Classifying pronouns: the view from Romanian

CLASSIFYING PRONOUNS: THE VIEW FROM ROMANIAN Alexandra Cornilescu* and Alexandru Nicolae** Abstract: This paper1 is devoted to the analysis of (DP, AP, and PP) postnominal modifiers of personal pronouns, focusing especially on Romanian. Regarding the internal structure of personal pronouns, we adopt the traditional view that they actually do not have a nominal restriction; instead, they themselves are definite NPs that raise to the D-domain, thus coming to be DPs. By means of the suffixal definite article, Romanian provides a contrast between definite modifiers, which prove to be DP-internal, and non-definite modifiers, which prove to be DP-external. Non-definite modifiers are non-problematic: they are predicates in a small clause configuration. By contrast, the definite postpronominal modifiers are analysed as occupying the specifier position of a Classifier Phrase, present in the extended projection of DPs headed by pronouns and proper names (Cornilescu 2007); the modifier “classifies” the personal pronouns with respect to the kind of the pronoun’s referent (e.g. we linguists / Rom. noi lingviştii). Corroborative data from English and other Romance languages support the proposed analysis. Keywords: personal pronouns, postpronominal modifiers, Classifier Phrase, kind-level modifiers 1. Introduction Ever since Postal (1969), pronouns have been analysed as determiners on the strength of English examples like (1) and (2), analogous to (3) and (4): (1) (2) (3) (4) we linguists we rich the / those linguists the / those rich This point of view was further reinforced by Abney (1987), who advances the view that determiners head the functional domain of the noun, considered thereafter as a DP. It is generally accepted that pronominal DPs should not be different from other DPs, except for the fact that they are headed by pronouns or, perhaps, an empty nominal restriction. An important pronominal typology has been put forth by Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002), and recently confirmed by Gruber (2013). These authors distinguish between D-pronouns, -pronouns, and clitics. The personal pronouns we analyse are strong D-pronouns in this typology which we adopt. While for languages like English, it is plausible that pronouns are determiners, whence the term “determiner pronouns”, given the complementary distribution of * University of Bucharest, Department of English, . “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics, Romanian Academy; University of Bucharest, Faculty of Letters, Department of Linguistics, . 1 This work was supported by IDEI – PCE project 311/2011, “The Structure and Interpretation of the Romanian Nominal Phrase in Discourse Representation Theory: The Determiners”. We would like to express our gratitude to Adina Dragomirescu (Bucharest) who read the final manuscript and made valuable suggestions. ** 6 A l e x a n d r a C o r n i l e s c u and A l e x a n d r u N i c o l a e pronouns and articles in (1)-(4), some Romance languages like Romanian ((5)-(6)) and French ((7)-(8)) are problematic for this view, given that pronouns seem to select definite DPs and definite adjectives (the a-examples in (5)-(8)), their distribution being different from that of typical determiners (e.g. demonstratives) (the b-examples in (5)-(8)). (5) a. b. (6) a. b. (7) a. b. (8) a. b. noi lingvistele we linguists-FEM-DEF ‘we linguist (women)’ aceste lingviste these linguists-FEM ‘these linguists’ noi proştii we stupid-PL-DEF ‘we stupid ones’ aceşti proşti these stupid-PL ‘these stupid people’ nous les linguistes we the linguists ‘we linguistics’ ces linguistes these linguists ‘these linguists’ nous les riches we the rich-PL ‘we rich ones’ ces riches these rich-PL ‘these rich ones’ (Rom.) (Rom.) (Fr.) (Fr.) In fact, the distribution is more complex than would appear so far. On the one hand, there are languages like French or Spanish where pronouns may be followed by both definite and indefinite noun phrases (9) (examples from Giurgea 2008: 266). Romanian also seems to exhibit definiteness variation in other quarters of the grammar (10). (9) a. b. (10) a. b. Nous (les) Français sommes une race supérieure. we the French are a race superior Nosotros (los) españoles somos una raza superior. we the Spaniards are a race superior noi trei we three noi cei trei we the three (Fr.) (Sp.) (Rom.) Classifying pronouns: The view from Romanian 7 On the other hand, even in English, the singular pronouns I/you/he cannot be followed by NPs, but can, or rather must, be followed by definite DPs: (11) a. b. we linguists/the linguists I *linguist/the linguist It is generally claimed that the definite DPs in (11) require coma intonation, while the non-definite NP may be pronounced in the same intonational unit with the pronoun. However, in Romanian or French, the definite phrase need not be interpreted as a loose apposition, separated by comma intonation from the antecedent, and even in English, definite phrases following proper names (a category of DPs semantically close to pronouns), may or may not take comma intonation: (12) a. b. Stephen the Great Stephen Dedalus, the main character of the Portrait From what has been said so far, at least two empirical problems have emerged: (i) where does the contrast in definiteness arise from, and (ii) why is there a difference between plural and singular personal pronouns? Another result that has emerged from the study of DPs headed by pronouns is that, at least in languages like Romanian, they do not allow the full range of modifiers, and more generally the full range of DP constituents (Vasilescu in GALR 2008, I: 208-209, Vasilescu 2009, Dobrovie-Sorin and Giurgea 2013). Thus, regarding lexical modifiers pronounced in the same intonational unit with the pronoun, non-definite adjectives would be ruled out, while PPs and relative clauses would be ruled in. (13) a. b. c. *noi tineri we young noi din Moldova we from Moldova noi care am învins we who have won As a matter of fact, it is not that adjectives cannot be DP-internal in DPs headed by pronouns, but rather, like NPs (15), adjectives must be definite (14). When they are non-definite, both APs and NPs are interpreted as small clause predicates external to the pronominal DP (16). (14) a. b. (15) a. b. noi tinerii we young-PL-DEF el generosul he generous-DEF noi profesorii we teachers-DEF el doctorul he doctor-DEF 8 A l e x a n d r a C o r n i l e s c u and A l e x a n d r u N i c o l a e (16) a. b. El generos, n- aş crede. he generous, not would believe ‘He be generous – I wouldn’t believe that.’ Ei profesori? E de necrezut! they teachers is of unbelieved ‘They (be) teachers? It’s unbelievable.’ The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the lexical modifiers, internal or external to pronominal DPs. Essentially, we claim that, in UG, pronouns merge as NPs, and subsequently raise to the D-position. Pronouns differ from ordinary NPs by the presence of a [Person] featu (...truncated)