kjell Johan Sæbø
SELF Intensification
These problems persist in more recent analyses, such as Reinhart & Reuland 1993, Safir 2004.
I will refer to these analyses collectively as the traditional treatment. It is basically syntactic.
Bergeton (2004): Severing Intensification from Binding
By contrast, Bergeton (2004) seeks to derive the meaning of sig selv from the meaning of sig
and the meaning of selv. His theory rests on these assumptions:
• Binding and intensification are independent.
• Intensified anaphors are parallel to intensified pronouns and DPs.
• Intensification requires contexts providing alternatives and contrast
(the “Contrastiveness condition on adnominal intensification”).
• The distribution of intensified anaphors is sensitive to predicate meaning and pragmatics
(utterance situation and common ground).
• There are three relevant classes of predicates: Anti-reflexives, presupposing non-identity
of arguments, reflexives, presupposing identity of arguments, and neutral predicates.
This theory is theoretically satisfying in two senses:
• It is economical, aiming at a uniform analysis of SELF whatever it modifies,
• and it is explanatory in that the meaning of SELF plays a role.
It also makes more precise predictions about the distribution of the forms than other accounts.
In particular, SIG and SIG-SELF are not predicted to be in complementary distribution, since
many of the inherently reflexive predicates are reassigned to a new class of neutral predicates
where, depending on the context, we can use both, and there is no requirement for SIG-SELF
to be a coargument, so it can be a SC subject, if the context generates a set of alternatives.
Still, the theory leaves some questions unanswered. The most important are:
• Why is SELF necessary in many cases – like (1)?
• Why is SELF less necessary in (say) German than in (say) Dutch, cf. (9)?
(9)
Sie begleitet sich (selbst) auf dem Klavier.
she accompanies SIG SELF on the piano
(1) is problematic because although SELF comes with a constraint (Contrastiveness), the
absence of SELF does not come with a constraint. The anti-reflexive verb presupposes that
the two arguments refer to different entities, so (1) forms a presupposition failure, but it is
unclear how SELF helps justify the presupposition, or remedies the presupposition failure.
As to (9), the problem is that because Bergeton’s theory is compositional, the option open to
Safir (2004) is closed: One cannot argue that SIG+SELF is a unit in Dutch but not in German,
when the cornerstone of the theory is that binding and intensification are independent.
Bergeton does not work with a formal theory of focus (like Rooth 1992) and intensification
(like Eckardt 2001), and I will show that if one does, the open issues can be settled – once the
theory of focus is supplemented by the theory of informational integration (Jacobs 1999) and
by optimality theoretic pragmatics (Blutner 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006).
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Kjell Johan Sæbø
SELF Intensification
+ Intensification Semantics (Eckardt)
and Informational Integration (Jacobs)
Eckardt (2001) has devised an ingenious theory of selbst intensification in German, as in (10).
(10) Ich möchte spätestens mit 17 ein Kind haben, weil ich es einfach am besten finde,
I wantto
latest at 17 a child have because I it simply at best find
früh Kinder zu bekommen, um mein Kind, wenn es selbst Teenager ist, zu verstehen.
early children to get
for my child when it self teenager is to understand
It is:
The intensifier denotes the identity function on type e entities.
From this assumption, the following follows:
• The expression denoting the type e argument, the so-called associate, is a name, variable,
pronoun, or definite description.
• The associate is out of focus (or in together with the intensifier), and the intensifier is in
focus (alone or together with the associate) – or else intensification would be redundant.
The net effect of intensification is thus to add focus, giving rise to focus presuppositions in
the focus theory of Rooth (1992), Alternative Semantics.1
Neither Eckardt nor Bergeton applies the theory to the case where the associate is a reflexive.
(11)
(En barberer barberer alle som ikke barberer seg selv og ingen andre.)
a barber shaves everyone that not shaves SEG SELF and noone else
Barberer denne barbereren [seg selv]F?
shaves this barber
SEG SELF
Here I have chosen to let the intensifier and the reflexive form a focus constituent together.
Then the focus presupposition is simpler than when the intensifier is in focus all by itself.2
That of (11) is:
• There are propositions ϕ such that there is an alternative y to the barber x such that
ϕ = shaves(y)(x).
This is verified in the context of (11), the barber’s customers instantiating y.
Now how does the reflexive relate to focus if it is not intensified?
1
To be sure, there is more to say about, in particular, adverbial intensification in Eckardt’s theory (see also Sæbø
2005). However, since intensification of reflexives is adnominal intensification, we can concentrate on this.
2
The focus semantic value of [seg selv]F is the set of alternatives to the seg referent z, while the focus semantic
value of [seg selvF] is the set of x such that there is an alternative f to the identity function such that x = f(z).
Alternatives to the identity function are operations that do not map things onto themselves but onto other things.
