Move versus Non-Move: Minimalist Analysis of Long-Distance Reflexives and Logophoric Pronouns

This paper focuses on long-distance reflexives (LDRs) and logophoric pronouns (LOGs), which share the property of forcing de se interpretations, and argues that LDRs involve movement in Narrow Syntax while LOGs are mediated by unselective binding in the interpretive (Σ) component. Specifically, I show that sentences containing LDRs, unlike those with LOGs, exhibit certain gaps in their interpretive possibilities, and propose that this difference in interpretive possibilities between LDRs and LOGs results from an island effect (via defective intervention) caused by the overt movement involved in LDRs. The paper proposes analyzing LDRs as instances of resumption and claims that this analysis of LDRs as resumption derives Pica’s (1987) generalization regarding the morphological simplicity of LDRs. Based on the Blocking Effect in Chinsese and the indicative/subjunctive opposition in Icelandic and Italian, it is further argued that the movement involved in LDRs exhibits successive cyclicity and that the target of the movement is a relatively low position in the articulated structure of the left periphery. The analysis of LDRs and LOGs in this paper leads to the conclusion that the mechanism of subject control is not reduced either to that of LDRs or to that of LOGs, contra Chierchia (1989)