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8 - The silent content of bound variable pronouns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Uli Sauerland
Edited by
Kyle Johnson
Uli Sauerland
Affiliation:
Zentrum für allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin
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Summary

Abstract

Bound variable pronouns are usually taken to be interpreted solely as bound variables. This chapter argues that bound variable pronouns have an internal property argument P and that P is interpreted as a presupposition on the value of the bound variable pronoun. The argument leading to these conclusions proceeds through the following intermediate theses, which are of independent interest:

1) bound variable pronouns can differ in interpretation

2) indexation alone is insufficient to explain the way bound variable pronouns differ

3) bound variable pronouns can have a presupposition

4) in general, the silent content must be a silent property variable internal to the bound variable pronoun, rather than being an elided syntactic representation.

When I confronted a certain non-linguist I know with sentence (1), she voiced the opinion that the pronoun his refers to the set of boys. Of course, I quickly showed her that this cannot be the case because (1) does not mean the same as every boy likes the mother of the boys, and went on to tell her that a genuinely new concept like that of a bound variable is required to analyze the contribution of his to the meaning of (1).

  1. Every boy likes his mother.

My non-linguist friend, however, may easily be forgiven, given that it took Frege's (1879) ingenuity to come up with the concept of a bound variable which led to a successful analysis of sentences like (1) and that Frege's insights are not well known in the general population.

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Chapter
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Topics in Ellipsis , pp. 183 - 209
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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