Eckardt derives so-called centrality effects from alternatives to the identity function. It is debatable whether there
is a real difference between the two options in this regard, or centrality effects should be otherwise explained.
Anyway, centrality effects do not seem to play a central role in connection with intensified anaphors.
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Kjell Johan Sæbø
SELF Intensification
• Is it out of focus (as if it were old information), corresponding to (12a)? Or:
• Is it in focus with something else – say, the predicate, corresponding to (12b)?
(12) a. Han [barberer]F seg.
he shaves SEG
b. Han [barberer seg]F.
Eckardt only considers the a. focus structure, but that is because the associates she considers
are all anaphoric in the discourse semantic sense (names, personal pronouns, or definites).
Anaphors are different. And the b. structure, with wide focus and informational integration,
offers a way to account for the necessity of SELF with “anti-reflexive” predicates, as in (1).
Jacobs (1999) developed a theory about the grammar, semantics, and pragmatics of structures
like (12b) or (13a / b).
(13) a. He has [found a RING]F.
b. He has [FOUND something]F.
The less informative, unaccented constituent, in (12b) seg, in (13a) found, in (13b) something,
is informationally integrated, or non-autonomous; the predicate and argument function as one
informational unit and are processed semantically in one step. This idea of informational unity
has proven very difficult to make precise.
+ OT Pragmatics (Blutner 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006)
By supplementing Rooth’s theory of focus interpretation with a pragmatic, BOT component,
we can account for what is signalled by a wide focus on a predicate and its argument.
The focus presupposition of such a structure is too weak to describe informational integration;
that of the structure with two narrow foci, one on the predicate and the other on the argument,
subsumes it. However, once we consider the optimal interpretation of the wide focus version,
in competition with the two-foci version, we see that this version does not only not communicate the stronger focus presupposition; it positively communicates the opposite, that there are
alternatives to the VP as a unit, but not to the predicate and to the argument separately. It can
be shown that this boils down to saying that one is sufficiently predictable from the other, –
plus that there are no local alternatives to it in the discourse (Sæbø 2006).
(14) a. Narcissos [beundrer]F [seg selv]F.
Narcissus admires SEG SELF
b. # Narcissos [beundrer seg]F.
Thus (12b) will implicate that the seg argument is sufficiently predictable from the predicate,
and that the discourse does not provide local alternatives to it.
For (14b) to be felicitous, the same must be the case; but of course, the seg referent cannot be
sufficiently predictable on the basis of a verb with this meaning. (14b) is doomed to contradict
its own optimal interpretation.
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Kjell Johan Sæbø
SELF Intensification
Generally, complementing the focus presupposition of a PF [seg selv]F, we will (in languages
like Norwegian) have a (presupposition plus a) conversational implicature for a [P seg]F like:
The Focus Presupposition of a PF [seg selv]F
There are propositions ϕ such that there is an R ≈ P and a y ≈ a such that ϕ = R(y)(a)
The Focus Presupposition and Implicature of a [P seg]F
There are propositions ϕ such that there is a Q ≈ P(a) such that ϕ = Q(a),
but not such that there is an R ≈ P and a y ≈ a such that ϕ = R(y)(a)
This explains the necessity of SELF with anti-reflexive predicates.
SEG SELF across Languages: A Suggestion
But how about a language like German, where selbst is rarely necessary with such predicates?
(15) a. Narziß [bewundert]F sich [selbst]F.
Narcissus admires SEG SELF
b. Narziß [bewundert]F sich.
As long as a focus structure analogous to that in Mainland Scandinavian or Dutch is assumed,
with informational nonautonomy for the unintensified sich, it is a mystery why intensification
is superfluous with “anti-reflexive” predicates. However, it is possible to assume that in such
languages (Icelandic is another), anaphors relate to focus in the same way as pronouns, that is,
when not accented they are out of focus, – cf. (15a) and (15b) as compared to (14a) and (14b).
That way, the reflexive is not predicted to be predictable from the predicate; it is predicted to
be a continuing topic (and in a sense, it always is). Selbst can be possible (but unnecessary)
because focus presuppositions are easy to accommodate.
To account for the contrast in this way, it is necessary to assume that
• a German reflexive can be out of focus while
• a Danish reflexive, when the internal argument of a predicate whose external argument
binds it, is always in focus, normally parasitically on the intensifier or on the predicate,
with which it integrates.
To be sure, there is scarce independent evidence for this assumption – but:
The same can be said of the assumption that sich selbst fails to form a unit (Safir 2004: 205).
Thus it looks as if the novel theory of complex reflexives, launched by Uffe Bergeton (2004),
loosening information theory – intensification – from syntax – binding, can be intensified.
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Kjell Johan Sæbø
SELF Intensification
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