Reciprocal Pronouns Binding within Psych-verb Constructions

2015 Advances in Language and Literary Studies  
This paper aims at giving an analysis of certain syntactic peculiarities of reciprocal pronouns within verbs of psychological state, commonly known as psych-verbs. The analysis reveal that psych-verbs constructions have a peculiar property in that the binding conditions of reciprocal pronouns are satisfied in Experiencer-Subject (ES) psychverbs constructions but are not in the Experiencer-Object (EO) at the surface level; though the latter constructions are grammatical. However, the paper
more » ... that though binding conditions are not satisfied in EO psych-verb constructions at the surface level, they are satisfied in the deep structure (D-structure) construction wherein the reciprocal pronoun, in the theme argument, is bound by a c-commanding Experiencer argument. By so doing, it satisfies binding condition A which holds that a reciprocal pronoun must be bound by an appropriate c-command antecedent. This analysis shows that reciprocal binding in Experiencer-Object psych-verb constructions, at the D-structure, does not reflect the linear order in the thematic hierarchy as proposed by Grimshaw (1990) and the psych-verb in EO D-structure construction is construed as one with two internal arguments.
doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.2p.163 fatcat:ir5qvk5pcncknihluix2clcmca